Do you visit the same “Dreamscapes” again and again ?
I do, and in one of my dreams I’m a teenager, my teenage years weren’t as I would have liked them to be, but they weren’t as they are in my dream either.
The day of my dream this time was my last day in school, there was an end of term event arranged, there was to be a big-wig visit at the school and, needless to say, everyone was pulling out all of the stops to impress.
Everyone except me, of course. In real life I wasn’t an ideal student, but I behaved (most of the time) but in my dream I hadn’t even been to school for most of the previous two years. I was holding down a job in a café and living in my own little rented room.
On the big day, my presence had been “requested”, and for some reason I had decided to attend.
On the morning of “the day” I had woken up late and had had to rummage around looking for something which vaguely resembled school uniform to wear. My real secondary school uniform used to be navy and on this occasion in my dream I had managed to find a rather creased navy skirt and a navy ‘v’ neck jumper, no shirt and tie, I found a white round neck t-shirt and having no clean socks or tights around, I just slipped on my old black (surprisingly comfortable) school shoes.
At first I was riding a bike along familiar dreamscape pavements and footpaths. I had a basket on the front of my pushbike which appeared to be full of household items, if I’m remembering rightly from many other dreams before, my room wasn’t exactly secure and if treasured belongings weren’t bolted down, they were better off kept close.
My basket was piled high and I struggled to see over the top. For some reason I had a pink inflatable chair jammed into the top, it was one of those see-through ones and I kept having to look through it. I hit on the idea of popping off the valve and letting the chair deflate so that I could see over it… All while pedaling along at full pelt because I was late.
I freewheeled downhill past a row of houses on my left. Again, I’ve passed these houses in dreamland many times before, they were on a hill and little steps wound their way through pretty flowers down towards the road, dissappearing behind a tall wall which held the gardens in place and popping out along the pavement via little gates.
I rode on the pavement in the narrow gap between the wall and the parked cars with two wheels up on the curb as the narrow road curved around to the left with no indication of what was to follow but I negotiated the gap well as I’ve ridden here often.
Soon I turned off to a well trodden footpath at the side of the road, through a wide open gateway and across the downward sloping field, until the path entered a small wooded area. At first I could see the style blocking my way, in previous dreams I’ve climbed the style, but this time, in the blink of an eye I was on the other side and heading towards the village at the bottom of the hill.
Reality pulled at the dreamscape as I rode along the road to go into my old school, past the first entrance on the right, turning into the second one, where I’d been told many a time to dismount. I didn’t, I turned left and skirted around the building to my right to arrive at the bike racks.
Reality lost its grip again and I loaded the contents of my basket onto a trolly, not the supermarket type shopping trolly, more like the ones the supermarket staff use, with a base, a back and two sides, and a flat top to work on.
Considering what a sight I must have made, a scruffy looking little urchin, with tatty hair only half a uniform, nobody took much notice of me at all as I made my way around the school. It seemed I was either invisible , or just insignificant. Either way I didn’t mind, each in their way provided me with a feeling of protection.
The school, even though I had entered through my old school gates, the school grounds held no resemblance to my old school whatsoever the outside was prettily landscaped and very well looked after. The inside though was still quite shabby, sort of “comfortably lived in”.
Seeming to know where I was going, I made my way to an old dusty corridor, and came to a door, a discoloured white painted door with the white paint peeling off to show that it was once painted a dark blue. Not a full size door, about three to four feet high and two and a half wide. I opened it, pushed in the trolly and climbed in next to it… As you do in dreams… It would appear to have been a lift of some sort, I climbed out into a different level and continued on my way with my trolly.
I came outside into sunlight shining on manicured gardens, and pushed my way in between some shrubbery where I found another cupboard doorway. It opened easily enough and I pushed my trolly in. The lift didn’t work so I stashed my trolly inside and cambered up the bank next to a man-made rockface water feature. As a teenager, the tomboy in me wouldn’t have given a second thought to clambering up the bank instead of using a path or lift so this isn’t as dreamlike as it sounds.
The dream skips a bit next because I find myself sitting on an old corderoy sofa in possibly a staff room. Sitting on the other end of the sofa was, I think, my old physics teacher. We had come to an understanding in our physics lessons many moons ago. I was there on protest because I “needed” a science in my schooling. I had no interest in science whatsoever and had made that plain on many occasions by my work levels and test results, I was there because I had to be, not because I wanted to be. It was agreed that I wouldn’t disrupt the lesson and in return I could use the lesson to do homework for other lessons. As bad as this sounds from a teaching point of view, once the pressure was off to actually do any work, you’d be surprised how much physics I learnt, and how much of what I learnt I can still remember today.
Anyway, my mind wanders, so back to the dream. Sitting in the staff room on the comfy sofa seemed safe, especially when another teacher came in. She was a young, lady teacher, my year one English teacher I think. Again I can’t remember what the real teacher looked like, but she was very patient with my bad spelling, bad grammar and, well, basically bad English in general. I wrote her an essay which, although was supposed to be a weekend task, took me well over a week as homework and earned me my one and only “A” in my schoolwork. OK, so it was an “A-“, but still an “A”.
I don’t think I ever set foot in the staffroom at school, too many teachers, but I liked the staffroom in my dream, and seemed to stay for a while. Eventually though, my time there came to an end when a young boy, probably a first year, came looking for me by name and rather than cause him to get in trouble I went with him.
Clambering down the bank wasn’t an option for him, his uniform was beautifully clean and neatly pressed, so I climbed down the man-made wall and he walked around the obstacle and met me at the bottom by which time I had retrieved my trolley from its hiding place. I followed him to the grand hall where a seat had been saved for me by one of the small group of others who tolerated my friendship.
In a hall of first class students, all dressed in smart uniforms, all soaking up whatever words were offered to them, I sat like a miniature bag lady… Bored out of my tiny little mind.
I couldn’t take my camera into my dream, so here’s a picture of a real memory from my teenage years instead.
“Secluded steps” .
