Every once in a while, I'll dream something that I don't want to forget. This one was odd, as all dreams are, but emotionally vivid for me with very sharp visuals.

In the dream my partner and I are on a cycling tour of the British Isles. We’re spending a number of weeks in the north part of England where I’ve gotten to meet a friend I’d been corresponding with via email. We’re at a sidewalk café. It’s not the first time we’ve met up with my friend, and today he’s asked his two brothers and sister to join us. I know he’s brought up his brothers before, but I keep trying to remember if my friend had ever mentioned a sister.

She’s quite delightful. She’s younger than her brothers, and has a personal style of dress that draws the eye to her but doesn’t follow trends. His brothers are nice as well, but it’s the girl whose vivacity leads the conversation. My partner, Reed, and I are seated near her at the table. My friend is at the other end. He’s not participating much in what’s going on. His head is down, grading papers, but no one at the table, including myself, is put off by this.

Dreams are weird because they’re really just flashes of impressions, not exactly a linear story. The ambiance of the scene was that the day was cloudy, making it rather cool. The sun was straining to come through, but the two brothers and the girl were relaxed in their chairs as if it was a brilliantly warm day. They’re wearing sunglasses and angle their face in the direction the sun would be if it were actually shining down. Reed and I are feeling the chill of the shady day.

It was also a very crowded sidewalk and the town is much larger, more industrial, than I had envisioned from the descriptions of my friend. It wasn’t an urban chic, either. The surroundings are warehouses and factories with smokestacks. But everyone around us looks and moves as if they were on NYC’s 5^th Avenue. Reed is an excellent conversationalist and true to life, in this dream he is telling an entertaining story. He and the girl have hit it off, obviously having found kindred spirits in one another. I’m trying to decide if I should make more of an effort to participate. My friend is at the opposite end of the table, head down, so that avenue of conversation is cut off. Finally I start questioning the brother next to me, “So is this considered a small town in England, or a large one?”

The question is abrupt, out of the blue and I can see him trying to figure out why I’m asking. This is also true to life. I’ll be really quiet in a group, my mind will have gone off on a tangent, and suddenly I’ll blurt out a question or observation that comes off as a complete non sequitur because everything leading up to it has been in my head.

Next impression is that the conversation has turned and the two brothers are teasing their sister. It’s the good natured teasing of siblings. Reed and I recognize it for what it is. The girl is gamely going along with the ribbing. She doesn’t have an arsenal to return it, however, and neither is she nor Reed nor I able to redirect the conversation. Every attempt leads to a new jibe at her expense. She’s becoming more upset and I can tell the two brothers don’t get it and that’s making me tense. I know that they’ve probably teased her similarly many times before, but doing so in front of Reed and I is embarrassing to her. They don’t get the distinction, can’t put themselves in her place and understand how exposed she feels in front of strangers. Finally, she stands and excuses herself. We all think she’s just taken herself off to the ladies room and will be back soon.

After a few minutes, however, Reed I see her walking down the sidewalk, away from us. Clearly her intent is to leave our party for good. Reed and I exchange a look and without speaking, we agree that he should go after her.

The next scene in the dream is that we’re all leaving. The brothers are gone and my friend and I are walking somewhere, towards his home, maybe. But he wants to show me how sunny it can be in his town. I’m starting to think that it might have a smog problem because it’s continually hazy, but filled with people who act like it's trendy, southern California. We arrive at this crazy intersection. Traffic flow is managed by a police officer. The strangest thing is the pedestrians. On every turn of the light, a handful of them will take folding chairs into the crosswalk and sit sunning themselves for a few seconds. Then the light changes and the traffic officer waves them back to the sidewalk with their chairs. This repeats over and over, people setting up chairs in a crosswalk to sun themselves for a few minutes. My friend explains that this is the best place in town to get some sun.

It’s very strange. I’m trying to figure out if this is some English custom that has never been mentioned in America or a peculiarity of this particular town in England. I don’t want to be insulting but I’m really hoping my friend doesn’t expect me to participate in this. He doesn’t seem too interested in it himself, and after watching this for a bit we turn back towards town. We see Reed and the sister coming back towards us. They’re very close. There’s an intimacy about them, a sort of emotional understanding. Next to me, my friend sort of fades. He’s almost ghost-like, insubstantial. That’s when I realize that he and the girl are the same person. She’s a sort of projection of himself. Only I’ve figured it out too late. This incredible disappoint swamps me. I should have spoken up earlier, tried to engage her more in conversation. I shouldn’t have been so content be a passive participant in the group and let Reed carry on with his stories, no matter how entertaining. I didn’t make enough effort and now she’s with Reed, who went after her and soothed her ruffled feathers when she got hurt.

And that’s when I woke with a terrible soup of unresolved emotions – jealously, envy, loneliness, disappointment, self-recrimination.

Fantastic imagery in the dream, and certainly one I want to remember, even with the bitter end.