The Lost Landscapes

They first occurred to me in dreams, as these things often do. The dreams were not all the same, in fact, I cannot remember very much about the contents of the dreams themselves. I remember the landscapes that these dreams centred about though, and the odd sense of something that came with them.
The dreams all centred in on flooded landscapes, or at least landscapes with lots of lakes. These dreams were always bright and sunny - not a cloud in the perfect blue skies. There was a sense that though it was warm, it was some kind of winter landscape. There was little sign of habitation in the dreams, though in one dream there was some kind of hut (involving a rare forested region at the foot of one of the hills that led to the lost landscapes). The lakes were as blue as the skies, a crispy deep-winter blue.
When I woke from these dreams it was with a sense of euphoria and nostalgia. I could not explain either. There was something oddly victorious about these flooded landscapes, a feeling of implacable triumph. The sense of nostalgia was so strong that sometimes on the mornings after these dreams, I would lie in bed, and almost be convinced that these landscapes actually did exist in some forgotten chamber of my past.
The landscapes of these dreams, as I have said, was not all the same landscape, but similar, as if they were regions of the same country, and not necessarily the same place. There was always the sense that these landscapes were 'north from here', in some liminal place between the poles and, well, 'here in the south'. That being said, there was no sense of coldness in the dreams. There was a sense of winter, but without certain aspects of wintriness.
In some of the dreams, I discovered that I had 'lost' the landscapes and was happily searching for a way back into them again. I remember one dream where Pam was driving me about what looked suspiciously like the Scottish Highlands, trying desperately (but with an odd sense of peace) to find these flooded hills and mountains again.
As the years passed, the sense that these landscapes were real - or at least based on a place I had visited intensified. Sometimes these landscapes just seemed 'sideways from here' - just slip down a few alleyways, cross a few fields and traverse a few fields... and there they would be, where they had been all the time.
I have not dreamt about the lost landscapes for a while though, but the feelings of triumph and nostalgia, these almost-memories, remain.
The positioning of these landscapes has lately changed though. Whereas before I imagined them to be in Scotland, or some unreal and not-chilly Scandinavia, now they seem to have located themselves in the mundane and everyday. The sense of euphoria is still associated with these landscapes, and still that sense of known intimacy... but if I try to remember them now, it is with the suburbs of a town I've never visited, a semi-urban area as familiar and unreal as the dreams were. A thin strip of woodland accessible only through a hole in a fence perhaps, a hidden tangled place where there would be some kind of glade and a hidden pond, clear and perfect.
On the train to London a month ago I was looking out of the window, and saw a strip of bare brown wintry branches. The ground of the wood was covered with twigs, and was bumpy and uneven. The few seconds I had of observing the woods gave me that same shivery sense of euphoria as the dreams did, and the phrase 'Saturday morning woods' popped into my head. It felt almost like deja-vu, but this was a feeling not of it having happened before, but that I was about to remember something I had forgotten... something obvious but that had been always there.
The 'Saturday morning woods' phase of these flooded landscapes has occupied me over the past few weeks. I remain sure I am about to remember something about them, and it feels I am on the verge of something revelatory. I also remain sure that this revelation will not come - that the landscapes are only a mixture of dream, childhood memory, and maybe a film or two - or more probably some nature documentary I watched in childhood.
Despite the probable mundaneness of their origins, the sense of mystery they hold over my imagination continues. It feels as if they are searching for a way into the landscape of the everyday, trying to position themselves in our reality, almost like these lost landscapes are looking for me. The landscapes not only alive, but self aware and somehow conscious.
Anyhow, its nearly twilight now. I have an hour or two before Em arrives and Andy finishes his shift. I might sleep for a while and try to dream of these landscapes that seem to be coming closer every day.