Tuesday 24 February 2009

Kosher Dream

I do seem to have a more varied set of dreams nowadays than I used to have, As always they are quite surreal, but I have to say none quite so strange as one I had last night. And surprisingly I can still remember much of it.

The Kosher Food Factory

We enter the dream as I am walking across the Pennines with three of the four guys (Mike, Stephen & John) with whom I spent my second year at Salford University. We lived in a big old house in the Monton area of Eccles in Salford but that was not featured in this dream. We were all wearing long coats and Salford scarves.

We were walking through some woodland and on exiting the trees found ourselves looking at the sprawl of of a somewhat smaller and older Manchester than I remember. I would place this as Lowry's Manchester (early 1900's) as evidenced by the many belowing chimney stacks and, once we entered the city, the cobbled streets.

We walked down a steep slope into the city and met up with our fourth comrade (Steve) who was standing on the top of a small hill (slag heap?), he joined us and we continued down into the winding streets of the city. One by one my comrades disappeared down different side streets until I was left alone. By now a fog had crept in and I could see very little, the streets were (or seemed) deserted. Suddenly a man wearing a Bowler hat appeared out of a side street and turned quickly in front of me. Fearing that I had got lost I followed him thinking he might take me to somewhere more familiar. Unfortunately he entered a building.

For some reason I followed him in to the building but he had now disappeared out of sight and I was left in a fairly long hallway leading to a raised circular steel door with a sealing wheel in the centre. I walked to the end of the hall, up a couple of steps and turned the sealing wheel which gave out a gentle hiss.

I heard somebody coming up behind me singing a song, I joined in with him (I wish I could remember what the song was) I pushed open the circular door and stepped in to the room beyond, I don't remember if my singing companion followed me in or not but I turned and shut the door without having seen him.

I found myself in a very large (but finite) compartmentalized hall that I could best describe as a Kosher food processing plant. In each sealed glass compartment some kind of food preparation was being carried out. In one compartment flour was being milled from grain, in another, baking was taking place and in yet another fish was being prepared and in another Cheese was being made. At the end of the main hall animals were being slaughtered and a long drain running from one end of the hall carried the blood from the animals to the other end of the hall from where it disappeared downwards. There were two "uniforms" looking after the hall; one in, typical food processing togs, White Dungarees, Tee Shirt and Flat Cap (operational workers). The other was that of an Orthodox Jew (Inspectors).

I spent a little time wandering around the hall until I was spotted by one of the Inspectors who had been previously busy inspecting the blood drainage system. He raised the alarm and I headed out the way I came in.

As soon as I was through the door I noticed an old lady touting a machine gun and screaming at me in a language I didn't understand (Hebrew?). She opened fire at me but I was able to duck out of the way. Off to the right I was beckoned to leave via an alternate route by the man in the bowler. He led me out of the building and then gave me some instructions towards safety.

I ran through the streets until I thought I was safe and sat down on the steps of a very old church to catch my breath. After a short time the man in the bowler arrived singing the song from earlier (I know knew who was behind me at the factory door). He sat down next next to me looked at me straight in the eyes and asked me if I was gay (wrong word for the early 1900s I think). I replied no. He seemed a little disappointed but stood up shook my hand and disappeared back the way he came.

I WOKE.

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Anybody want to have a go at the significance of any of that.
I have a few ideas, but you first :-)

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