Dream: The Jewish House Tour

Dream 20030105, 4:00 AM:

I’m standing outside a row of buildings with a man who is some sort of Jewish professor. He is dressed very conservatively but his coat seems a little shabby, as if he’s not concerned about his appearances. He has sort of frizzy gray hair, and a hat. He is going to take a small group on a tour of this really cool house. It is in the middle of a renovation, and he is sneaking us in. We look at the door, which is heavy and ornate and has multiple locks, and he doesn’t have a key; I don’t remember exactly how he gets us in, but it is through some nontraditional entrance that is there because of the renovation.

As we are traipsing through this house and the Professor is pointing out various architectural features, we realize that the house is occupied. My perspective shifts, and I am seeing the master of the house, who is soaking in a bath and talking to his butler, who is standing nearby. The light in the next room comes on, and I can see through a window the silhouette of the professor and the tour group, but the master and the butler are oblivious to them. They continue to talk for a while, and then one of them hears a noise. The butler takes a gun and tiptoes into the next room, and surprises the professor, and shoots him.

Then, I’m with a couple of other people, walking into a store. The store seems turn-of-the-century, all wooden inside with a large oval wooden counter in the center. I don’t recall any goods or shelves, and I don’t know what kind of store it is. The oval counter has two cutouts on the inside, and in each of them is a woman dressed in a fancy dress with upswept hair, and entirely covered in pale green metallic paint. One of them is Nancy C., and I don’t recognize the other. We are telling them about the Professor’s death. I watch as Nancy buckles and leans against the counter; it looks like she would have swooned except for the stiff dress and the counter to support her. The other lady begins telling a story about how the professor had been such an important source for so many years.

Then the scene shifts completely, and I’m walking along behind a curtain, in what would appear to be the wings of a theater. It’s not the main stage curtain. The whole area is fairly brightly lit, although there is a brighter light coming from the other side of the curtain. There are boxes of various foods, mostly cookies, along the bottom of the curtain; the curtain doesn’t reach the floor, there is about a six inch gap along the bottom edge. I am picking up empty boxes that used to have food in them, and straightening up the boxes that still do. I am explaining to someone who is there with me, that now that I’m in England, it’s easier to get a lot of the stuff that’s made in Germany and Italy, and I just don’t worry about the American stuff as much. I pick up a box that only has one sugar cookie in it, it is decorated with icing and is some sort of elf; I take a bite out of the cookie, and hold it up, explaining that I can eat this, and that I can get more various kinds of stuff like it. It tastes sweet, although a little bland.