I used to spend my dreams
the ones you wake remembering
being pursued relentlessly
by an unknown enemy
like Buchan’s hero in The 39 Steps
and in The Hero’s Journey
just when you think you’re in the clear
the antagonist is once more there
More often, recently
I find myself lost
in a big city I should know
flavour of London perhaps
but away from shiny landmarks
yet central – not suburbs
busily, chaotically urban
I search for the familiar
always nearing – never succeeding
Occasionally, I am rehashing
past jobs – of which I’ve had many
seeking an elusive
key to success
and waking then, I feel
dreams might indeed
be the arena in which
our unconscious attempts
to sort the business of the day
Rarely, too, I find myself
in a dwelling I used nearly to know
the character of rooms
I used to share with friends
and yet they’re not quite right
somehow…
a building sprawling
through the dream without end
and I wake with only the feeling of
a place once known…
© Andrew Wilson, 2024
Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Grace in Poetics, invites us to write about Dreams…
Dreams suit themselves in motifs, don’t they! I go back to college or play in bands or work old jobs, many times in the revenant sense of reliving the past with the dead. My history as the dream’s chosen rhetorical style, speaking its mysteries through that mask. Great rumination here.
Thanks, Brendan
Those kinds of dreams are familiar, Andrew, especially the ones where you’re lost in a big city – and it never looks the way you remember it – and past jobs – they keep coming back to haunt me. Dreams are always off-kilter.
Not exactly nightmares but unsettling, Kim…
I know these type of dreams. I often travel in my dreams to other times of my life. I often refer to this as finding pieces of myself. But, the puzzle pieces have taken on new shapes and meanings.
Being lost somewhere seems to be a re-occurring dream for me. I am usually in the woods walking through a maze of trees.
I can definitely relate to your dream wanderings. Thanks for sharing.
Seems we are all in the same boat when it comes to dreams Truedessa…
Yes, you capture that ‘almost’ well. I don’t think the brain makes up images in our dreams. They are all real, but we’ve forgotten them, or have superposed a mistaken memory on them. Dreams are games of spot the memory.
They are made up of real memories, for sure, Jane, but it’s hard to see how that helps sort out the day’s business sometimes…
Ah dreams. some you remember sone you just have a notion that were dreaming.
Nice one Frewin
much♡love
Yes, Gillena, and what is it that determines which you remember and which you don’t – I’m sure I don’t know…
Thanks for visiting!
I can relate to those feelings and thoughts as well. The place is familiar yet not really the same. Or recurring dreams of failing and forgetting something. I guess it is all part of our subconscious or deeper part of ourselves. Thanks for joining in.
Thanks, Grace, all part of life’s great mysteries…
I resonate so strongly with this one, Andrew! 🩷 Especially;
“Occasionally, I am rehashing
past jobs – of which I’ve had many
seeking an elusive
key to success
and waking then, I feel
dreams might indeed
be the arena in which
our unconscious attempts
to sort the business of the day.”
Thank you so much Sanaa, 💜
I relate well to this, Andrew. These are the types of dreams I typically have.
I guess we are all more alike than we imagine, Sara… Thanks for visiting!