Monday, June 24, 2019

ONLY A DREAM...

Sometimes a dream is worth recording. I have been dreaming a great deal recently, but recalling little of what I dreamt. Last night was an exception, I woke from a deeply distressing dream at two in the morning, and remember it in vivid detail.

I was in London, the London that I thought I knew well, with tall buildings on either side of intersecting streets. It could have been Soho. But it was not. It was some other place I thought I was familiar with--though it turned out otherwise.

I had arranged to meet with Susan, an old girlfriend from my Cambridge days with whom I h'd had a series of never-quite-successful, not always sexual affairs. I was clearly trying to impress her now, years later, with my familiarity with the city streets, with my confidence and awareness. We were joined, to my surprise, by a young man who had once been my part-time assistant, Daniel--a smart, informed, and as it later turned out when I sought other help with my work, irreplaceable. He knew as well as myself what it was I needed, and sometimes better.

Susan remained for most of our reunion unimpressed, even unemotional. She responded without great interest or enthusiasm as we walked the streets, and offered no opinion when I asked her if she'd like to stay in this part of town or take the trip to South Kensington, where I had made a dinner reservation. She was non-commital when I chose to keep the reservation and asked her if she'd like to take the rather long walk or take the Underground. I decided on the Tube.

Again, I thought I was familiar with the Underground lines, and we boarded a train that I thought would take us to South Ken. But the stops became less and less familiar, and I became concerned that we might have taken the wrong train. Eventually I decided to inquire, and got out, with Daniel, at the next stop and approached an offical-looking man to ask if this was the right train for South Ken. He told me, no, but shrugged off a further request for directions.

Meantime, the train doors began to close, the train began to move. I signaled Susan through the window with a single finger, to get off and wait for us at the next stop. She seemed to understand and acknowledge my gesture.

Daniel and I waited and took the next train, getting off at the next station. We began to look for Susan, but were unable to find her. While Daneil went on ahead in search of her, I engaged another station official who proved equally unhelpful.

Daniel had been wearing a white duffel coat so I assumed he would be easy to spot, but no. I could not see him anywhere. People were sitting around at tables outside the station, all of them strange and vaguely hostile. I had an iPad and an iPhone and was soon busy trying to access information as to where we were, and to reconnect with either Daniel or Susan. In vain. They were both gone. I wondered if he had found her and they had gone off together.

I was getting more and more uncomfortable, desperate to find them, feeling more and more lost and isolated. And soon I realized that my iPhone was no longer in my pocket. To my increasing dismay I discovered that my iPad was also gone, as was my wallet. I was lost, alone, without either cash or credit card to get home...

... and was relieved, on waking, to realize that it was "only a dream." Though I realized this immediately on waking, it took me a while to escape the grip of one of those dreams that has you fully engaged in its hyper reality. I lay there in my own bed for some time, overwhelmed by the feeling of being lost, without resources, and with no way to get home.

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