Even I am astounded at how much detail I recall from this dream.
It didn't start off with Harry Potter characters. I was driving to this base or something, in a beat-up old car. Went inside this building and there were trapeze artists. No nets. My friend from work was there and we both climbed up this 15' stepladder (one of us on either side). She grabbed a trapeze that was just a bit higher than the top step you're not supposed to step on. She went first, just swinging back and forth in a lavender bathing suit she'd worn just for this event. I was embarrassed because I was just wearing jeans and my lumberjack jacket (big, baggy, and blue), blue and green stripy socks (the same ones I was actually wearing yesterday in real life). She didn't do anything fancy, just swung back and forth, but fairly high up, almost in a complete semicircle. Everyone was applauding (there was an audience somewhere but we couldn't see them); then it was my turn.
She got back on the ladder, and steadied me as I climbed up. I was afraid that the bar would be crazy smooth plastic and that my hands would be all sweaty and I would slip. I grabbed the closest end of the bar (it was blue with big red stars on it) with my left hand, then had to let go of the ladder and grab further out on the bar with my right, then shift around. No net, remember. I began to swing, and after a few moments of terror, I realized the bar, although smooth, was very cool to the touch, and I began to swing higher. I realized my jeans were too long and baggy, and kept catching on something at the front end of my swing trajectory (another trapeze?) so because they were suddenly big and baggy, I just shook my hips a bit and they fell off. The cheers swelled in my ears, and I realized I hadn't shaved my legs in weeks; I was mortified. It was finally time for me to get off the trapeze, but with no net I had to gradually slow my swing so I could grab back on to the ladder; no way was I going to try to grab onto the ladder in mid-swing. It took forever, and I could tell the audience was getting bored, and my friend was getting impatient. I finally slowed down enough that I was able to gently hook my leg around one of the ladder's legs, and my friend helped me back onto the ladder. She stood above me on the second-highest step in all her lavender-suited glory, waving and smiling to the cheers, while I stood four steps below shaking in relief and embarrassment, buttoning my jacket up and squatting as low as I could to hide my hairy legs. Suddenly the audience was gone (though I had never really seen them, just heard them). I climbed down the ladder, my friend ran ahead of me and vanished. I walked over the dirt floor to where I thought my jeans had fallen, and a tall, dour-looking man glared at me and said, "They're over there." Maybe he just pointed, I'm not sure; you know how dreams are. He somehow conveyed to me that my pants were not where I thought they were. I looked over to where he indicated and there they were. I ran over and put them on, feeling much better as I did so.
Then I'm walking around the inside of the now empty trapeze building, which has yellow walls with many doors, and a high black ceiling like a warehouse. Ginny Weasley, Ron Weasley, and other unidentifiable Harry Potter characters are there with me; I think there are five of us in total. Am I Harry? I don't know. My identity is always completely mutable in my dreams. I've been male, female, but I'm always Me, just in a different shell. I sense that I'm a male now, instead of the embarrassed female that was on the trapeze just a few minutes ago. I don't feel like Harry, though. We are looking for something, but I'm not sure what.
Then we are walking around in the crisp outdoors that looks like morning but feels like afternoon, cool like early spring but looks like early fall; all the foliage has yellow leaves. We occasionally see brown bears, and we stop talking (though I do not recall anything we ever said to each other), and sometimes hide behind rocks or in the underbrush; the underbrush smells nice and is unnaturally quiet, like it would if it had just rained and your steps would be muffled, but the air feels moderately dry and yet there is very little crunching underfoot. Sometimes we think the bears see us and we run away as quietly as possible, going in a different direction.
At one point we are escaping the bears (which always seem to be in groups of four or more), walking through the brush, and we see something on a dirt road down the hill from where we are. I think it is a car, black and curvy, like something you'd see in a 1940's movie. We all shush each other without making any sound, and make sure to stay out of sight. I know we have found what we are looking for, but I don't know or understand why we're looking for it or why we don't want the car's occupants to see us. We back away after it passes, and run across the dirt road behind us, at the top of the hill.
