Formal Dreams

I don't often remember my dreams, preferring, I suppose, to enjoy them. But here's an exception: I'm composing a big, complicated piece, and sketching it in a frenzy. In order to keep track of things, I start hanging the sketches on the walls, and when space runs out in my studio, these start spreading out onto the walls of every room in the house (in a physical replication of a classical theatre of memory, I now realize). Taking a walk, or in the dream, a mad rush, through the house becomes a tour through the piece in progress, with each room a section or movement with its own character. The childrens' rooms are scherzo-like little madhouses full of their toys and my musical toys, the kitchen is somewhat routine, with lots of repeat signs. There is some flexibility in the order of the sections/room, but that is constrained by the limited number of routes through my house. In order to get to the kitchen, you have to pass through the living room, which is the most massive and most detailed. As the piece begins to take on uncontrollable dimensions, I run out of rooms and start putting things in the boiler room and the garden shed. Even the mailbox is full. We start to talk about annexing the neighbors' house... and then I wake up.