I don't usually remember my dreams, but the ones I do remember are normally caused by things I do and see during the day before the dream. Sometimes they are small happenings that seem insignificant, but usually they are major events that happen to me. One of these events caused me to have the following dream.
It began as I found myself standing in front of a beautiful mansion. The mansion was very large, having several stories and tall round columns in front. I was standing on a gold brick pathway that led up to the doors. These were big double doors with a thick chain and an oversize lock that made it impassable. It looked deserted with no one in sight and not even any noise.
As I turned to go I was surprised to run into a strange man. He was obviously a mailman, for he had a uniform and a mailbag. He gave me a piece of cardboard shoped like a large key and before I could ask him any questions, he was gone. I opened the lock on the mansion with the key and went through the double doors where I saw hundreds of people. It was like a convention with many distinguished-looking people reading books and talking about world problems.
No one seemed to notice me and I felt out of place. I wandered through the crowd until I came to several rows of straight hardbacked chairs. Each one had a name on it but I didn't recognize any of them until I came to one with my name on it. Then, with more a sense of duty than curiosity, I sat down in it, thus ending the dream.
The next morning I was puzzled by this dream, until I remembered what had happened the day before. I had received my letter of acceptance to Georgia Tech. Everything then fell into place. The mansion symbolized the school itself with a lock to keep me out until the mailman delivered my letter of admission, which was the key. Georgia Tech was a big and strange new place. I didn't know anyone and no one knew me, but I still had a place there.
Most of my dreams aren't so obvious and are harder to understand, but important events sometimes help me to comprehend them.
— Mike Harkins
© Copyright 2002 by Robert J. R. Rockwood. All rights reserved.