Ah, Sunday. My day for rest. I slept for a glorious 10 hours last night, and I had a very vivid dream. Here it is:

I was in a mall with several of the people from this community. One of the storefronts opened up into this entirely separate world. Everyone who shopped in the mall could walk right in, but most people walked by either without interest or without noticing. I lingered on the outside for a while, but when I found out that anybody could go in, I wanted to go immediately. Nobody else seemed particularly interested, so I went in by myself and looked around briefly. I didn't know what to make of it and decided to back for others who are part of this community. I was under the impression that they had been there before. I walked through by myself again, but once I was inside, I was suddenly in the back of an open jeep with others from the community. As we drove along, I distinctly remember thinking with suspicion and disappointment that this "new world" looked no different than any neighborhood in Norwood or Cincinnati. I had expected it to be really beautiful, but I kept quiet and decided to go along for the ride.

We stopped at a small lake and got out. It was wintertime. Even though it seemed surprisingly warm for the season, I wasn't enthusiastic about swimming. Together, we all made the decision to swim, and then things started to happen. Some rocks by the water turned into flowers and then changed again twice more, each time becoming more beautiful. Everyone else was already in the water, but I hesitated to get in when I realized that I had brought only half of my two-piece bathing suit. Dave, Jody, and Matthias were all encouraging me to just come in anyway. I reluctantly decided to swim in my T-shirt even though I didn't like the idea of being wet for the rest of the day. Having made that decision, I started to feel very uneasy about changing my clothes in front of everybody. There were no trees or anything to hide behind, and I didn't want to be indecent. I eventually realized everyone really did want me to swim, and they seemed comfortable with me changing there at the top of the hill. I tried to be somewhat discreet, but I ended up being quite exposed anyway. Nobody minded.

As I headed down to the water, my T-shirt turned into a bathing suit top, though I hardly noticed. Once I got into the water, it immediately got warmer. It wasn't even that I got used to the temperature - the water itself actually warmed up. We were all amazed to see the dark water gradually become clear with perfectly white sand at the bottom. It started to look something like the Caribbean, but it was still the same small lake. We could move very freely in the water - noticeably more so than with normal swimming. Ryan and I were swimming on our backs, racing each other back and forth across the lake, and both of us were amazed at how fast we could swim. Matthias was dunking all of us in the water, and we were having so much fun together. We were all genuinely happy.

I know that we did more together after we went swimming, but I can't remember anything else. My dreams are not usually this vivid. It seemed symbolic to me, so I thought I would write it down.

Do you have any thoughts on this or an interesting dream of your own to share?