A Dream

So last night I dreamt I was moving through an enormous house with many rooms followed by many friends, and that we were seeking some extraordinary treasure or token to advance us in our cause (I don’t know the cause or exactly what the token would be–I think we none knew).  We had peered in room after room, finding all the typical items in great old houses: stately chairs, fireplaces, rugs, furnitures and clothings–and finally I opened one ancient oaken door to reveal instead a whole world beyond it!  Bright blue sky, fresh air…and instead of carpet, a fresh gree track of lawn led down a gentle slope from the threshold of the door, in a sort of lane perhaps thirty feet long.  To the left of this lane the space opened up to reveal a large shipping town a little distance away, with the seaside beyond it and below.  To the right of the grassy place at the bottom of the slope, it opened up to a muddy yard with patchy spots of green.  I led my friends down the slope and turned right to face the muddy tract.  I had the feeling that I had been here before, as in another dream, and the houseservant who was accompanying us told us in a low, eery voice that some who have come to this world of a room before, had met themselves and held dialogue there.  I was struck with a fear, knowing that such a conversation was a wicked thing.  In fact, I began to say to the servant, “Don’t you know that Judas conversed with himself in just such a way for three days before betraying the Christ?” (which idea I have no clue from whence it came) but the servant was not listening and began strangely to drone out some magical words I cannot here repeat, as if to summon the other Me in this strange dreamy world.  I cut him off sharply, for I would not speak with Myself, then picked up a stone and threw it into the muddy field.  From the spot where the stone landed there came not the dull thud of muddy earth but a sharp clank, as the stone struck upon the very treasure we were seeking in the house.  I knew our adventures now could continue…