Mystery Dreams

I've often wondered about dreams. 

As in, when you sleep....

A day ago, a few hours into my 65th year on this planet,  there was a strange dream.

I was in, what appeared to be , a East European country, or may be  Germany, possibly to attend a conference of sorts.

Mind you,  this was all a bit exalted for me, as in my entire career in what is one of the nation's premier technological  institute,  my work  rarely involved going to conferences; when one was deputed to attend something, it was the type where the authorities quibbled seriously over whether to grant me rickshaw fare or taxi fare, and I ended up taking the good old trusty BEST buses or suburban local trains out of sheer disgust. 

So going to Europe for a conference , even in my dreams , was a bit rich.

And so there I was, all the signs around me were in some sort of German , and  I was walking to the venue  which was a massive old heritage palace type, now converted into a convention place.  There was a lot of nodding, bowing , smiling and hand shaking while registrations happened, and  someone,  a kind of senior functionary  introduced himself, as the convenor of the section  that I was interested in.

Cut to the next morning, and I was once again walking over to the venue .

I climbed up some stairs to the main reception area, and then went to look for the participants and convenor of the section, as well as the halls where the sessions would be conducted. What followed was hours and hours of me walking around all over the place, peeping into rooms, asking people for directions, and returning home at , say, noon, without finding anyone or anything .

Next day, I went back, and I wandered once again,but in a different area , again seeking the conference stuff that I  had come for. But once again, everyone looked different, and strangely, no one remembered me wandering from the day before. One more day of futile wandering, fatiguing me at the end of the day.

The dream suddenly moves to the International airport in Mumbai, where I am suddenly walking out with all the conference participants who were on the same flight, and they were shaking my hand and saying what a great presentation I did. There's the usual crowd around the luggage area, customs, and long walks to the exit.

I wave to someone who has come to receive me.

And the dream ends. 

They say early morning dreams sometimes come true.  I dont know whether I should be thrilled to bits about going to attend a conference in a Germanic country, or I should get worried about impending loss of memory , either on my part or someone else's part.

I wonder if the inability to recognize the place and people on the second day, was all happening in the dream, or was the dream interfacing in real time, with a sluggish actual brain refusing to jog its memory cells. 

I wonder , why everyone except me, in the dream , remembers that I did a presentation, and did it well.  

Is this a sign of things to come ? A warning sign ?  Is this information overload messing with my brain bandwidth, and causing jams in typical Mumbai traffic style?

Or may be I just had too much of the fresh winter veggie spicy pickle the previous night's dinner ?

I guess I am just glad to be back.

And yes, lest I forget, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone.....