This Building Obeys the “Next” Command

In my last dream this morning I was standing on a street in front of a big yellow two-, three-storey, very run down building. I faced a big shop window. Part of its glass had been shattered and I could have reached in to touch the merchandise. That merchandise was old, used, worn, ratty clothing displayed indifferently on hangers. The outer wall of the building next to the window had been severely damaged. Two young women, next to me, arm in arm, looked at the same display. They clung like that, perhaps, because the scene was not a nice one. In irritation I looked up and sort of mentally touched the upper left corner of the building—touched it with my eyes. The building at once responded with a rapid, rumbling motion. The broken wall magically healed itself, the dreary shop window moved off to the right and disappeared, and a tidy office structure, but still yellow, had replaced the old one.

I turned to the two women who were still standing there. “This building obeys the ‘Next’ command,” I said to them, half amazed and half amused. They were surprised too and kind of shook their heads. This sort of thought, of course—the kind in which awareness lights up the mind—rapidly terminates all dreams, and so I lay there in the dark this morning chuckling to myself.