A Very Odd Dream

I should have written this a week ago.  That's when I dreamt it and I told myself I would write it down before I slept again.  But I didn't and now it's starting to fade and I'm mad at myself.  It's the strangest dream I've ever had, in that half way through the dream I remembered things from another dream that I had forgotten about.  And in the dream I just had, I accepted those memories as fact.  Confused yet?  I am.  I can't stop thinking about it.  So, before more of it is gone and I'm madder at myself, here we go.  Also, this is very long so don't feel obligated to finish it if you get bored.  Ha!

I was shadowing, for lack of a better word, someone I didn't know.  She took me through the motions of her day, showing me where she worked, introducing me to her friends and co-workers, taking me on her errands, telling me about her family and showing me her old neighborhoods.

She reminded me of myself in every way -- her way of speaking, thinking, moving, doing -- she even looked like me except that she had dark hair.  Each of her friends were similar to one of my own friends and she worked in an office that was set up like mine.  She went to the same grocery store and bought the same food I would buy.

Only her family was different from mine.  Her parents were not good people and she hadn't seen them in many years.  She'd left home at a young age and hadn't spoken to her parents since because of all the pain they'd caused her.  She had a brother but also hadn't seen him in quite some time -- not because he was a bad person but just because they drifted apart.  Each reminded the other of bad times and it was just easier not to see or talk to each other.

We spent the better part of day on this exercise.  I didn't think it was weird but I didn't know why we were doing it, either.  What's more, I didn't question it.

Suddenly the woman disappeared and I was standing alone on a street corner.  To my left and across the street, a block away, I could see the back of a house on the next street corner.  There were people in the backyard around a swimming pool.  I recognized the house as the woman's childhood home and the people as her parents and some other relatives.  I had no desire to talk to those people so I looked ahead of me.

Straight ahead and across the street was another row of houses.  I crossed the street and continued down the sidewalk.  About three houses down, I came to an older house that had been divided into apartments.  I knew that the upstairs apartment had once belonged to the woman I'd just spent the day with.  I climbed the stairs to the front door and let myself in.

When I opened the door memories came rushing at me.  A broom and vacuum cleaner in a closet.  Hand towels hanging from a hook on the kitchen wall.  Photographs on the mantle piece.  Clothes folded and placed in a chest of drawers.  I remembered moving into that apartment.  It had been mine.  I had unpacked my things and decorated the way I wanted to, making everything just right.  It had been fun.  I liked setting up my new home.  I had had a sense of well-being, of good things to come, of anticipatory excitement for the future.

This is where I became conscious of "memories" I had in a previous dream, except that during the current dream they were real memories.  I had another dream a long time ago about moving into that apartment.  And I forgot the dream until I had this more recent one.  I was also very confused because this apartment belonged to the woman from earlier in the day.  How had I lived in it also?

Now the apartment was in a state of disarray, as if I had moved out hurriedly, taking only the barest of essentials.  Doors and drawers hung open, the contents spilling out onto the counter tops and floor below.  I sifted through the clothing, mementos, dishes and other personal items.  I remembered needing to move immediately and knowing that I couldn't possibly take all of my belongings.  I remembered being distraught over the circumstances but I couldn't remember what those circumstances were.  I remembered picking and choosing the most important things to take with me.  I made some very difficult choices and hated everyone of them.

I looked through all of my things, laying there just as I had left them.  I was happy to see them again but puzzled as to what had made me move out suddenly.  I wracked my brain and couldn't come up with any reason at all.  Nothing was plausible.  I decided that there was no way I was going to leave all my stuff again and I began packing everything up in boxes and bags.  I took them all down the stairs and loaded them into a vehicle that was apparently mine and had magically appeared on the street in front of the house.

As I was packing the car Jennifer drove up.  She didn't seem to think there was anything odd about the scene there.  She was just stopping by to say 'hi' on her way to do something else.  As we chatted I absentmindedly opened the door to a storage closet on the porch.  Inside were jackets, boots and other winter clothing that I recognized as belonging to Jennifer and her family.  We dragged it all out and she just grateful to have found it.  Part of me wanted to say to her, "What is going on here?  Don't you think it's weird that I'm moving out of this apartment a second time? Do you know why I moved out the first time? Why is your winter stuff here?  Who the hell is that woman I just spent all day with?  Is she me?  Am I losing my mind?  Help me understand this!"  But I didn't.  She was acting normally so I accepted that things were normal.

And then I woke up.  And I've been confused ever since.  I feel like there is more to this series of dreams and I hope I have another one.