A Recurring Dream

I thought that I would just inform those of you that bother to read my blog about this recurring dream that I have had for a few years now.

The thing that stays constant in each dream is a red bridge. There's this cliff at the end of a flat meadow, and two roads running parallel to each other, perpendicular to the cliff. Once they reach the edge of the cliff, they become a red bridge that arches out above a smooth, peaceful ocean, and the two roads connect several feet from the edge of the cliff over the water. It looks similar to the picture below:

The bridge is paned in semi-transparent glass, so that when one is driving on it, one can look down and see the ocean. The bridge is not supported from beneath by beams or pillars of any sort.

In some of my dreams, I am simply driving over the bridge. In others, I am walking up the hill at night toward the cliff, traffic roaring on either side of me. Sometimes there is a castle-like edifice in between the two roads near the cliff, but most of the time, there is not.

Last night, I dreamt that my mother and I had driven up to the bridge using the left road. Before we got onto it, we turned right into a parking lot sort of place on the very edge of the cliff (the castle was not present), and parked. There were tons of families sitting on the hill, picnicking on checkered blankets with wicker baskets and what not. The sun was starting to set, and my mom and I grabbed a picnic blanket and basket from the trunk and set up our picnic near the very edge of the hill, a few feet from the nearest group of people. My mom was gazing out over the water, and I remember that we were waiting for someone to come and join our picnic, but whoever it was never came, and so my mother eventually was like, "Ok, we might as well start eating."

After the sun had completely set, and the sky was nearly black so that it was impossible to distinguish where the horizon was, the families began to gather up their picnicking supplies and head toward the parking lot. A smaller group of people (and this is the weird part), did not turn to follow their families into the parking lot, but simply walked to the very edge of the cliff and kept walking; they did not fall down into the water below, but stood out in contrast to the moon that had creeped up from beneath the horizon. My mother and I sat and watched this procession make its way across the sky, apparently determined to reach the moon, until their figures seemed to melt into their surroundings. It was then that I woke up.