Tuesday, November 20, 2007

A strange dream

I'm with my family, and with my brother and his family. We're playing frisbee golf. At first, it seems to be a normal golf course - a summertime park with some tee-off areas and metal chain baskets hanging on poles in guise of holes. We throw our first frisbees and everything is fine. My throw is pretty straight. We head towards our frisbees.
And things get strange.
As we walk into the forest, the trees get bigger. They lean over us like buildings. Instead of a grove of trees on my left, there seems to be a high, cement wall with birch trees painted on it.
I throw my second shot and it bounces off a tree trunk and lands right back in my hand. Laughing, I throw again. A good shot, it slides under a huge fallen tree to land near the first basket.
We all get within putting distance.
As soon as we start to putt, our frisbees change. Mine changes into a plastic coffee cup lid. My brother's changes into a sweatshirt. Someone else's changes into a pie tin, another into a belt, and still another becomes an empty soda can. Then the frisbee golf basket changes into a gate, so we walk through it.
We look around, and we're standing in a graveyard. It's old, overgrown, and run down. A small apple tree is growing near a crypt. The apples on it are huge and so dark red they look almost black. I pick one and eat it. Inside, the flesh is purple, and the seeds are huge. (In dreams, I can't really taste anything, but I imagined it as being too sweet - almost cloying.) It's getting dark, and we don't like the place, so we leave the graveyard and find ourselves in a forest clearing. There is an abandoned, ruined house nearby, and dead leaves crackle underfoot. The trees are bare, and a cold wind makes us shiver.
Someone comes through the trees, pushing a wheelbarrow. It's a gardener. He gives us each something from the wheelbarrow. We each get a small plant. There are eggplants, vines, tomato plants, and I get a small flowering plant with orange berries. Then the gardener tells us to hurry up, the next train is about to leave. When I look around, I notice we're now at a train station. I hurry into the train - everyone is waiting for me. The train pulls out of the station and I see the gardener, waving. Behind him, in the ruined house, a door opens and an old woman walks out and waves too.
It's getting darker and the wind outside is whipping the trees into a frenzy. The train is old and noisy, and we're looking around for tea cups when the whistle starts to blow.
It's the telephone.
I wake up with a start.
My friend Andrea is calling early to ask if I'm coming to the school this morning to help with the decorations.
Yes, I'm on my way. But first I want to write down this very strange dream!

4 comments:

Stacia said...

Man, my dreams are never interesting.

Unknown said...

Wow! There is so much in that. You have got to be able to make a great story out of this.

Bernita said...

Hmmm, sounds like a writing analogy - and you didn't miss the train!

John Nez said...

What a lovely dream escapade. The nice thing is that it didn't leave you hanging with some gruesome image to haunt you upon waking up, as is sometimes the case with my dreams. I'd count it as a gracious gift from that ornery subconscious that you made it back alive!