She’s walking along a passageway. The floor is a glittery white and the tiled walls are a polished pink and silver. How beautiful, she thinks. Along these walls are mirrors, each showing not her reflection as would be expected, but beautiful landscapes found all over the world. It is a surprise to see something else instead of your own face in a mirror. The door is at the end. It opens, showing rolling sky blue mist and blue lights that flicker like candle flames.
The dream has changed, in the abrupt way that dreams do. She can’t see herself now and it doesn’t bother her. She’s had dreams before where she’s been invisible and they weren’t frightening dreams either. In dreams, you are either a participant or an observer. Here, she is an observer watching the ghost of an old woman sat at a low wooden table surrounded by Native Americans. There is nothing sinister about this ghost. If anything, she feels at peace. In front of her, in a hole in the table, a fire burns, its glow lighting the faces of the people around it. The Native Americans appear not to be able to see the ghostly lady, for they do not talk to her. They seem not to notice the dreaming observer either.
Now she can see herself again, and can see, as well, a pretty young maiden with flowing red curls down to her waist standing at the platform of a train station. In the dream, the train station could be anywhere. It does not occur to her to look for any signs that would tell her what train station she is standing at. A train rushes through, a blur of many colours, and then disappears. Which train? But it is a fleeting thought. The girl also vanishes.
There’s another change of scene. She’s holding the hands of a little boy and girl, and they are looking down a pitch black hole. She doesn’t know who these children are, does not recognise their faces. The hole is dark, but there is a young man playing a haunting tune on a cello. There is a rainbow, spilling colours into the starry night sky. She would love to watch this scene forever if she had to.
Then all this vanishes, and as if told to by an invisible person, all three look up at the sky. They are surrounded by nebulae, and can see a star here and there twinkling through the clouds. The children look up to her and smile, but then disappear and she is left alone, and once again she is invisible to herself.
But she can now see a teenage girl lying on her back on the grass, looking up at the fairy toadstool houses and the tall trees surrounding her. At least, she looks like a teenager. She sees fairy folk flitting amongst the tall grasses and around the girl, and in the sky. A vague feeling of excitement bubbles inside her. Fairies! Nobody sees her. The dream-teenager and fairy folk vanish, to be replaced by another vision.
She’s standing on rocks, visible to herself again. There, seen among the roaring turquoise waves of the sea are fish, dolphins, and mermaids, whose beautiful haunting melodies seem to lift her spirits.
Then she is somewhere looking down from the sky. The wind howls and shakes the trees of a dream forest where nothing but weeds, nettles and brambles are growing. A dream fire tears through the forest, where the tall trees block out the light, making it dark and dismal. She should be afraid. She should run to save her life. But the dream controls her, and she watches the advancing blaze with the same relaxedness as that of someone watching a bonfire at a party.
As the forest fire travels with haste through the sinister looking woodland the forest changes. She isn’t afraid of the forest either, giving no thought to who or what could be lurking. Trees fall, allowing younger, smaller plants to grow, the nettles, weeds and brambles are destroyed, and flowers and other plants sprout in their place, and the forest is lit up, as the rays of sunshine finally penetrate, and a rainbow shines over the treetops.
She wakes, to see familiar faces at her bedside. She looks up at her parents, her brother and a wise man who has been studying her while she has slept. Their faces are anxious, but they relax a little when they are spoken to suddenly, by someone she has never seen before.
“Take heed. These dreams tell us of the future,” says the wise man.