Saw My Dead Uncle | dreamingfordreams.com

…I have often dreamed complete tales, and, oddly enough, the scene of my tale-dream is, more often than not, in Hyde Park. I append the following by way of illustration. I dreamed it was a wet night, and that I saw, sitting alone on a seat in Hyde Park, with the rain falling mercilessly on her head and shoulders, and forming a large puddle in her lap, a woman a silent, white-faced woman, that might well have passed for a corpse, or for a typical phantasm of the dead. I was so struck with the sight that I involuntarily stopped, and, advancing towards her, enquired if she were ill.The sound of my voice made her start, and, shaking the water from her dress with a dull, mechanical movement, she said reproachfully, ”Why can’t folks let me alone? You are the third who has spoken to me within the…

…as I beat and prodded it against the jagged edges of my teeth. But all to no purpose; my head remained full and my stomach empty.”A whole lifetime seemed to pass in this tantalising, agonising manner, and then into the room, in Indian file, stalked all my friends and relations, each carrying in their hands a champagne glass. My uncle, who had been dead and buried at the very least thirty years, headed the procession. Walking solemnly up to me, he took hold of my nose, twisted it round like a tap, and down through my foaming mouth poured the whiskey. As soon as his glass was full he raised it above his head, and exclaimed in a sepulchral voice, ‘ Health! Health! Health!’ to which all the company in chorus responded ‘ Amen! Amen! Amen!’ One after another my relatives and friends followed his example, and twisted my nose…