Dreaming of Yesteryear

Dreaming of Yesteryear


Long have I beheld the vision of dreams, the power to transform the individual into a state of awareness that is all but unknown to the waking self. Even those who remember their dreams may be startled at the lucidity of a particular experience, and, as a result cause them to view the world in a whole new way. A curious seeker may take note in patterns found in their dreams upon waking, and it is these visionary tunnels that apt men to discover a reality hidden behind a curtain; and some are led through their dreams into a century that is not their own.

I recall a dream in which I woke in a bed that was not my own...

Nonetheless, a curious conformity lived in the walls, and in the air too which reeked of dusty attic breath jacket. The bed sheets were freshly plowed and cleansed of weevil, but that was not the underlying cause which stirred the senses, rather winding my attention like a porcelain music box that goes Rin-Tin-Tin. There were spirits in the canary yellow stained wallpaper that peeled back the sands of time. The elegant grandfather clock purred like a Cheshire in one corner where marked off pin-ups shelled the walls of the parlor.

It was like stepping into one of the Daguerreotype photographs that lined my grandfather's mantle, the calling cards of a previous century. Everything was so vibrant I thought, wandering down the fun house hallway. The colors on the walls and ceiling blurred together like a child's painting. Every thought that arrested me came in an order foreign to ordinary thinking. I paused, coming to a landing, and, after hesitating briefly, decided to take the plunge.

Downstairs the family is not expecting company and I am not at all aghast when they overlook my presence to Raggedy Ann dolls and rocking horse pleasures. The man of the house seems to me an airy representation of a human being as he peels back the newspaper fortress long enough to view his milk stained Chaplin moustache. From somewhere distant the exotic musk of Victorian perfume assaults my lungs, drawling in a series of even, meditative breaths. My sight fell upon a woman who quickly pardons the mess she stalks with a wire dust beater and the couple's children tumble like dust in the wind. Drifting towards the kitchen I noticed a kettle pot bubbling on a range oven, the tangy pungency of green tea was so vivid simmering in the kettle that I tasted smooth ivory on my lips.

Feeling embarrassed for intruding, I make my way out the kitchen door to the world outside, the sun shattering my vision with a sensation similar to rising back to the surface after being submerged in water. A battered shed hides the illumination of a Model T, the predecessor of today's car.

I am lost as I wander these empty streets through the looking glass of time, a world I was never a part of, and yet was always mine. Will I gaze upon the familiar again?