BETWEEN TWO CITIES

I had a dream this morning that I was riding in a car with a few strangers. We were driving on a narrow blacktop road around the perimeter of a grassy square courtyard in some upscale institution, sort of a seaside cross between the Stanford University campus and a religious retreat with a Spanish Mission style, both in spirit and architecture, if that is conceptually possible. It seemed busy like a college campus, but at the same time, serious and sober like a religious retreat. There were Eucalyptus trees along with the California-themed architecture, so it was likely somewhere on the California coast, maybe between LA and San Diego in Dreamland. I dreamed that I told the strangers with me in the car that I had stayed here before in one of the rooms, impliedly available to the public, as if I was recommending a vacation destination. In the dream, I had a memory of the dusty orange earthtone painted, sparsely furnished and dusky sunlit room overlooking the sea, as I told them about it while we wheeled around the square courtyard sightseeing.

As I awoke this morning out of that dream, my thoughts were about the dream. I remembered more about the time I stayed at this same place. I remembered it as from another dream I had quite a while ago. I remembered details of the prior dream that I did not tell the people in the car, including walking around the perimeter of the courtyard and seeing a pub with a neon sign down a flight of stairs between two buildings, and seeing the light coming around a line of buildings telling me of an approaching sunset over the sea. I don’t remember watching the sunset in that dream, just thinking about it. I know that when I was telling them about my prior stay, it was me remembering the experience. So, I was in a dream telling strangers about an experience that was a memory of a real event for my dreaming persona, but in fact, I was telling dream companions about a prior dream, as if it was a memory of a real experience of my dream persona.

So, the question is whether my dream persona is the same person that is writing this post. I don’t know. Dream David Larkin seems to have his own memories that are real to him, but are only dreams to me, Awake David Larkin. Perhaps, I was just remembering the same dream from last night, fractured in two, and reversed in time sequence, like a Charlie Kaufman short with the solo dream coming out of sequence after the social dream. Maybe I need to consult with dream guru, Roger Kamenetz, who wrote the book.