#oneaday Day 92: Dream On

Discussing dreams is regarded by many as self-indulgent, but then so is blogging, so to the people who whinge and moan about everything I say "RASPBERRIES, GOOD SIR" and bare my bum at them. (Maybe not the bum bit.)

But anyway. Dreams. Weird, aren't they? A statement that surely qualifies for the "Captain Obvious Award 2011", yes, but it's true — which is why it's obvious, obviously. I have, however, come to the conclusion recently that the most vivid and bizarre dreams seem to come not during your big long sleep that you (hopefully) have throughout the whole night, but instead in those brief "snooze" periods you have between alarm clock harassment in the morning. Assuming you use an alarm clock. If not, it's those brief snooze periods you have between waking up and deciding you can't be arsed to get out of bed just yet.

Anyway. Regardless of when those brief snooze periods happen, that's when your brain suddenly decides that the most interesting and/or fucked-up dreams really need to happen. Because, as everyone knows, the brain works best under pressure. Ask any student or journalist with a deadline coming up.

Take this morning. I woke on an airbed on my friend's floor (I do know how I got there, I hasten to add) and considered getting up but wasn't sure if it was a good idea because my phone battery had gone flat and I wasn't wearing a watch. And this being the digital age, of course there were no clocks anywhere to be seen that weren't on mobile phones or on TV-connected things that made noise and would wake up my sleeping companion (who was on a different air bed, I hasten to add, and sleeping off an enormous amount of alcohol that he had consumed over the course of the whole day in celebration of both digits of his age changing) so basically, I couldn't tell if it was late enough to wake up in a suitably sociable manner. You get me? Good.

Now we've established that, I can explain; following the above, I established that it probably was too early to wake up, so I promptly fell asleep again. (Oddly enough, I find it enormously difficult to fall asleep at actual normal bedtime, but have absolutely no problem dropping off again in the morning. Somewhat frustrating and a little impractical.) My brain decided that this would be an appropriate time to imagine going to the fridge, taking out a 4-pint bottle of milk to take a refreshing cold swig from and discovering that it was actually full of egg-fried rice.

"Hmm, seems a bit ricey," I said. The people in the kitchen at the time (whom I didn't see) found this hilarious and we all had a good giggle about it. Then I woke up. Cool story bro.

If dreams are supposed to be some sort of "message", then I have absolutely no idea whatsoever what that was trying to tell me. I drink too much milk? I really fancy a chinese? I'm going to die? I have no idea, but I guess it's no weirder than the time I dreamed about navigating a field made entirely of strawberry mousse.

#oneaday, Day 23: OMG So Dreamy

Dreams are weird. Don't try and pretend you've never had a weird one. We've all been there, however disturbed, slightly sick or moderately turned-on we might feel the morning after. I described some past experiences and childhood recurring dreams some time ago after a particularly vivid and surreal one that faded quickly. I have never been asked to "obey the grapefruit" as part of a dream, but it's not beyond the realms of possibility, surely. (Phillipe must be stinging a bit, though, I imagine.)

This morning, I woke up after another especially "real-feeling" one wondering what on Earth had just happened. Your behaviour in a dream often makes you wonder exactly how you'd react if you genuinely found yourself in the situation you'd just been dreaming about. But then if you think about it a bit harder, it's probably fairly unlikely that something like that would actually happen. And if it did, you'd probably just collapse into a corner and start crying until the ambulance arrived.

In last night's dream, I was in a hotel. Fair enough. I was also naked. As you tend to be in many dreams. Banish the thought of my Adonis-like body from your mind for a moment and let's continue. (I hasten to add at this point that it wasn't a "dirty" dream, despite what I'm about to describe next.)

In this hotel was a pornography convention. I'm not even certain that hotels allow you to hold pornography conventions in them, but this hotel certainly was holding a pornography convention. Most people in attendance were also naked, but because of the sheer amount of material around the place which depicted naked people engaging in various fun activities (you know, like playing in a ball pool, enjoying a delicious hot dog, sucking on a lollipop or, well, fucking) the amount of naked bodies around the place didn't feel at all peculiar.

I wandered out of the main convention hall; I'd obviously joined my dream self at a time when he needed a bit of a break from watching people enjoying delicious hot dogs. I walked around the lobby area and into a corridor and almost immediately found myself lost, with no sign of anyone else around, no sign of a way back to the convention hall and no sign of the lobby. It was getting a bit dark, too. Having played Silent Hill 2, I knew that hotels getting dark is rarely a good sign, so I picked up the pace a bit.

I passed through a door and found myself in a room with a selection of non-specific objects on a table, and a small bag. There was also a large window looking out onto another room that was physically impossible to be in the place it appeared to be in, judging by the shape of the corridor outside. There was someone in the room fumbling around with equipment on a table. I knew that I had to put all the objects on the table in the little bag without the person in the room seeing that I was doing so. It didn't matter if he saw me, I just knew it was important he didn't see what I was putting into the bag.

