This dream takes place in a beautiful country house, well-known to me in real life.

It is a stormy winter afternoon, drawing towards dusk. I am a very young man. I walk briskly and cheerfully through the upper rooms in the newest part of the house. (In reality this is the Elizabethan wing, and I am either of that period or of James the First.)

The rooms are large and handsome with big mullion windows. They all lead into each other as there is no passage. The end room is the largest and is still (I know) unfurnished. It has a small closet leading out of it on one side, and on the other a door leading to a staircase and various smaller and less important rooms. I know all this quite well and am quite at home in the house.

I walk happily along, the howling of the wind outside drowning even the noise my big horseman's boots make as I stamp along the bare boards of the new rooms. I look through the windows on my right as I pass along and note how the dried faded grass in the park is beset by the fury of the gale--all in one direction. There is no attempt at a garden as yet on this side of the house.

When I have traversed all the rooms, I fling open the door of the last and biggest room rather quickly and unconcernedly. Suddenly I am frozen with horror.

The great room is bare and unfurnished. The walls roughly plastered. Workmen's litter--straw, boards, little heaps of lime or plaster are about in the corners. All this is as I expected to find it. But there is more.

On the great unfurnished open hearth a huge fire of logs is burning brightly, lighting up the room already growing dusk this winter's day. By the fire stands a tall black figure. A man dressed in a monkish or priestly dress. A cowl is drawn almost over the face, the hands are concealed by hanging sleeves.

He stands close to the fire, warming himself. At the noise of my entrance he spins sharply round and confronts me, one hand against the wall above the fireplace, the right hand still hidden by the sleeve drawn up to his breast. The door has slammed behind me and the impetus of my entrance has taken me well into the room.

The man in black advances smoothly and rapidly towards me. I see no weapon in his hand. My hand is on my sword hilt. But nevertheless I know this is the end! For his own safety he must kill me.

There is a curious silence in the great room. I hear the wind howling round the house, and the flicker and crackle of the flames on the hearth. I seem rooted to the ground. The black figure is almost upon me. My sword flashes out...

This is always the end. I think he shot me at close range.

EDITOR'S NOTE

I find this recurring dream a bit startling--getting killed over and over, always in the same time, place and manner. This has to be important enough to repeat over years. It can't be just idle curiosity about the history of the house and its "priest-hole"; nor does the dream seem to prompt Thesiger to uncover some lost treasure. I see no recognizable fear or wish, direct or disguised a la Freud.

Indeed the only way I can see a personal connection at all is if you postulate reincarnation. Perhaps Thesiger needs to know that lifetime cut so short was (from the killer's viewpoint) self-defense not malice.

Or could she be the Man in Black? Then the dream is showing her an old burden of guilt over saving her own life by killing an innocent.

Do these seem strained? Well, what's your explanation?

--Chris Wayan--

SOURCE: The Dream World by Rodolphe L. Megroz, pp.150-1. Megroz lists her only as "Mrs. Arthur Thesiger"; MyHeritage.com says Arthur Lionel Bruce Thesiger (1872-1968) married Florita Knight in 1902.

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