Last night’s sleep was properly segmented, and the first such I’ve had in weeks. Some folks get all their nightly (or daily) sleep in one solid chunk. Sometimes I do, too. But usually my sleep is divided into two distinct parts: the first one being five or six hours long; and the second, coming sometime later in the day, is generally two or three hours long. And it’s this second sleep that usually contains my dreams. That was the case this morning.
In my dream…
…there was a higher degree of lucidity than is normally the case for me. This awareness that I was dreaming while I was in the dream manifested itself a number of times and finally allowed me to wake calmly from what would otherwise have been a rather disturbing situaton.
The setting of this dream was here in San Antonio. As a matter of fact, it began down in the residential foyer of the hotel in which I live.
As the door to the elevator opened, I found myself eye to eye with an attractive, smiling woman whom I apparently knew in the dream world, but whom I cannot place among the various women I know or have known in real life. I could see her very clearly, and heard the sound of her voice as we talked. I’m guessing that she may have been a composite of different individuals I know or have known. If I was an artist, (which I’m not, by the way), I could very easily draw a sketch of her.
She was headed out of the hotel as I was headed up to my apartment, but we decided to spend a little time together. We took a stroll down by the river, then rode the bus to a part of town where she was headed. At a number of times when we were walking and on the bus, things seemed more than a little strange, as they often do in dreams. When the strangeness would distract me from our conversation, I’d apologize to her, saying, “Oh, you’ll have to excuse me. I’m not usually this disoriented, but I’m dreaming.”
And she’d laugh lightly each time, telling me not to worry about it, that she understood completely. Then she’d put her hand on my arm or her arm in mine and I’d laugh, too. All would be well, then: happy and well.
When the bus finally dropped us off she used a pay phone at the bus stop to make a quick call. I looked around and realized that I didn’t know where we were at all. Looking back at where the pay phone had been I saw that it was gone, and so was the woman with whom I’d been spending time. The bus had pulled away. There I was standing in a strange place. But I realized that since I was dreaming, all I’d have to do is wake up and I’d know exactly where I was.
And that’s exactly what I did.
