I’ve been having the same occurring dream for the past couple of years and I’m not sure what it means. It pops up every few weeks or months, usually with a small variance from the previous ones, but keeping to the same general storyline as it changes.
I’m in a mall. This in itself is rather odd as there is not a legitimate mall within an hour of my house. Still, there I am in this mall that is mostly deserted as it is nearly time for the place to shut down. I am walking down a peripheral hall, probably a new wing of the mall, and there are very few shops. The number of open stores varies somewhat–sometimes there is a restaurant or a clothing store–but there is always a book store. It’s not a Borders, but it is designed along those lines, a small box store with tight aisles and low profile counters that allow easy sight lines across the store.
I go into the book store and look around. I realize the mall, and hence the store, is about to close, but I go in anyway. There are no other customers there, not even any staff that I can see. I am looking for something in particular, but I don’t know what it is. I keep looking, even though I know I need to leave. I can hear the roll down doors of the other stores in the mall closing, but I linger, still searching for that one particular book. Finally, I realize I am out of time and, though I have yet to see anyone attempting to close the store, I leave and try to find my way out of the mall.
Leaving the mall is sometimes easy, sometimes hard. There are times when I just leave the book store and head out through a nearby door. Sometimes I have to try several doors before I can gain the parking lot. A few times I have even gone through the restaurant–usually one of those mall-type Chinese places you find around a food court–and exited through their kitchen door to the outside. There is never anyone to help me find my way out and I keep thinking about that book store, what I was searching for, am my frustration over not being able to find it.
Like I said, there are occasional variations to this basic story. Sometimes I have one or more of my children with me. Sometimes the store is not in a mall, but in a building by itself. Regardless, I’d be happy to hear what you in readerland have to say about what the hell this all means. Feel free to comment away.