Dream roads into parallel universes

A sunny, sloping street. People in bright, sunny clothes. I recognize a fair-haired woman with whom I had a passionate (though possibly unconsummated) love relationship when we were both in our late teens. She’s still very attractive, dressed in loose, flowing clothes. I try to guess the age of her slim, beautiful fair-haired daughter, who may be 9, 10 or 11. 

    When we catch each other’s eyes, there is absolutely no recognition on her part, not even when I identify myself by name and describe our encounters many years before. It hits me that she’s not feigning amnesia, and has not, in fact, forgotten. In her present reality, we have never met before.
    I become very excited at the realization that I am in an alternate reality, and comment on this to my companions. The fair-haired woman and her friends clearly think we’re weird.

Waking, I think of two fair-haired women on whom I had crushes in my late teens. Then I realize the woman in my dream is not either of them. She is, in fact, a stranger to me in my waking reality.

   The plot thickens.

   I am a stranger to this woman, in her reality (the one I visited in my dream).

   She is a stranger to me, in my waking reality.

   This suggests there is a third reality in which we know each other intimately.

   And perhaps any number of realities in which we are strangers to each other.

This report is from my journal for March 7, 2000, part of my overflowing file on dream experiences of alternate realities. When I re-entered the dream, I was able to get the woman's name. Thirteen years later, I have still not run into her, and am certainly not looking for her.
    During my conscious dream reentry, I had a conversation with a second dream character, a big man in a related scene who made it clear he was an aspect of myself. 

    I asked if I was actually involved with the woman in the dream.

    "You loved each other, and in some realities you still do."

     "Does she exist in my present reality?"

     "Oh, yes."

     "Will I encounter her as I did in the dream?"

     "It’s entirely possible."

     "Will I recognize her?"

     "Your soul will know her."

Still unrecognized by many analysts, the most interesting dreams are often experiences of alternate realities. And Active Dreaming, as a conscious practice, is our best way to gain experiential understanding of parallel universes.

 René Magritte, "Le mal du pays" (1940)