Cauchemar

This entry is more personal than most, and more uncomfortable to write. It might indicate something important, or it might mean nothing at all.

I rarely remember my dreams, but when I do they're almost always a certain kind of nightmare. But they're not about fear, they're about frustration. Failure and endless deferment.

The earliest dream I can remember is from when I was about 7 years old. I was in the house of my father's parents, climbing the stairs to get to the top, where there was the room I usually slept in when I stayed over.

In reality there were three flights to climb, with a certain faded green carpet and white painted banisters all the way up. But in the dream, at the end of each flight, there was another, and another, each with the same carpet and banisters. It was as though the house grew another storey with each flight of stairs I climbed, so I never got to the top, just kept on climbing endlessly. I had this dream several times.

There was another from a year ago, where I was in an airport. I was trying to find a shop where I could buy some food, before taking a flight to emigrate somewhere, to escape some impending catastrophe. But all the shops were shutting, and as I searched further and further afield in the airport to find one that was open, I got increasingly lost in corridors. And with each new turning I tried, the walls got higher, and more featureless, and there were fewer people around.

Eventually, all the walls were a towering uniform grey and I was alone. One detail - I'd forgotten my passport, so couldn't catch a plane anyway.

I can't count how many corridors I've walked through, or how many rooms I've been in that expanded at every turn, yet still lacking the one thing or person I was looking for. There's always some errand that I need to carry out, and the more I try, the more obstacles I have to deal with, and the more distant it's completion becomes.

That's the basic theme, with small variations. These dreams often recur, and occasionally even intersect when one frustrated errand from the past runs through on a TV screen or monitor that I can see while trying to complete another one. Oh yes, it's like watching a video recording, and I'm dimly aware that I'm inside one dream watching another.

The symbolism is obvious - endless frustration, repetition, and being trapped. I don't often remember the hallucinations of sleep, but when I do, it seems I've been mostly having the same dream my entire life.