Dreamscape…

I know this essay will sound a little strange but for the past year or so my dreams, at least one per week sometime more have taken me to a city that is familiar, yet not.  This constant dreamscape is both reassuring, but also a little disconcerting in that I feel like I’m at home, yet it remains unfamiliar in many ways.

It’s difficult to describe in that there are aspects of the dream that are like Toronto, Montreal and New York City, but in other ways far different.

My first experience with this dreamscape was when I arrived by plane just over a year ago.  But not just any airport, the plane flew into the mouth of a giant orb…  The remainder of the experience, in terms of deplaning and exit were the same as if I had landed at La Guardia in New York City, but the arrival experience was quite strange.

I’ve also arrived by train into the same city on various occasions, but the train was not what you experience today, but one that is built more like a plane in terms of the seating whereby the configuration is a 3-4-3 setting arrangement.

As I explored the city, I noted the definite similarities to the way in which Montreal sits astride the St Lawrence River on an island with Mount Royal towering above the city.  Clearly, there is a similarity given that in my dreamscape this city is also build on the side of a large escarpment with a river view.

What is most interesting is that the large shopping centres are built on side of this steep escarpment with views to the river and the river traffic of boats of all varieties plying their trade.

Many of my nightly adventures are with familiar people yet other than Judy I couldn’t confidently identify a single person, yet I feel safe and at peace.  I seem to float about the city and live in different neighbourhoods depending on the night.

In one of my dreams, I owned and operated a dance studio, but also lived onsite in the studio…  No idea how this made its way into my dream, but it did.

In last night’s dream I owned a restaurant called “Eccentricities”.  As the head chef I had concocted a fabulous new dinner menu that featured two items of note.   The first was a main course (what else but Italian) of a meatball made of three distinct layers.

It begins with a nob of aged parmesan cheese at the core, surrounded by a layer of ground pork with basil, salt and pepper, then wrapped in a final layer of ground beef with rosemary – which is the more traditional meatball recipe.   This is then pan fried to brown the exterior before being baked.

As with any Italian meatball dish it is served with spaghetti. al dente.

The other dish that is still stuck in my memory from last night’s dream was the dessert.  The basis of which is raw honeycomb drizzled with blackberry and white chocolate puree and snap frozen so that the drizzle becomes hard like ice cream before being served to slowly defrost while eating.

These recipes are clearly made up in my mind, but so detailed that when I woke this morning, they were both front of mind…

I know you’re probably thinking why on earth is he telling me this story.  I guess I’m curious as to whether anyone else has such detailed dreams as these, particularly with the ability to remember long after you’ve woken up.

As well, always going to the same familiar city in every dream is unusual I would have thought.

For the longest time I didn’t tell anyone other than Judy about this consistent dreamscape, as I thought it would just pass and fade into memory, but now that I go to this place in my dreams at least weekly, I thought I would share it with you.

This like many of my essays is part of an eclectic collection of storytelling that is made up of my reflections on life, childhood memories,  adventures with Zach, Sam and Judy, advice and travel guidance.

I guess this is the beauty of not being pigeon-holed into a single genre of writing and storytelling and thus allows me the freedom to write as to what’s most top of mind each week.

Well, I’m glad that I’ve shared my crazy dreamscapes with you and perhaps given you a moment to pause and reflect on your nightly adventures.  Although I do wonder if they are as strange as mine.

Until next week.

Ciao!