Ever have dreams about some random childhood memory for no particular reason?
Last night that happened to me.
The background: Growing up, my dad had this work colleague who owned a large, historic house that was over 300 years old. And this particular guy fashioned himself as something like the Great Gatsby, and was always throwing large elaborate parties and events at this house. Many times my parents would go to these parties by themselves, but there were also times where they'd have events for the entire family. So I'd go and there would also be the kids of all my dad's co-workers there as well.
And it was this massive, old house that supposedly featured a haunted attic, and I remember me and some of the other kids daring each other to sneak up into the attic to see if anyone could see the ghost.
Anyways, there was this one time where there was a picnic/bbq event at the house, and everyone was there. The property around the house was very large and at the end of it, they had dredged up a man-made pond. And I remember towards the end of the picnic, people started going over to the pond to go swimming. I remember feeling a little disappointed because I wanted to go swimming, but I didn't bring my bathing suit. Thankfully, one of my friend (the son of one of my dad's colleagues) happened to have an extra bathing suit and so I was able to go swimming in this pond and of course it was a really fun experience.
Now, I am certain I had not thought of any of this in over 30 years. This all had been buried deep within the dark recesses of my mind.
Yet, last night I dreamed I was back at this particular house, and I went over to the pond because I wanted to take a swim again. And I got there, and to me, it looked really nice. They had added a changing area and concession stand. But other people were around me and were complaining that it had gone downhill--that this pond had particular significance because (in my dream, not really) supposedly Princess Diana had famously taken her children swimming in it, and so it needed to be preserved as a historic site in and of itself. (I suppose that part might have to do with all the Royal family coverage in the news lately).
It was a silly dream, as most dreams are.
But my question is why--why did I suddenly recall this random, obscure, seemingly insignificant memory that I hadn't dwelt on in over three decades?
Isn't it funny how our dreams can reach so far into our memories like that?
I don't know--I just wanted to share because I find dreams fascinating.
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