Corridors of Sunlight, Discoveries of Happiness
Di, Data analyst/programmer (Hospital),
Cambridgeshire, UK
September 1, 1999
I have a recurring very vivid dream - I am in a very large old building made of red sandstone. This building looks like it could have previously been a hospital of some kind. I walk through the corridors into individual doors, the corridors are well kept, clean, and airy, daylight floods in from the long windows. The corridors and have some long red coloured Indian rugs on them, some a bit threadbare.
I look at the walls they are light coloured and have high ceilings. The paintwork is all new and fresh. All the doors are six panelled and painted gloss white. I open a door, go into the room and see the bed in each room. The dark coloured roller blinds (dark green) in each room are pulled down. I go over to the window pull up the blinds I can clearly see the little wooden bobbin dangling from the bottom and then turn to the bed. The bed feet are on the floor but the mattress and springs are positioned quite high up. The bedding looks damp and mildewed, although it is not damaged in any way. The sheets are cream coloured and the bedspreads are mostly always dark bottle green. I am carrying around a very large pillowcase with me into which I place the bedding I have removed from each bed. At one point I try to get into one of the beds to rest but the sheets feel too damp and mildewy against my clothes and skin. I progress slowly through the house, going into each room and doing the same thing over again. I then begin to ascend the large staircase in the house which ranges up against the large windows which still are bringing lots of daylight into the building.
I am alone in the house until I reach the first
landing and look over the staircase. I look down through the
staircase noting the threadbare carpets and beyond the open railings
of the stair and can see people coming in to the hallway. I can make
out the detail on their clothes some are wearing light coloured
overcoats and hats, others are wearing red jackets and scarves. They
look up the staircase in my direction but cannot see me, they appear
friendly and their is lots of chatter between them. I carry on
with my task turning to face the wall in the staircase so that I can
carry on up the stairs. I notice that there is a window that has a
long dark green blind drawn down. On it in the most blinding detail
I see that it has peices of jewellery, and small ornaments pinned to
it. There are old fashioned Victorian hairpins, the sort long hair
is placed into and then a pin is stuck through to keep in place in
finely worked silver, feather fans with black jet beads wrought into
them, little mirrors, pendants, pearl earings with little diamonds
woven round the outside, the list is endless. I am both surprised
and pleased at this find and spend some time unpinning them from the
blind and placing them on a umbrella stand nearby, eventually I pull
up the roller-blind. On and on I climb further and further up the
stairs, taking the dirty linen of the beds and placing it into my
pillowcase. I notice that it is beginning to get dark outside and I
can see through the many paned glass windows that I can look down
into the street below showing the tops of the streetlights several
storeys below me. The people have long disappeared, I am alone but
not frightened just intent on my task, the house is now well-lit
inside by electric lights which are suspended from the ceilings on
long chains ending in pear shaped white domes. Eventually I come to
the top floor of the building, this room is unkept, dusty and
mildewy. I look up to the rafters of the house and can see clearly
that their are water-mark stains on the roof which have trickled
down the walls and old wallpaper. I leave this room and somehow find
myself on the ground floor of the building again. Its now daylight,
and dusty shafts of light flood through the windows, this time I am
not in the main part of the house but in an annexe which is like a
kitchen I dispose of my large pillowcase of laundry which after all
of the many dozens of beds does not appear very large. I turn around
and go through a beige door again six panelled like the rest of the
house but the paint is not so fresh and there is an atmosphere of
old dusty books around. I open the door and find myself in a small
hexagonal room from which many doors lead off the paint on these
doors is again beige coloured and looks as if it were painted long
ago. There are some fanlights above each of the doors through which
dusty shafts of light flood in and in the middle of the room and all
around it there are such treasures! There is a chest in the middle
of the floor out of which many old books and manuscripts are
spilling out I am delighted to see them. Ranged against the walls
are old welsh dressers filled with jewellry and bookcases from which
crockery and china of all sorts sits just waiting for me handle
them. There are a few old style Victorian dresses in drab beiges
trimed with black lace. The cupboards reach upwards to the ceilings
I get the feeling that no matter how long I look through these cupboards there will always be something there to discover and delight me. I remain alone, examining the books and treasures I am happy. There the dream ends.
Di's interpretation:
Sheild your eyes from the sunlight streaming in above the fanlights of the doors! Though I am unclear as to why there should be light coming from within the rooms as the blinds were drawn. It would have been more accurate to show light flooding in from the top of the picture on to the doors. The perspective gives the view shown whilst I was standing on the staircase and the light flooding in from behind
Seeing the dream realised on paper makes me wonder whether the building in the dream may be a school or hospital. A hospital would be more accurate in the context of my present life. Turning my attention to the beds, the task I undertood there in stripping the beds clean was a repetitive one. Daily work is repetitive, I carry around lots of figures in my head regarding patient activity, how many beds were occupied within a ward, how many operations we did and so on. Notice that the beds are empty, I don't have any physical contact with patients, I present clean data for reporting purposes and to do this the patients must have completed their treatment. The jewellery may represent fine detail of the type of work I do. Handling the 'jewellery', is analagous to spending time getting the details correct. The act of opening the blinds may represent showing things more clearly in their true colours.
Perhaps the dream is meant to represent that I am going around with my eyes closed (the blinds drawn down) or ignoring something - literally 'turning a blind eye'. Is there something better for me if I turn around (the warmth and radiant light of the sunlight from the windows behind me). The steps may represent taking things 'one step at a time'. The climb up to the different storeys in the building, each being a sort of landmark. What of the visitors - what did they represent, with their animated chatter and happiness, they brought in a breath of fresh air. What of the attic in the house dusty and unkept - is this a representation of my mind, perhaps I need to clear things out and add some new colours and furniture, so that my own life becomes richer. The attic with its high wooden ceiling and beams could also represent an auditorium, good accoustics can be made in wooden ceilinged buildings. The lack of 'colours' may mean musical notes and the lack of furniture might represent a search to furnish it. Lastly to the getting rid of the dirty linen and finding my 'treasure trove'. Well the big pillowcase I dragged around, although full of dirty linen from dozens of beds, looked strangely light. Perhaps instead of linen it was full of 'data' and got rid of this by putting it into the rubbish bin. I turned around and opened a door, an old door which hadn't been looked at for some time (represented by the old paintwork). I found my treasure, my books and manuscripts, dresses and china. In otherwords I found my furniture to 'furnish' my attic!
|
