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.