This dream was highly unusual firstly because it finished ~ 8 AM, which is late and secondly because of the utter vividness of the last segment. The wife said that I was thrashing about in bed before waking.

As usual I am aware that I am dreaming. We are having a terraced house renovated. It is one of the many Victorian houses in London. The wife and I are going to visit to see how things are going. The front door is wide open, so we knock, shout hello and go in. There are a few young decorators including a black man in overalls in the ground floor back and a young white woman in dungarees up a ladder. From her hair cut and demeanour I know that she is a butch lesbian. She has a roll up cigarette in her mouth and her hair is tied with a red kerchief. We ask how it is going and she says that the are pretty much on schedule.

The wife needs to get the tube to Wimbledon for work and I know we are in South London. As we go to leave the woman says to me, “as-salāmu ʿalaykum.” I say the same thing back and she says no I must say, “wa ʿalaykumu s-salām”. Which I do and we have a laugh. I say, “see you soon”. I know that she is not Muslim.

As we leave the property the wife is partially down the street. I call for her to stop. I am wearing black knee length riding boots. I take these off and put them in the pile of debris in the front “garden”. I catch up with the wife barefoot. We head off to the underground.

Later in the dream I return to the house around dusk. I can’t at first see it. Then I see a bright pastel blue two seater sofa in the bay window and bright royal blue walls. I know this to be the place. So again, I knock and shout hello before entering. The doors are unlocked. In the back room I find the black man he has finished for the day and his overalls are on the back of a chair. He is sat looking at something on the dresser. He has round wire rimmed spectacles on and I know that although he is decorating he is scholarly. We inspect an antique radio made out of finest wood veneer. It is playing a radio station. The wires are old school entwined pair. Slowly with a jeweller’s screw driver he lifts the top off so that we can look at the mechanism. Where I was expecting some valve amplification of signal someone has patched in a FET amplifier circuit. We both comment that this devalues the piece but both agree it is a thing of beauty. He asks me what the story of the house is.

I say that the previous owner lived here for around ninety years and before that his dad. The house has been in the family since construction. He has recently died.

At this moment an older man appears he is dressed in tweeds. He asks, “what did you say about my son?” I say that I did not know him personally but the rumour is that he was a very genteel and nice man. I know that I am talking to the ghost father of the previous owner. He shows me to a cupboard where there is a magnificent brass telescope and tripod for bird watching. I ask what the arrangement for picking up the keys is when the decorating is finished. He says that someone from the office will be in touch. I note a very feint hint of Afrikaans accent. I leave and go home.

Next, I awake with a start in a double bed with crisp linen sheets and a polished wooden frame in a dark antique wood. There is an antique dresser made to the same high standard and of the same dark wood (mahogany?). I am in the down stairs bedroom of the house. There is a window looking out onto the back “garden”. I know in the dream that I am dreaming the room and the bed. I must wake up so that I can get back to my normal bed. On the dresser are two highly unusual pill bottles. They are bright lurid purple with small white metallic bottle tops. I try to read the handwritten labels. I cannot discern clearly. The glass of the bottles is opaque. I wonder if I am supposed to take them in the dream. I decide not to.

In the room next which is now of large proportions I see the father and son dressed in a manner of the early part of the twentieth century looking at a large table with maps and charts on. There is an architectural drawing on an easel. The father is smoking an old style pipe and has a watch on a chain. They do not see me.

I go back to the bedroom to try to figure out what to do.

I lie down on the bed and something inside draws me to look at the window. I see a female face pressed against the window. I am utterly startled in the dream, shocked. I clasp my hands to my chest and say “fuck”.  The woman sees that she has startled me and apologises profusely. She gestures for me to open the back door. I do this and let her in. She says that she has not been in the house for a long time. She is dressed in a modest sized vintage bustle dress of a maroon colour. She says that she has come to observe what is going on. I note a South African accent. She says that back in the day her father had a roving eye and that they suspected he had a mistress in London. He used to travel regularly between home, the plantation, and London. She thinks it possible that her “brother” got the house instead of her. Implied is that the house owner is her half-brother by another woman.

The dream ends and I wake with a start. Where did that come from?

The first thought was of a reversionary property the wife has and what if someone has just died.