Three occurrences of the same dream:

• P.10: at Coulibri
  Only a rough sketch of the final dream it sets the tone of the final dream: a nightmare a young girl, lost in the forest, followed by a stranger (the stranger in this premonitory dream is her future husband, Rochester).
• P.34: at the convent in Spanish Town, some further details
  The man with her “hates her”.
  She wears a white dress, an obvious symbol of innocence.
  She leaves the forest and comes to high walls, i.e. Rochester’s castle in England.
  She goes up some steps, to “the top”, i.e. to the castle battlements.
  She refers to her brutal suicide.
  “It will be when I go up these steps”.
• P.121: in England, Rochester’s castle
  She is a prisoner of the stranger of her dream, her husband.
  She manages to escape from her locked room, she sets fire to two rooms, goes up the steps, with Rochester running after her.
  At the top, she jumps and wakes up.

The nightmare might be considered as a call to freedom.

l.4, l.27 à l.41: she describes herself as flying. She is like a bird, with her hair for wings, flying away from a cage.
She tries to escape both from Rochester and her mad self/side.
She mentions a “ghost” haunting the castle (l.7).
She sees her own image in a mirror without recognizing herself.

She is definitively schizophrenic.

Some telling details of her dream:

• The red room calls to mind the similar room in Jane Eyre.
• The color red is here a symbol of death.
• The white color which otherwise predominates means innocence.
  Antoinette compares it with a church where Rochester and his likes worship Gold (l.16).

She “sinks” into a comfortable couch but feels exhausted in it. It’s a reminder of her former life: comfort is not happiness, money can’t buy happiness or love.

In the midst of misery, she has a fleeting vision of past and happiness.
Antoinette Cosway’s room, with a ray of sunlight.

Just as quickly, she reverts / goes back to sort memories.

She sees the candles and hates them for reminding her of the slave’s torches that burnt down Coulibri Estate.
So she knocks them down doing Rochester’s castle what the slaves died to Coulibri Estate.

Running away from the fire, she imagines a ghost is following her “a woman with streaming her” surrounded by a gilt frame.

In fast, she sees a reflection of herself in a mirror which symbolizes her schizophrenia.

Scared by the fire she has lit up, she runs to the battlements.
Before jumping she has a near death vision of happiness.
But this vision marred by the sight of the tree of life (l.37-10).

She is now ready to jump, prompted by the two people closest to her.
Rochester calling her from behind.

After the dreams, she repeats the first moves of her dream, it’s now the reality.
Antoinette enacts her dreams, she experiences it for real.
We are left to guess that she will go to the end of it and jump.
The “dark passage” (l.51) of her own life will lead her to liberating death.