This morning, I dreamed that my son Johnny has built me a sumptuous new home. It is a huge palatial structure and now he's showing me the entire complex he has created. I come down an elevator and we are standing in a central square of the complex. He's built the whole thing on three sides of the square; looking ahead, past the flagstones of the square, there is a stone railing and a sheer cliff. A magnificent view of the city below.
To my right (to my left is a more shadowy building that I do not really see) Johnny has built what looks like a sports stadium which is on the upper level of monumental building with a concrete façade. I say to him, "But what about the opera house you promised to build me?" And he says, "We can put it there."
I'm thinking why not, it would be very dramatic to have an opera house below a football field (or baseball, the dream seems to flit between the two.)
"Why not scout it out?" Johnny says. I cross the square with him. At first I am thinking, the area between the stadium and the railing, which is open space ending at the cliff, is the right size. I think, we could just attach it to the left of the stadium.
Then Johnny says why not immediately underneath. I see that the space beneath the stadium is divided into huge rooms, which I can see through the stone columns to my right as I walk past; between the columns I see various impressive vistas. "This one looks the right size!" I say, and we peer in and see a room all Roman and black marble, with some heroic Roman busts on columns, but as I enter I realize that floor is actually a mirror-still pool of water. I guess it won't work, I say.
Finally, we reach the last room, the corner area. Johnny has set it up as a huge art gallery with labyrinthine passageways. Wandering inside I come to a jade room, full of those big flowering plants and birds (all made of jade) that they sell in some slightly kitschig Chinese fake antique shops. On a table there's a number of jade birds, brooch-sized, sort of circular designs, crystal plumage against green foliage.
The objects on the table have signs in Korean, which I can't read; I only see the number 100, so I assume they are for sale. An old gentleman walks into the room. Johnny says, "We're not open yet." and he nevertheless picks out 4 of the bird brooches, counts out six dollar bills, and hands them to Johnny.
"Oh," Johnny says, "you should have some of the Swiss ice cream." He offers the old man a popsicle-like perfect cylinder in vanilla which is on a round dowel. Thoughtfully, the old man licks, and hands a chocolate one to a woman.
The woman is wearing an Islamic veil - not quite a burqa but in my dream it's called that, but it shows her face and only goes half way down, revealing a cream-colored cotton skirt. She doesn't take the ice cream. "You must forgive my wife," says the old man, "she is Mexican and not used to our ways."
The wife says, the chocolate tastes funny.
I wake up.
****
I'm wondering about the dream Korean labels and the veiled woman, thinking that it's actually a dream-pun on "Qur'an". She is not dressed as a Mexican, in fact in the dream she appears Persian. Well this is a matter for my oneiromancers to interpret. Many nationalities alluded to in this dream, from Roman, Mexican, Middle Eastern perhaps, Korean, Chinese, American (the stadium) ... but generally speaking the look and feel of the buildings is Italian Renaissance.