It was shortest dream I ever had probably (concrete part of it was exactly two words long) but before I come to that, need to give some (obviously long) background.
T - few months: I google 'Panini'. After reading/listening to few people, each one sounding fascinating (i.e. even as I didn't understand anything, I felt like THIS is something I want to understand), one among them even generated that feeling in stomach which you get during a 'free falling ride' when he pronounced tip-tas-zee-sip-thas-th- and su-au-jas-am-auT-shash without any prior warning. in fact, the way he was going about speaking anyone would only expect to hear something very obvious, familiar and reassuring and then came this - that's why a sudden free fall feeling.
Few days/weeks later: I again remember the subject, I type Ashtadhyayi in google. again many interesting pages, one of them had audio lectures. Within seconds I knew my search ends here. and so next task was to find that search which had just ended was about what.
a-e-u-n ril-ri-k.. but this time I had my seat-belt fastened, and navigator knew how to not send students in free fall. plus, I was already familiar with it due to previous searches. So, the journey started.
Sanjna-Vidhi-Paribhasha, panchami - se pare, shasti- ke sthan main, saptami - pare rahete.. it was smooth going. it-sanjna-lop. varnas disappear! strange but if Panini wants it that way, so be it.. (its a too early stage to see any utility of those disappearances. still, you soon become comfortable at making things disappear. good going.)
making sense of sutr is not THAT difficult (after someone has done padchhed, expanded samast pads, clarified vibhakti, translated to hindi etc etc. but so what?) Right?
Wrong. Why it still doesn't make sense? oh, its because not all words you need to read in it are written there. but no problem, just borrow words from the one above- you are told. and with that your confidence that was about to launch itself soaring, decides to postpone it for now.
Now you know what anuvrutti is. you even know what Adhikar is and also that anuvrutti can come from not just immediately above sutr and can travel with gaps. its a small matter that each successive learning came at exact points where your confidence was just about to soar which then had to be postponed. but anyway, now you know that you can pick up words from left right and centre and stuff into what you need to read (ok, only from above, but you get the point).
ah and did I mention, saptami is pare rahete - just as you become sure of it, you are told it can be interpreted in two other ways too. how do you know which interpretation to use? 'you just know'. (which of course must be correct, except that at this point you just do not know if YOU will ever reach that point) and few things like this. by now, your confidence has learned to wait a while before preparing to soar.
after going through the loop again and again, you know at which exact point your confidence can confidently soar. Its after finishing Ashtadhyayi fully, in few years may be. but you are sure about one thing. If Panini says it, you regard it as indisputable. As if on cue, you are told 'our Rishies didn't work that way'. on the other hand everything needs to be questioned, requestioned, challenged even attacked and one must come out of all that proving himself on the criteria of truth and logic before being accepted. and even once accepted, the moment an improvement comes in light, if it passes the same tests, is accepted enthusiastically. yes, you have hit your first Vartik.
After some time, attention then somehow shifts to other things, few months pass.. besides basic concepts, most things are forgotten.
time T: I don't know yet that its a dream. I see there is this sutr, which says 'Its proven'. 'Its proven'? what is proven? how? where? and then I 'know' that with anuvritti, adhikar, adhyahar.. it means that it is proven that a particular way of holding camera is most efficient grip. I am in complete disbelief - never heard it before. how can I be so stupid?
I wake up. and realise that I had not doubted why Panini was talking about camera grip. I only regretted how I missed it completely so far. I guess, the dream conveyed that I was missing learning Ashtadhyayi.
I again started to learn it from the scratch.
(P.S. Above re-start derailed in just few weeks, and 2.5 more years later, I need to exactly do the same again - need to start from the scratch.)