Dreaming of the city

Dreaming. When dreams intruded upon reality. It was disorientating when your dreams could appear more real than waking reality.

My interminable dreams last night was a poignant case in point, being a long series of enigmatic narratives, set in a vast city of labyrinthine streets, enclosed by silent buildings of three stories, basking in the glow of blue sodium lights.

In this quiet city bathed by surreal colours of lights and shadows, I had wandered through the empty rooms, climbed crumbling ladders of iron, and clambered through hatchways with elaborately cast hatches. I had found myself in the midst of many people, some of whom were dancing wildly in strange concentric formations and I made my way through these multitudes, driven towards some mysterious destination.

I found myself at the foot of an old stately bungalow, forlorn in its wasted state, formerly, being the India House. This abandoned white-washed structure, now stained with dirt, had seemed to have been slated for hasty demolition and then whimsically forgotten. Within the heart, I was directed by an old, wizened Indian jaga to the upper reaches of the spacious bungalow.

I strode through the empty interiors, ascending the floors via a strange circular ramp within the heart of the old bungalow which had seeming want to whisper to one of its myriad, forgotten tales of a glorious past. In a decrepit room, filled with old, faded rosewood furniture, I found Lyn, dressed in a set of burnished cobalt-blue plate armour with highly exaggerated ornate features. I recalled donning a set of the armour and glancing curiously at a full-length standing mirror, amazed and yet delighted at my visage.

I had departed from the bungalow later and was within the metropolis, now, busy with the snarling roar of traffic. Crossing a smog-filled street full of cars, framed by the golden glow of a late afternoon sun, I was in a building, housing well-furnished but seemingly empty offices. There was a gaunt figure in a small room within an office clad in bluish light and shadows. It was Wilfrid, a person who I know on Facebook and in the blogs had never had the pleasure of meeting yet. He was there, listening to a girl singing the eerie Doctor Who theme in Chinese on the radio. Strains of the theremin interspersed with a sultry Chinese voice emanated from an unseen radio.**

It was a mysterious series of experiences and when I woke up, these images had lingered in my mind. I stumbled downstairs, dazed, with my mind filled with images of a stone-hewed metropolis of ornate European buildings from the turn of the century.

Was it only a dream? Fragments of a false reality? A shadow world of Platonic proportions? An echo of my waking reality?

*I had drawn photo-realistic images from my dreams in some instances. This time, this was difficult if not impossible.

** Yes, the theme is instrument but the words had made no sense to me except I had remembered it as Chinese.