Dreaming
People tend to oversleep in my guest room. The ceiling is painted like a night sky and the tapestry curtains, when closed, shut out even the most gregarious moon. If one chooses to leave the Moroccan star light on up above, its soft blue lightbulb casts evocative shadows perfectly tailored for dreaming. Consequently, I keep a dream journal on the bedside table and have been delighted to read the entries written by those guests whose dreams have taken them across extraordinary thresholds while asleep in that room.
We are extravagant dreamers in this house. We soar, wingless, through palettes of technicolour in reveries guaranteed to confound even the most sagacious of interpreters. Think I’m kidding? For a while, The Songwriter experienced a recurring dream of a traveling evangelist with the strange and wonderful ability to turn himself into a gorilla rug at the close of each tent meeting.
He once dreamed of a cow that transformed into a monster when the moon turned full. Don’t laugh, now. He turned that particular dream into a song called “I’m A Werecow” that remains an annual favourite on the Dr. Demento Halloween radio show.
As for myself, I tend to be a fairly baroque dreamer. My somnolent travels are lavishly decorated with all the lilies gilded and Elizabethan music floating in through glassless windows. For years I have had a recurring dream of a neighborhood covered over by gargantuan, animated trees. The streets are now as familiar to me as my own. They spiral and twist past houses I recognize completely, though I’ve never seen them in my waking hours. And there is one house, large, with windows like the sightless eyes of the blind. It sits behind gates of wrought iron, mysterious and unsettling to my mood, looming silently in the shadows of a late afternoon, unwilling or unable to allow me entry. Strange, no?
My dreams have been easy to interpret of late. Populated with exploding sweet potatoes and suitcases full of water, they tell me I am feeling overwhelmed and behind. I hear their admonishments to slow down and breathe deeply, and I intend to heed them as best as I can. How wonderful that they communicate in such entertaining ways.
How about you?
Any good dreams lately?
Do share.
Pamela oh to be a guest in that wonderful room!! Dreamy indeed. I love that you can interpret your dreams as well as heed them I hope!
ReplyDeletexoxo
Karena
Art by Karena
These are wonderful dreams and your guest room sounds like heaven. My own dreams have become an occasional treat with visits by some of my favorite poets or artists, but often they are just oddly reminiscent of this life with a few unsettling twists and turns. Perhaps I need to go back to asking more from them....
ReplyDeleteI have always had vivid dreams that I remembered clearly the next day ... many I still remember.
ReplyDeleteBut since my Pup died in August, I have not dreamt much and sadly, I have not seen him in one dream.
I think it would be comforting to see him again, if only in a dream.
Right now, if I were dreaming, it would be about a place that is cool and misty with fresh air :)
I had my first nightmare in a long time over the weekend. I have no idea why and I can't remember all the details, but I didn't like it! So, I am going to think only good thoughts and maybe I will blissfully find a delightful dream!
ReplyDeleteoh... first, heartfelt sadness for notes from abroad. i know what you're going through. and it's the worst kind of hard. love to you.
ReplyDeleteand now, dear heart... i wish i could find a word other than enchanting for your posts... but they always are. you are an enchanted person i think, thus your guest room proves it!
i dreamt i gave a powerful political anti-partisan speech a few nights ago. i cleared the room with my eloquence. lol.
and i'm the most non political person you'll ever meet! dreams are strange indeed.
love,
tammy j
Don't you just love dreams! In my reoccurring dream I am much younger than I am now and living back in my old childhood house which is situated at the top of a hill. At the front of the house there is a small concrete wall and then the road. The neighbour’s house across the road is below the street line and so the houses sit on the hill. I stand on the wall and launch myself off and I fly. It takes quite a lot of effort to miss the roof of the house across the road but when I’m in the air I feel wonderful and I can see absolutely everyone’s property in the neighbourhood laid out like a map or as if you were looking down from a low flying aircraft. I can never remember how exactly I land.
ReplyDeletei got lost in that beautiful picture...no dreams of late, but thankfully sleeping pretty soundly.
ReplyDeleteHi Pamela,
ReplyDeleteI just LOVE dreaming ..... mine are far too complicated to share, although I used to have one quite a lot where I was in a most beautiful place filled with wonderful statues and waterfalls, so ornate that I couldn't even begin to describe them !It's quite early in the morning here so, maybe I'll just close my eyes again and see if I can transport myself back to that Utopia !!!! XXXX
I have had dreams and visions, of my Dog. It is so real I hear him bark, and drinking water.
ReplyDeleteyvonne
I love the sound of your guest room, what a special place to stay. A good night's sleep is so important and I would imagine your guests would feel cocooned and safe in that lovely room. No dreams to report at the moment. Hope you have a peaceful, productive week!
ReplyDeleteMy recurring dream, Pamela, which I have had for many years, was that I justset out on a walk and then just could not get back home again however hard I tried - I kept getting lost. Interestingly I wrote a poem about it and put it on my blog months ago and I have never had the dream since.
