The Fourth Factor

The dream seemed to begin like some sort of flight simulator game, but—after a series of events I can no longer remember—I realize I’m dreaming.

I’m in an unfamiliar city. It’s a place with a charming atmosphere—lots of greenery and a small harbor that almost divides it in two, with the main part of the city built on a hill with a steep incline. I fly—without my customary wings, since I was already flying to begin with—enjoying my surroundings. Every corner I turn results in a new, interesting view as I circle around, gradually moving up the hill.

At one point, I notice a series of staircases to my right leading directly to the hilltop. It reminds me a little of the Bergpark—and that gives me an idea. I could find the Herkules statue and have a conversation with him. That would be an interesting thing to do in a dream.

I fly up the staircases and find myself in a small park where a number of people are walking around. There is no Herkules Statue, but I do see a statue slightly off to the left—although monument might be the better word since it’s basically just a bronze head on a pedestal, a man wearing what looks like a conquistador helmet.

I walk over to it, look at the head and ask: “So, is there anything you want to say to me?”

The head comes to life. It says: “What the f*** are you doing here?” in what is quite possibly a Cockney accent. I’m a bit taken aback but still proceed to have a conversation with him—as best I can. I’m finding the accent difficult, and the background noise from the other people here isn’t helping.

After a bit, three young women come up and join in the conversation. I recognize them the way one normally recognizes people in non-lucid dreams, although none of them seem to be people familiar to me in waking life. The only one whose appearance I can remember was a middle-eastern looking woman with thick, dark hair going down a little past her shoulders. Unfortunately, pretty much everything we said there faded from memory by the time I woke up.

As the conversation ends, the bronze head offers to kiss a coin for each of us—this seems to be a good luck ritual of the sort that often develops around statues. The others produce coins, and I figure I’ll go along with it, too. Without looking, I stick my hand into a pocket which I expect I have—even though I don’t ordinarily wear clothing with pockets where this would be possible, it’s a pretty reliable method of materializing objects that might conceivably be in one. I feel around the various objects there for a coin. As I do, I recall the Soviet Kopeck that mysteriously turned up in my last batch of laundry—my aunt had been washing some really old stuff, I guess—and, unsurprisingly, that’s what the coin I eventually find turns out to be.

Once that’s over, I’m once again faced with the decision of what to do. As I fly back down the hillside, it occurs to me that this might be a good opportunity to find some people I'd like to speak to. I fly all the way down to the harbor and, since the ground is flat here, I land and walk. I call out their names and try to find them among the crowd, or among the people on the boats. But I don’t see them there, and before long, I wake up.

(3.7.18)

In the dream, I seem to have traveled to some sort of large family gathering at an unfamiliar location. It is the last day before we go our separate ways, and so I speak with my aunt and uncle, arranging a time to meet up tomorrow morning, since we’ll be returning together. It’s better to get the planning out of the way now rather than try to do it at the party tonight, I explain.

Later on, I’ve gone somewhere nearby but higher up, by a park on a hill. In the middle of a well-kept green area is a large statue of the Brothers Grimm. There is another green hill off to one side with a row of tiny houses around the base, and stuck into the hillside is a large stone plaque, round with a wavy outline. Across the top, a few names are engraved, and below, a body of text in a smaller size.

There’s a police officer nearby, and I get into a conversation with him. The part of it I can still recall went like this:

“You could live in that house.”

It is the house nearest to us that he’s talking about, a sort of cabin-like structure. The door is wide open, so I can see that it is vacant. I can also see that it is ridiculously tiny, which would probably explain why. I tell him I can’t live possibly there: there isn’t even enough room to lie down inside.

“You could sleep in the park,” he says, undeterred. “And keep food in the house.”

This is a bit odd coming from someone whose job, as I understand it, involves keeping people from sleeping in parks. I must have said something expressing my doubt as to whether that was allowed because he then—in the manner of someone who’s lived in a town all his life and apparently knows everything significant that’s happened there since the dawn of civilization—asks me if I’ve heard of a certain person—a Greek name, but I can’t recall it any longer. I thought I did—a young man, a Greek general from the early 20th century—but he replied that it was actually someone else who was associated with him somehow.

This man, explained the officer, had spent a night sleeping on the statue itself. I look over and see that Wilhelm, on the right, is holding a scroll that looks like it would make a natural perch for the venturesome and bored. And not only did this man not get in trouble for it—the policeman is very emphatic about this—they put his name on the plaque along with the other famous people who had been there to visit the site. The point being, I guess, that nobody would hold it against me, either.

And after that, I was down in the area with my family again until I woke up around four in the morning.

(13.1.18)