GG: dream of rock (GG off/on the Record)

["Junichi Miyazawa" <farnorth@mbc.sphere.ne.jp>]

Dear List,

In the *GG off the Record* (Part One),
there is a Gouldian monologue answering to the interviewer
(just in the middle of the Part One):

For many years I had a recurrent dream which I think has
stopped now.  But it appeared during my school years, and shortly
after it.  And this dream always involved variations on the same
theme, which was a return to school.  And school in this case
obviously meant much more than that.  It meant a return to a
schedule that I couldn't completely control.  And it was a 
dreadful king of thing.  I remember one day. . . 
a colorful variation on it, which I think I must have dreamt 
(Q1)^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
when I was perhaps fifteen or sixteen, and I . . . 
When I got up one morning, up here at the lake, 
and looked out my window and instead of seeing grass 
I saw rock as one would see a hundred miles 
(Q2)^^^^^^^^^^^^
to the north of here, just endless rock, 
a little bit curved and receding, but rock.
(Q3)^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
And on this rock there were nothing but dead leaves of some kind.
Now that was all there was to the dream  
And then, shortly after that, I woke up with a feeling that 
one can never describe, so absolutely sad, beyond all description.
It was something that I shall never forget, and I had many 
variations on this same dream at that time,
and to this day, this is approximately the way I feel
when I have to return to a life that I don't really enjoy.
Now then, when one gets into it, another kind of thing takes hold.
(Q4)^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
If it didn't I think that life would be so unbearable that 
one simply could not continue . . . at least I couldn't.
But if you are playing a concert every second or third night 
for months, this seems in a way a reasonably normal way
to live at the time.  It's only when one gets away from it,
that one realizes what a crazy kind of existence this is.

==
The description of the dream is beyond my comprehension.

Q1.  "a colorful variation".
What does "colorful" mean?
(a) having bright colors, (b)having a lot of colors or
just (c)vivid and realistic?
Considering the content of the dreamd and
GG's preference to black and white coloring,
(a) and (b) seem to be inconveivable.

Q2.  "Rock." 
Is it a single mass of rock, a lot of rocks,
or a plain which consists of rocks?

Q3.  Depending on the interpretation of Q2, 
but I don't understand "a little bit curved and receding" here.
If it is a single mass, it might be understandable.

Q4. "When one gets into it, another kind of thing takes hold."
Non-native speaker of English, 
I am poor at such an idiomatic sentence, but I try paraphrasing: 
When one begins n a life one doesn't really enjoy
(here, i.e. the life of giving concerts), one will find something
new that is interesting.

Q5. Does this dream sound fairly original, unique, very Gouldian?
Or is it a cliche?  Is there any precedent in the culture 
of English-speaking people?

Thank you in advance.

Regards,

Junichi

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Junichi Miyazawa, Tokyo
walkingtune@bigfoot.com (alias)
farnorth@mbc.sphere.ne.jp
http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/3739/