ReplyDeleteIt is a very good sign that people oversleep in your guest room! That's the clearest sign of a successful hostess!
ReplyDeleteHello Pamela, Thank you for you comments on my Book Fair blog! I love the sound of your bedroom and I would be sure to dream there. My most unusual dream was of floating on a clear lake in an old-fashioned boat, with white sails. Beneath in the water was a whole sunken forest and looking closely I could see little hedgehogs, curled up in the tree roots, hibernating....Jane x
ReplyDeleteTo have a guest book for writing down one's dreams while staying in your restful guest room is a wonderful idea. If the room is anything like the one in the painting it would be very conducive to deep dreaming. From time to time I dream of arriving at a big old house, which is so familiar to me, as if I had lived there before. I know what to expect as I walk into each room, and upon awakening, so want to find it again...BTW, 'enchanting' is such a suitable adjective to describe your blog.
ReplyDeleteI love it when you wake up and remember a dream. At times, mine can be quite dramatic, like a Die Hard film.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was at primary school I used to write stories. They were very imaginative, and the teachers all loved them. However, they all ended:'...woke up and it was all a dream.'
It often makes me wonder. Are we awake or just dreaming we are awake?
I often dream of my deceased Father. He always seems to have a smile, and that makes me believe he is happy.
ReplyDeleteMy dream life is very pedestrian these days. I long for the larger-than-daytime excursion I used to take each night. Right now I think I'm just working through the day's stresses as I sleep.
ReplyDeleteOur guest room has been christened The Magic Sleeping Room by my sister, and many guests have endorsed that title. Complete darkness and silence broken only by the hoot of an owl (if one is lucky) and the sound of the water.
oh pamela my dreams are the stuff of horror movies, and often i am the naughty one, what on earth is going on!!??
ReplyDeletesounds like i need some serious rest in a tranquil guest room with a ceiling painted like a night sky with moroccan stars...........
xo
debra
For the longest time after my parents died, my mother first and then my father 5 years later, I had dreams about them EVERY night. I remember one dream in particular where I was sitting in between my mom and my dad on a bed (this was before my dad died) and no words were said but my mom was telling me that she was fine and happy and that she loved me. I could feel the touch of her hands. I am convinced it was her visitng me in my dreams.
ReplyDeleteI love the sound of your guest room and the dream diary! Lately I've been dreaming about the characters in my novel. I know my writing is going well when that happens but it can interrupt my sleep.
ReplyDeleteFrom self-indulgence with Tania to dreams and you Pamela? What a great blogging-reading day.
ReplyDeleteI reported to a friend recently that after watching a particularly distressing 'reality' programme, I kept waking through the night with concerns about the central protagonist. I asked myself (and her) if my apparent empathy with this character was self-indulgence? The curious thing is whenever I have such episodes it is always accompanied by a dream about an infant or animal that I fail to provide the necessities of life for, resulting in dire consequences.
I could only imagine that your dreams would be enchanting and full of adventure and to sleep in a guest room under your charmed roof could only lead to a wondrous journey in the night! Your spirit must be kind and gentle...and at peace! I, on the other hand, have never had a peaceful night's rest since I can remember....Hmmmmm!
ReplyDeleteI haven't had any memorable dreams lately, probably because I wake up to NPR, and quickly lose them. However, I will often dream along with the news, creating my own 'video' interpretation. Your tree dream sounds fascinating. Too often I have icky scary dreams and wonder why (I have a lovely life), and wish I could go lovely enchanted places. And every so often I'll have a cops and robbers type dream that's a bit like watching a TV program - and I never watch that kind of show. Why can't I dream I'm in Downton Abbey?
ReplyDeleteI have the same dream as 'Weaver of Grass' recurring. I'm always trying to get home again and I'm always on an unfamiliar road and can't find my way back. It leaves me unsettled for a while when I awake.
ReplyDeleteYour lovely guest room sounds magical, and how wonderful to keep a book for guests to record their dreams!
I wonder if - in a room like you've described your guest room to be - people dream deeper, richer and more colorful. It sounds like a custom-made dream chamber. Beautiful.
ReplyDeleteMy fave as well, the flying dreams. My recent dream was being outside my body and slapping my body's face and asking it to join me again and be whole. Hmmmmm.
ReplyDeleteI would love to know about Edward's dreams.
ReplyDeleteI dream a lot but can't always recall what about! I do dream often about my childhood and the friends I had then, also about old boyfriends.............who of course are now very old men, ha! ha!
ReplyDeleteI once dreamt I was sitting in a cafe with friends having a literary discussion when our waitress joined in. She asked me if I had ever read Percy B. Shelley's werewolf poem and began reciting it: "Now I arise and shed earth's clothing, temperous rags all worn and moulding, temperous rags all worn and moulding..." Alas, I awoke before she could finish. Of course, no one could improve on Shelley, but I reworked the old bard's long, lost werewolf poem to make it more suitable for dragons and used it in a novel I was writing.
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