Another dream

Some people say real life is stranger than dreams, or that fact is stranger than fiction.

Those people are wrong.

And to prove it here's a dream I just had - I don't think Mother Nature has anything on this.

I was dressed only in my towels as I was driving down the road in a large, navy-blue car, which may have been a Citroen Picasso. When I got out of the car I realised the numberplate was French. I also realised that most of the cars around me had German number plates. The people around me too were speaking mainly in German, some in Spanish.

The area itself reminded me a bit of South Kensington, though I had the feeling that I was in Berlin. I went into a large, formal building. It had the feel of a Victorian mansion.

As I ascended the broad, circular stair-case I arrived in an office. Behind the desk was my father, with my mother to his right. I did not see them as my parents but as my potential employers - they had offered me an interview and I was here to thank them for paying attention while trying to make a good opening impression. It felt slightly odd being there on a Sunday (as it was in dream-time) but I thanked them for my time.

I walked downstairs, still in my towels, and peeped into a ground-floor ball/function room. I laughed that this may not only be my office soon but also my home. On my way out I registered how odd it was that my parents and my potential employers were the same people. I was happy with this arrangement though.

However, as I went back out into the strasse (street) looking for my car I couldn't find it. I consoled myself a little on the basis that I couldn't remember exactly where I'd parked it so it could have been anywhere in that area. But I was dead worried about it having been stolen, not simply because it was valuable (in my dream I estimated it at $10,000 - yes, dollars) but also because it would likely have been my fault: I might have left a window open or the door unlocked.

My panic subdued a little as the scene changed. Gone were the Germans waiting at the bus stop - along came a bunch of school people. English school people. My old school friends, as if from nowhere. None of us talked to each other - it was all 'cordial nods' and light embraces, or just bumping into each other awkwardly. For it was very crowded. I was trying to go forward, presumably still looking for the car, many of them were trying to go in the opposite direction.

But the entire scenery had changed, and the building in which I had been earlier had disappeared, replaced by a stage on which some musical performance was going on. There was some sort of theme to the music (it might have been 18th century) so I was surprised when they suddenly started playing Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony 2nd Movement. It was playing only very quietly, yet foreground noises could no longer be heard and the music took over - it was a very strange sort of bliss.

Then I was woken up by my phone.

I do wonder if the last few seconds of the dream (being as they were so different from the rest) somehow managed to anticipate the text message - perhaps the telltale signals, which can be picked up so effectively by speaker devices, can be picked up by the brain too.

I'd pay good money for a good study into dreams. Not dream-money either. Real money.