A reader wrote: "I rarely dream, or at least I rarely remember dreaming. The exception is when somethng startles me out of a deep sleep. I had such an occurrence last week after your last post, so I made a point of trying to remember it. Dreams fade very quickly for me once I'm up, so I don't recall anything about the beginning of this dream. But I remember this much:
It's a warm, temperate, sunny day outside, and I'm inside a new, modern building with many windows that let in the light and a skylight in the staircase. The indoor staircase is at the near end of this building, and I'm walking up the stairs. I pause at the landing of the second floor and, without opening the door to that floor to see what's there, I quickly decide that I won't be able to get across to the other side of the building on that floor, so I keep going up. Mind you, I've never been on that floor before, but in my own mind, I'm certain. I get up to the third (top) floor, and I can see all the way down the long white hall clear to the other end of the building (there are no doors at the top of the stairs: the stairs are open to the third floor hall). I smile and see that I was right because the building is literally a squared-off, upside-down U — like two separate buildings separated at ground level by an outdoor garden and walkway but connected at the top by the third floor — and I walk down the hallway knowing that I will reach the other side. The sunlight is pouring in through the windows and the skylights. Then a noise in the parking lot below my bedroom window wakes me at about 3:30 am, and the dream suddenly ends. I have no idea what happened before I found myself in the building, nor do I know how it would have ended. I have only that much. but I did fall asleep quickly after that, having first made myself remember that dream fragment."
There is a lot to this dream. Note how many times the number 3 appears. I will respond in three segments, starting tomorrow.
This article appears in Mar 4-10, 2009.