I have had a LOT of dreams over the last few weeks and yet they were quickly forgotten. This morning's dream stays with me though.

It is set in a huge opera house, all gold and red velvet and extending many many levels, and I think it's somehow "my" opera house. I have come to the opera house with my mother, for a premiere of "Madama Butterfly."

Before the opera starts, I find myself walking around in an upper hallway — my mother is waiting in the theater. Walking in a circular balcony that encircles the theater towards the right, I meet a pale boy with dark hair (a page boy haircut) who is also here with his mother … but he's left her behind in her seat in an upper level of the opera house.

"Can I watch the opera with you?" he says.

"I don't mind," I tell him. I lead him down passageways to a huge staircase in the basement that takes us up to the level of the "boxes" where my mother is sitting. Here's the odd thing: We go UP to the level, but that level is the lowest level of the opera house — it's a curious M.C. Escher-like building.

The "boxes" aren't what you find in a conventional opera house. Each one is shaped like a huge coffin with red velvet walls. Bench-style seats line the walls. My mother sits in one, and in another sits a high-society woman with one of those huge hats, perhaps Edwardian. I bring the (nameless) boy into the box and my mother looks up. I suddenly realize that the music is beginning but that this coffin-shaped box actually affords no view of the opera itself....