I had a reoccurring dream last night, one I haven't had in a while and had nearly forgotten. In this dream I'm at work, in my 11 story office building, and I've discovered that the building has a secret... if you take the elevator to the 7th floor, where this one specific department is housed, and get off into the elevator lobby, there's a separate special elevator that takes you to a hidden floor at the top of the building. On this floor is a bazaar of sorts... many different booths selling all sorts of exotic foods and crafts, kind of a cross between a bazaar and some sort of fairgrounds, really. The roof is all made of glass, and it's sunny and festive. When you leave the floor, if you take the correct elevator, it's not an elevator at all but an amusement park ride that whizzes you back to the first floor via a roller coaster, first in the dark, but then bursting outside, with spectacular views of the city (what city, I'm not sure, it's certainly not Danvers)... and in the dream I can feel the sort of dizziness that the ride induces. At the point that the ride ends, I usually wake.
Last night the dream was different, though. Because in real life, the 7th floor is no longer the home of that separate, specific department-- now it has been remodeled... and it's where my own department is now housed. So last night, in the dream, I knew that the special elevator and floor existed, but I couldn't figure out how to get to them, because of the remodeling. I kept traveling from floor to floor, sometimes taking the elevator, sometimes taking the stairs, and never being able to figure out how to get to that secret elevator and floor. At some point, the office building turned into a mall and I continued to wander between floors, searching. A co-worker came up to me and inexplicably handed me a carnation, and I already had a magazine encased in plastic in my hand. I carried both items around with me; even in the dream I was not really sure why I had either one. I decided to make one last ditch effort to find the secret floor, and once again got on an elevator... partway through the ride, the elevator stopped, and the doors opened. Without thinking, I walked through the doors, only to find myself on another elevator that had stopped exactly next to mine, between floors. I turned to go back, but the doors to both had already closed. There was a young business man on the second elevator, and I tried to cover my confusion by making a joke about the fact that I wasn't sure why I crossed over from one to the other... he was polite, but not really interested or amused... and I awoke.
