I saw a round building, maybe 20 stories high, that stood on a very small construction of steel pillars. It was astonishing that the construction would hold this weight. If I counted correctly, there were eight pillars with some diagonal connections.
The building was not great architecturally, with narrow windows all around. I don’t know whether one window or three belonged to one apartment.
All in all, there seemed to be way more than 100 apartments in the building.
There was another structure built on an imaginary circle around the building, with some space between. It only spanned about 1/12th of the circle, but could be moved around the building.
I was told that most people living in this building did not pay their rent.
Every now and then, I heard the howling sound of an alarm, followed by some explosion. I first did not understand, but then I figured out what was happening:
Almost all blinds were closed, and whenever some were opened, the structure sounded the alarm. If the blinds weren’t shut within the next 30 seconds, the structure opened up the fire and extinguished all life in the corresponding apartment. The building seemed to self-heal within the time the shooting took place.
Next, I saw myself and Christina with an architect, bent over a plan for a new building. It was round as well.
One could see that the architect was very much accustomed and primed by the architecture of the day, but had undertaken some changes already. There was no steel construction upholding the building, as it was set on the ground directly. And there was no structure built to circle the building.
I saw Christina and the architect designing the apartments, when I chimed in. I made the suggestion to have half of the circle as the major bed room, with a gigantic window, and the other half as an open kitchen and living room, with the utility rooms in the center of the circle.
The architect was baffled by the idea and suddenly started to develop ideas outside of the norms he had been brought up in.
I do not know whether the building had more than two stories, with some additional rooms upstairs for guests and storage. Somehow I think that these buildings were to be built in different shapes and forms as interconnected blobs.
Third scene. We had an outside meal in a garden with a fence of high bushes. There were two stone tables, each with benches around them, some distance apart. One was near the fencing, the other in the middle of the garden, but well within eye-sight. Waiters brought food and drinks.
We sat around the table in the middle of the garden. I don’t know who all constituted the we, but I felt at ease and comfortable.
We were told that there was a contest on how much steak we all could eat. Still, most people on my table were by no means overeating, just having a good time. It was a colorful bunch with a lot of joy, expressed in individual ways.
Then, the other table started to fill up. Rather stern-looking men in black suits sat down and started to devour one steak after the other, taking the competition very seriously. For a moment, I was tempted to eat a whole steak to win, before I realized that one steak was not a winning strategy. It would only make me sick, while those man did not care about the next day’s hang-over. They would eat until the kitchen had no steaks left or they passed out.
I have a few ideas what this dream could mean that I will express next. But I am sure there is more in it.
As you know, I have spent most of my adult life in church, and therefore, I relate this to church. It could be related to most other institutions I know, but do not know as well.
The building is the church. It has a fragile foundation in the theology it is built upon. The people are assigned very narrow spaces to live in, and few of them pay their tithes and offerings or contribute with their talents.
The structure that circles the building is the leadership. They warn everybody that wants to gaze outside the framework, and on short notice, eliminate those that do not retreat back into the building and the permitted way of thinking by shutting the blinds.
The new building that was drawn did not have an undergirding structure. For many, it must have looked unstable and unsafe because of that, but it was built on form ground. They called it unsafe because all the wildlife could enter and the people could take a walk outside.
The room assigned to the people was spacey with a lot of view outside, and it could be arranged individually. It left much room to rest and live, and thoughts could freely roam past the limitations of the building.
There was no leadership protecting the purity of doctrine, and nobody was eliminated for gazing past the limitations of the “correct” way of thinking.
The architect was baffled by the freedom their was in building the church as he was a child of the old structure and way of thinking. it was hard for him to shed all the old ways, but once he did, he found his long-lost creativity.
At the feast, the people of the new structure represent the bunch at the table in the midst of the garden, while the leadership of the old building are those men in black suites.
For the latter, it was all about how much meat they could devour, how many people they could count in their buildings. For us, it was all about the joy and diversity of life.
These are a few thoughts about the dream. I think that it will follow me for a while. How about you?