A stab at an interpretation: no accident a dream like this came after discovering, and immersing myself in, memories of the School I was at between 1973 and 1980. ages eleven to almost eighteen, my formative years.
So I'm on my way there on a very dark, very windy, very rainy morning. struggling to get there, in fact, and reduced to walking - up a hill in town which isn't especially steep, but the slope goes on for ever, perhaps for two thirds of a mile. Remembering that I passed 11+ and got a bye to what was acclaimed as the best school in town, academically speaking. Because of a few very British quirks (the Headmaster and senior staff had come out of the public school system, and because it was a State Grammar that in the past, and to a degree in the present, attracted private investment and charitable donations from big-name benefactors) got a mention in the Public Schools Yearbook alongside the Etons and the Harrows and Winchesters. (that's in much the same way Stockport County and Macclesfield Town are listed as Football League clubs alongside Liverpool and Manchester United, mind you. same listing, different status.) It had such an academic reputation - along with a degree of local social cachet - that parents who
could afford public school fees sought to get their kids through 11+ so that they'd then get the right sort of Education for free.
I was the "scholarship kid" from a dirt-poor family. The poor kid among affluent peers with the shabbier uniform and less resources to back me. So slogging up that hill against the elements in the dark reflected this - the continual grind of fitting in, and having to run even to get to the starting line of the race. Visual metaphor.
Losing a vividly orange coat - having the individuality sapped out of me, everything that made me into me. With my cash, cards and ID in the pockets - losing my support systems and even the documents that proved who I am. The struggle to communicate and make myself understood, with the shop assistant who spoke minimal English. Then being thrown in among sixth-formers who were also just anonymous clones, more mobile parts of the background scenery with no individuality. That's what the school turned out, after six years. And of course the idea of having to go back there, when I thought it was all over, to sign on again and resit an exam, as if there were still, literally, lessons to be learnt. Even at this age.
Having read about the death of a teacher who in his way had been quite okay, and then meeting him in the dream. Where his dream-avatar recognised me and behaved in a way typical of the Masters at Stockport School - no warmth, no sympathy, just a sort of casual withering scorn.
The absurd thought is that is maybe another time I've dreamt of interacting with a former schoolteacher who I know or reasonably suspect to have died. This is speculation and I know I can't prove it. But what if that was a postmortem encounter with a former teacher? Remembering the (self-identified) psychic who passed on that un-nerving message from - allegedly - somebody who might have been my old Spanish teacher (citing as proof something unique to my previous interaction with that person) who said that part of his post-mortem experience was to go to people he'd wronged or not treated fairly with while in life, and to make reparations to them. (I've written this up for these forums too, it's on one of the "Psychics" threads). Remembering my interacting in a dream with the French mistress I'd had a bit of a thing for, and how it had been my turn, then, to make an appalling bollocks of it. (That's on this thread somewhere, I hope Rita can forgive me for that, if it was her I met in what was more than a dream).
EDIT;
Encounter with a psychic
Dreaming of Rita
Just maybe this was Louis C's imperative after passing over - to touch base with his former students too. I walked into his purgatory, and going by what happened, he may have a way to go before realising he needs to be more conciliatory? After all, another recurring theme in my dreams is that surmounting some sort of physical challenge, like climbing a hill or ascending stairs or getting over a fence, especially if it appears to consume more energy and effort than seems reasonable, seems to represent a "transition between levels" - as if I'm moving to a different level of awareness and perhaps one that's outside my own mind. (The dream where I slogged up the big steepish hill-street in central Winchester to the imposing civic buildings at the top, and was perhaps rewarded for this with complete mental clarity and a full lucid dream - then used it a step to resolving a long-standing emotional issue). Usually then, meeting a Person who conveys something I need to know, or getting a life experience to take back with me, what sometimes gets called a Vision Quest. Although Wellington Road South, Stockport, as a portal to the Astral Plane...