The Mountain Dream

Rob says I should start writing down some of my dreams, since quite often they come with some sort of analogy.  I sort of shrugged at his idea and he said, "I'm serious."  So I thought I'd start recording them on here.  Feel free to not read them if you don't want.  Some of them are interesting only to me, I'm sure.

The Mountain

(A lot of my dreams involve climbing a mountain and are clear analogies about the journey of life.  I'm always with different people and the mountain is often different, but the basic plot line is often the same.  Here's the most recent Mountain dream, as an example.)

I was hiking up a distant mountain with my family.  I specifically remember most of my siblings and my dad.  We were camping out on the way, and we were several days into the trip already.  The mountain was some sort of Most Mountain:  Tallest, Hardest, Most Important.  Like Everest, except we were all hiking with only light backpacks and it wasn't cold.  The conditions during the day wouldn't kill us, but if we weren't in a safe place at night, we would freeze to death.

We woke up at sunrise on a very pleasant morning and my dad announced that today was the Last Day.  We had to reach the mountain, climb up it, back down, and back to the campground by nightfall.  The mountain still looked a ways off to me, and I told my dad that I wasn't sure we had enough time to do all that.  He waved off my concern and told me "it was easy."

So we started walking across a very flat, barren valley towards the mountain.  And suddenly there were a ton of people packed on the trail, all headed towards The Mountain.  We reached the summit quicker than is physically possible in real life, and started climbing up a metal spiral staircase.  I admired the structure and how sound it looked, even though I saw no end to it.  At first the staircase was easy.  There was only one direction to take, and it was easy going.  Three sides went up at a quick pace, and the fourth would slant down just a little, to make it easier to keep climbing, I figured.

Pretty soon I realized the staircase was misleading.  We were backtracking, not on purpose, and people were getting lost.  The staircase was a test.  Each level got harder and the tests were more complicated.  At first there was consensus amongst the family members about which way we should go, and figuring out which way lead forward wasn't too complicated.

And then the staircase lead into a room.  It was a 1950's themed room with an old black and white TV and a radio that was broadcasting a baseball game.  There were only two doors in the room:  the one we entered, and the other that obviously lead to where we needed to go.  Two guardians of the room let us know that there were clues to be found so we could figure out how to open the other door.  It had no handle.

My Dad and my sister set about frantically trying to figure out this puzzle of a room.  They were analyzing clues and taking everything in.  I, on the other hand, pretty much gave up, got used to the idea of being there for a while and took off my shoes.  I was then thinking of seducing the guardian as a way to get him to open the door for me.  I was nearly executing this plan (which the guardian was all for) when a woman on the other side of the door opened it for us, thereby saving me from my abhorrent moral choice.

Most of the people in the room nearly ran through the open door to the next puzzle room.  But I had to wait and put my shoes on and therefore saw the reaction of my father and my sister.  Their reaction couldn't have surprised me more.  They almost refused to go through the door, and they were angry that it opened at all.  They had been determined to figure out the puzzle, and the open door frustrated them.  They were supposed to SOLVE THE PUZZLE!

The next room had 2 exit doors and for the first time we disagreed on which way to go.  Everyone was in a panic and some of my family had run off.  Run ahead, run back, or run astray, I didn't know which.  A few of us were with it enough to try to decipher the next room.  It had two stairways going up, and we had to figure out the puzzle to see which one was the true staircase.  The other lead to a trap.  The room was a sort of mirage and such a good deception that we couldn't come to a common consensus as to which way was the right way.  I came to my conclusion, and felt very very strongly about it.  I set about trying to explain it to my brother who disagreed with my assessment.  I was successfully convincing him that my understanding was correct when I woke up.

I offer no further explanation.