I had another traveling dream last night, but this one was significant in its difference from past dreams.

In the past, my travel dreams have been about places I know—familiar places just offset from reality by a few clicks. These dreams have a tendency to have a lot of roadblocks and pitfalls. It is in these dreams I am often running off the road into ditches or construction pits. Sometimes I am trying to steer a car from the backseat, or with my feet. Or the car is really tiny and I find that I’m just moving it like a toy car down a model path I’ve created.

In this dream, I was somewhere in Asia. I assume it was somewhere in Southeast Asia as the environment was jungle-like and there were statues of vaguely Buddha entities. I was not in a car this time, but was on foot moving through a road that was under construction. Massive mounds of dirt and collapsing building arced over the road and many times as I passed under these mounds, the structure holding them began to collapse.

As I continued on, the collapses became more frequent, and the way behind me was quickly blocked. People that were walking the road in the same direction as me began to get caught in the collapses and were crushed. The pace of the dream grew more frantic as I began to run, only narrowly escaping death through each overhang I passed under.

Eventually, I reached an area where massive cranes were dropping enormous trees, branches and root structures intact along the road and then dumping the dirt and concrete on top of them. There were loud speakers playing the same message: Do not remove the trees or the overhangs will fall.

Once I passed under this overhang under construction, the perspective and orientation of the ground changed abruptly. I was no longer walking down a road where dirt and concrete threatened to collapse from above, but falling down a chasm threatening to close on me. As I fell, I caught onto a vine and swung into a small area in the wall, that had once been the ground.

Inside this small area was a Buddha statues overgrown with vines, and a small tombstone with the words “An Bong San” and a date engraved in it.

And then I woke up.