There is an enormous field of sunflowers, and there is a building in the distance. We know that for some reason we need to get to that building as soon as possible. We start to wade through field, which is very difficult to navigate as the sunflowers are at about armpit-height and grow very close together. All of a sudden, We look to our respective rights and see another group of people also trying to wade through the field of orange and yellow and brown. It is Future Us, our group, but from the future, and for some reason there are multiple Harry Potters; the one closest to me is Harry dressed as he was during the First Task of the Triwizard Tournament - black and red shirt, black cape with red lettering. He has his wand in his hand but doesn't use it to magically clear a path or blast me out of the way.
The sunflowers are thick, and it is impossible to run in the field; I think for a moment about trying to get down and crawl but the stems too thick. I see the Harry Potter closest to me beating us to the yellow building. The dour-looking man from the trapeze building is there, holding us back at gunpoint, while he lets the others in through a lone green door; the door has no handle. The Harry who was closest to me looks somewhat regretful that we have to be held back at gunpoint, but doesn't say anything. The Dour man slinks into the building, and the door shuts.
We rush to the door, which has closed, and somehow, quickly, we pry it open. We enter the building but they're already gone; the building feels eerily empty. There are many metal doors painted dark green, and they have flaps where we assume food is slipped through, like in a prison. The glasses I am wearing making it hard to see through the cat-flap, blurry, but I don't take the glasses off (wrong prescription maybe? Harry's instead of mine?). We move through the cool concrete corridor, and all the rooms are empty except one. We find one room with many bears in it, many of them standing up like people. We avoid the door, though the bears look at us through the bars. No physical menace, they're quiet, but just the implication of potential violence makes us nervous. All the walls and doors are either dark green or dark grey. It feels like dead ends are everywhere, but we must find Future Us.
We walk out into stark outdoor courtyard which feels enclosed but somehow isn't. Concrete pillars, metal picnic tables, white roof. White partitions. Very cold.
Suddenly we are in a clearing; there are many tall trees with leaves only at the very top, which block much of the sunlight with their canopy; what little sunlight there is shows a winding country dirt road and an old house in the distance, also covered by the thick canopy. We are standing next to a beat-up old car - maybe the same one I drove in the beginning, I'm not sure. We are looking at reflections in driver's side windows. (I realize now the reflections shouldn't have been so clear, since sun was about thirty degrees to the right of us, early morning.) I, ever the mutable one, am reflecting a male adult (James Potter? Nervous driving instructor?). I'm tall, messy brown hair, glasses, brown pants with suspenders, blue shirt, grey/brown sweater.) To my right, Harry from book five (who I guess was with me before) reflects Harry from Book 4 with movie Triwizard garb. To his right, Harry from Book 6 reflects Harry from Book 5 (but dressed like Harry from the movie of book 3). Neville reflects Ron, which I know doesn't make sense because Ron was with us, not Neville. Finally at the end, Ginny is reflecting an older Harry, who has a thin mustache and no glasses, wearing a grey hoodie sweater. Looks like a lazy teenager. We laugh at her when we realize who she is now. Then we realize the real Neville is in the car waiting for his first driving lesson, but for some reason can only see me, tall professorial male, laughing at the car window.
I get in the car, and realize I don't know how to drive (and in real life I really don't know how), but must somehow perpetuate the idea that I can and demonstrate it to Neville. I can't find keys, there's just this strange little worn-out button where the ignition should be, and I start the car. In short, I drive like a maniac - I always do in my dreams - and I drive down this country road that I know now to be the same country road I've driven in other dreams (though I don't recall this at the time). It stops being a first person and I see it from the outside. I see the car driving away, and then from another angle I see the car crash through fences, smash through sheds, bump over rocks, etc.
The dream sort of fades off at this point. I think the car eventually stopped and Neville and I stumbled out, completely disoriented. Then I woke up.
No comments:
Post a Comment