Dream a little dream of me

Chateau Haut Koenigsburg
Originally uploaded by Miss Gab.

In the immortal words of Tommy Jones (the Welshman, not the movie actor), "it's not unusual" for me to have bizarre dreams. Let's face it, so much of my waking life is bizarre, it only stands to reason that my subconscious would follow suit. And while these dreams are exacerbated by spicy food or influenced by eerie movies watched a day or so before, there really is no explanation for the dream I had last night.

Well, no explanation beyond this one, perhaps.

All my life I have grown up with a (how should I put this delicately?) eccentric Polish Granny who believes, among other outlandish facts, that our immediate family is descended from Russian and Polish aristocracy. While we've never trucked out the family trees to lend any credibility to these claims, I have always been secretly interested in what makes my Granny believe that we might sincerely be blue-bloods.

So perhaps in this vein, last night my dream felt like the closest thing I've ever had to a past-life regression. I was visiting a big castle complete with spiral staircases and draughty halls. I was dressed in my modern-day clothes, so I hadn't gone back in time per se, but I was certainly "not in Kansas anymore, Toto". In fact, I really did feel like I was in olden-time Eastern Europe somewhere. I was alone the whole time though - no one else seemed to dwell in the castle, but the building was built high up on a mountain covered with woods and leafy trees and bathed in sunshine, not the grassy and sodden plains of English and Scottish castles. As the night approached, I was walking through the castle trying to make sense of why I was there, but I knew my way around without hesitation. I knew the location of secret passageways, and I freely helped myself to food on the table and wine in the goblets. Yet all the while I felt like an imposter, like it was meant to be my home, but at the same time it wasn't. Weird.

When I lay down on a straw mattress to sleep in front of a large fireplace that I could have crawled into and probably stood up in, I made a bit too much noise getting comfortable and alerted the big dogs that guarded the castle. Up until that time, they weren't aware that I was "home". But rather than attacking me, as they were clearly trained to do to strangers, two of the big dogs (Afghans or something similar, but a more vicious breed) curled up either side of me, licked my face, and went to sleep. Just like I owned them. Then a leopard wandered up and slept there too. That bit was weird but was fortunately also rather fleeting. It was a placid leopard anyway and very soft.

Having woken up after my dream sleep, I reunited with my sister (also dressed in modern day clothes) and we had clearly fast-forwarded to modern day times. We met up in the castle gift shop, where we were joined by hordes of other tourists. But looking around the gift shop, I realised that I recognised so many of the faces and locations in the many ancient portraits and tapestries that decorated the store. I was so stunned, but I never thought to ask my sister whether she too found things eerily familar.

When my alarm went off at 7am this morning, I woke up to my real life rather reluctantly. I had enjoyed my dream-trip, but I was unable to explain it clearly. It was so vivid, and so comforting, and yet so unlike the dreams I normally have. And the only really fantastical thing about it was the leopard; the rest was very realistic...