I successfully put the things in the bag without the other person noticing, and I then inexplicably left the bag behind on the table and ran out into the corridor. The corridor was still darker than "normal", but just light enough to see by. I continued exploring the labyrinth of passageways which seemed to get more and more complex by the moment until I came, finally, to what looked like the end of the passageways.

There was a door in one side of the corridor. An old lady opened the door just as I was gazing at it, and I realised that this wing of the hotel was actually an old people's home. The old lady was about to speak, then I woke up feeling more than a little bewildered and surprisingly exhausted by the whole situation.

I think I may have "issues".

#oneaday, Day 168: Into Dreams

I was awoken this morning by the conclusion of a peculiar and very realistic-feeling dream. The details of said dream are fading a little now, making me wish I'd written this post sooner. But I shall attempt to explain what I remember. There's not actually that much.

I was in the dining room of my parents' house. I believe it was the dining room as it looked some years ago, i.e. when I was a kid, not how it looks now. It hasn't changed that much, but there's been a few additions, such as a couple of clocks and chairs that used to belong to my grandparents. Those things weren't there in the dream, at least I don't think so. Oh, does it matter? Probably not. The main point of the dream was not that I was in my parents' dining room. It was the fact that I was in there with two other people, the identities of which have slipped out of my mind for now. But I believe they were people you wouldn't expect to be doing what we were doing.

No, not that. Get your mind out of the gutter, you disgusting pervert.

We were singing. Specifically, we were singing Silent Night. A cappella. With improvised harmonies and counter-melodies. It was hauntingly beautiful in that slightly sinister and aggressive way that male voice choirs tend to be. As soon as the song finished, I woke up on the sofa I'd been sleeping on after a night of babysitting. (I know, right. Hardcore Saturday nights for the win.)

Bizarre. But not the most bizarre dream I've ever had.

I used to have several peculiar recurring dreams as a child. Both of them are utterly nonsensical in the way that only a child's dreams can be. I haven't had any recurring dreams like that for a long time. I actually kind of miss them a bit. Sort of. Although one of them was a bit scary.

The first involved a cuddly-toy pyjama case I had as a kid. This pyjama case was a brown bear from America and as such was appropriately named American Brown Bear. He was a cheerful-looking sort of bear; a bit skinny when he didn't have any pyjamas in his stomach, but otherwise he was fairly happy and smiley. So I have no idea why I found him so terrifying at night. Or indeed where this dream about him came from.

It would always be the same. I'd dream that I woke up and needed to get out of bed for some reason; perhaps to go to the toilet, or get a drink or something like that. Perhaps the context changed. But the need to get out of bed is a constant.

When I was a kid, I slept in a bedroom that required passing by a window to get from the bed to the door. In the dream, when I passed the window, American Brown Bear would leap out and shout something indecipherable which to this day I haven't worked out what it actually was, but sounded awfully like "MRS LINCOLN PUPPIES!", which of course makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. This is, of course, leaving aside the fact that my pyjama case was talking to me.

There was never any sort of satisfying conclusion to the dream. It usually woke me up. I never did find out what it meant.

The second recurring dream was more surreal. Yes, more.

I'd wake up in the dream and I'd be in a strange landscape. It'd always be night-time, the sky a shade of dark navy blue with stars and a crescent moon. It always looked more like an artist's rendition of "night-time" rather than a realistic image. I believe it may well have been based on the image there was in a print of a painting we had on our landing. I forget the name of it or indeed who it was by. But I have a feeling that was the kind of image.

Anyway, that wasn't the weird thing. The weird thing was the fact that there was a silhouette of a tree in the distance (which I was shocked to discover ended up marking the end point of the first level of Flower on the PS3—yes, it totally was the same tree and I wasn't just projecting my childhood memories onto it at all, dammit) and in front of the tree there was a field I had to get through. Yes, had to. Because I really needed to get to that tree. I don't know why, and I never did. Because the field in question was made of strawberry mousse, high up to the height of those fields of sunflowers you see in zombie movies. Strawberry fields forever, quite literally. The only way through was to eat it. I could have dug through, probably, but I'd get my hands all sticky.

Inevitably, I'd end up getting lost, despite reaching the tree only necessitating travelling in a straight line for a considerable period of time. At the point I got lost, I'd rise up above the mousse-field and see how far I had to go, and the path I'd carved (eaten). It always twisted and turned inexplicably, and I was never anywhere near the tree. Then I'd wake up.

So there you are. Childhood recurring dreams… nightmares, whatever. Perhaps they might explain a few things? Or perhaps not.