My most symbolic dream in awhile: the missing child and double stair-case

(21:48:10 CST)

My most symbolic dream in awhile: the missing child and double stair-case

I am not a believer in oneiromancy. You can take all that bunk about the unconcious mind being able to puzzle out the depths of the universe and...well, I won't say toss it. It might be true, after all. Just don't tell me that a dream about a black dog on a wind-shaken plane means I am dreaming about avoiding fat men in red shorts on a trip to the beach. I do think you can learn alot about someone during a dream state, in much the same way you can learn a lot about someone while they are drinking. Not always useful information, but you can at least see what information looks like unfiltered. For instance, when I get drunk, I laugh a lot and hug people. Unfiltered Doug believes in the beauty of social contact. Filtered Doug says "BAH HUMBUG". And let that let that be a lesson to you all.

Some dreams just have that one step closer to the edge of the cave feeling, though, don't they? Most dreams are crap. They are weird disjointed swirls of color and events that seem to make sense until you realize that at one point, you got up to go to the bathroom and ended up eating Froot Loops out of the toilet bowl except you were really at the beach and there was a red man in fat shorts playing polo with a piece of tinsel. Or something. Then, sometimes, you get that one dream where you walk into a house and there are decks of cards stapled to the walls, and almost all of the cards showing are hearts and they are in varius numerical patterns, and a sound of whistling in the distance and everyone is panicking and gesturing and holding empty tea cups. Both dreams are a parade of nonsensical images, but the latter dream feels like maybe something is trying to be said.

Last night, I had one of those "edge of the cave" dreams. I know where some of the images came from, but the overall thing had that "more real than real" feeling that some dreams get. The sort of dreams that novels and movies talk about for effect. There was this building, a handful of stories but not super tall. Let's say that it was 20-30 stories high. The whole building, which was wider at the base than at the top, was taken up by two stair-cases. The larger stair-case, a sort of spiral affair, wrapped around the outer edge of the inside of the building. Then, there was shaft, sort of like an elevator shaft, that went up through the middle. Inside of it was a more utility-style stair-case, the kind of semi-square-spiral deal you find in Alabama buildings where the stair-case was an afterthought. The outer stairs took up the entire space between the outerwall and this inner wall. Bascially, the building was a pair of chambers for stairs.

I was heading upstairs with three children in tow, presumably my sons. I believe they were triplets. One of them kept wanting to use the central stair-case, but I kept saying "No". There was something about it that was unsafe. In fact, many of the doors to it were locked. I remember the walls of the larger staircase being a sort of red brown, kind of the color of not quite dried blood. The stairs were opulent. The inner stairs though, I could not see, but there was a sense of them being in deeper darkness. Somehow, it took longer to use them to get to the top, and you were more cut off from everything. Eventually, half or two-thirds the way up, he found a hatch that let him into the inner stairs. I was slightly ahead of the boys, and so did not really know this. In the dream, the "camera" did not always follow me (is that weird that many of my dreams are seen from outside of me?).

As we get to the top of the stairs, and to this large double doors that seemed to open up to a flat asphalt plain, we realized the one son was not with us. Then there came a pounding from the inner door. I rushed over to open it and there was various panicking and stuff. Finally, we get it open and we can see the inner stairs are a dark red color, even more the color of dried blood, though their walls are bleached hospital white, and there is a fine layer of dust. Towards the center, there are footprints up, and then something that looked like someone was dragged back down. No sign of the son, though.

Finally, as I was starting to wake up, there was some realization in the dream that this was a replaying of past events. I was not actively going through this, but it was a memory.

See what I mean? It feels like it should be symbolic of something.

Si Vales, Valeo

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