Shopping mall and flyover

So I had this weird dream before waking up this morning, and it's fading fast, so I'd better get it down quick.

I was going somewhere - I may have been shopping, but I wasn't carrying any bags - and I parked the car, but I couldn't remember where I left it. It was on the street somewhere rather than at a carpark. I realised that I was in the suburb where I grew up (Holt), but there was a lot of construction work going on.

I found a map, which showed the future layout of the area, and I realised that almost the entire suburb was being replaced. There was going to be a huge shopping mall, with public transit, and a huge flyover for the highway. Not sure what the highway was going to, unless there was a lot of new development out towards Uriarra.

At one point I remembered that I didn't live in this area any more, and the reason I was trying to find my car was so that I could go home to Waramanga, which is where I live in the waking world.

After wandering around for some time looking (unsuccessfully) for my car, I eventually sat down with someone who was taking surveys, and I was answering some fairly odd questions. I think he was from the company that was doing the development, but I can't remember any of the questions. I don't usually mind doing marketing surveys, but this one I think started to get a little intrusive. At one point he asked me something like "what are you doing in this area" and I cried "I'm trying to find my car so I can go home!"

At that point my friend Myk showed up and we had a bit of a chat. But he had to go because he had to get home in time to watch the latest episode of Doctor Who. I replied that the current season wasn't on Netflix yet, but it would be when the season finished, and we'd binge-watch it then. Which is true in the waking world. I overheard a number of other people mentioning that they had to go home to watch Doctor Who as well, so I assumed it was a season finale or something.

Around then was when I woke up. This was an interesting dream to me, for a couple of reasons. First, because I was able to remember it when I woke. I often dream, and my dreams are intricate and complicated, but I rarely remember them when I wake up. I usually dream most vividly in the mornings. I'll sometimes wake up at 7am or so, then go back to sleep for a while. This morning it was about three hours. This period of sleep is when I dream. I've speculated in the past that the ambient light has something to do with the vividness of my dreams.

Second, because it blended my current life with my past. I was making my way through Holt - the suburb where I grew up, from ages 6 to 16 - but I had to get home to Waramanga, which is where I live now. I spoke about watching Doctor Who on Netflix. It had a strong theme of "you can never really go home" - the idea that when you return to the places you knew as a child, it's changed so much from the way you remember it. It certainly had changed. I was able to trace on the map where the roads used to be, and in more than one case a part of the existing road had been retained, but renamed.

There was also the presence of Myk - now I will say here that Myk does occasionally feature in my dreams. More I think than most other friends of mine. But he always looks the same. Tall, slightly hunched over, wearing a long coat. This is not how he looks in the waking world.

Oddly, when I woke up, I checked Facebook and found a couple of interesting things in my News Feed. There was some really nice photos of Myk, and there was the list of Mr Fluffy houses which did indeed include the house in Holt where I grew up.