I dreamt I was exploring a series of branching passageways. Their shape was what you would have if you took a wide door, dropped it into the ground, and swept it through the earth, excavating a trench as you went, but the trench had a glass roof that was level with the ground. The glass let in light, but it was partially covered with underbrush, because the passageways had been there for a long time.

The passageways were part of a large maze in a much larger field behind a house, and as I wandered through them closer to the house, the path suddenly branched into the dark basement of the house, with stairs leading up to the main floor, and I recognized the basement as being that of my grandfather’s house, and the passages that I was in as being a part of a basement maze that had terrified me as a small child. I had been afraid that I would wander into it and get lost, but now I was approaching the passages from a different perspective.

I realized that the maze that I was in was much larger than I had thought it was as a child, and potentially easier to really get lost in, but at this point in my life, I had more knowledge and greater resources, and so I felt confident I could follow that passage, associated with such terror in my childhood, out of the basement to see where it led.

I walked through the maze for quite a while, sometimes taking a left branch, sometimes a right, looking for the place it would exit into the air. But as I walked, it got later and later in the afternoon, and the light overhead got dimmer, and I felt heavier and heavier, as if a weight were growing in my chest. I came to understand that I owned this property and it was my responsibility to either extend the maze or abandon it. As my pace slowed and I felt I needed to stop and rest, I turned a corner and found my grandmother waiting for me, with her arms out to comfort me.

And then I woke up.