30/10/06 Dream

I'm in a bar with H and her ex-hubby. It's one of those Old Orleans places with dark wood and expensive bar prices and lots of floorspace and not many people. I don't remember what we talked about or even if everyone was happy or sad. I just remember waking up and thinking "oooooooooooo".

I'm not sure what the dream meant but it must have been due to a) goading H on someone's blog the day before and b) visiting an Old Orleans on Sunday.

Literal dream. That's more like it.

Bison?

I'm walking along in a city with Tuffy P. We come upon a fenced off area, with split rail fence and pastureland inside. A lone bison is standing there, about 30 feet away. Tuffy walks ahead of me for some reason and the bison looks at me and charges, leaping the fence, and starts chasing me around cars and poles and other obstacles. It becomes obvious that the bison means me no harm, that this is a game. We make friends. Tuffy walks over and the bison is lying on the ground beside me and I'm scratching its neck. The bison speaks to me telepathically in a cartoon voice, and tells me he is bored to tears, he doesn't have a companion, and he misses Pierre Elliot Trudeau. I wake up.

I See Blog People

Last night's dream progressed as follows:

I had arrived at my Dad's house in South Africa on a visit to find that two blog pals - *(asterisk) and Red were already there waiting for me. This was bizarre and I said as much to them because they are Blog People. We don't know each other beyond what we read on blogger. ANYway... they said that they had come to help me out while I was visiting my dad because they thought it would be tough for me.

I decided to show them round. I took them to my dad's vegetable patch, which in reality is fenced in, but where the patch was, I saw a field filled with black and white two-tone lambs. I turned to them and said, "This isn't right. The fence is gone. This is a dream, isn't it?"

I looked back at the field and one lamb had been killed - neck ripped out - by a wild dog.

I told them we'd best go let my dad know that one of his lambs is dead.

We went indoors and the kitchen was massive. *(asterisk) asked for a cup of tea, and I told him he was more than welcome to help himself since that's the policy if we like our guests - they get get a free pass to the fridge. Red wandered into the pantry and said there was nothing there. I followed her and it was empty.

Just then my dad appeared at the kitchen door and I gave him a great big hug. I forgot all about the lamb and the empty pantry. Then I woke up.

work-related grudge dream

after months and months and months of not remembering my dreams, the first dream i remember is work-related and completely dumb. but there you go, that's what it's like being a neurotic workaholic.

months (MONTHS!) ago i did a cute little animated postcard, which was nixed by the senior directors of my company for being too provocative. in my dream, one of the senior directors find a very very similar postcard online, and comes to tell me about how some idiot organization out there is using the concept that we so cleverly avoided. it turns out the idiot organization is just another branch of our ngo, and that the postcard is very successful. i smile to myself and feel a warm glow of satisfaction.

dumb, dumb, dumb.

10/10/06 Nightmare

I awake breathing hard, from a dream where an unknown cat is trying to swallow my fingers. It chews down hard on my digits, cracking finger bones, blood pouring from puncture wounds. Truly horrible.

Stumbling downstairs, I am confronted by Hunter, waiting to be fed.

*shudder*

Sex me up big daddy!

Here it is ..
in my dream I'm laying in bed..and cute as hell!..( normally i aint all that..but this is a dream!)

and In walks Ron and he starts talking to me with a bad spanish accent..

Hello Ceentheeah..
i am here to geeeve you the ultimate pleasure , that only I.. the Fluffy, can geeeve.

are you ready for my manly luff?

And I woke up laughing..

Did i mention that he had on a thong..? yeah..red
yummy man meat dreams ..

Tattoo you

My dream last night involved my tattooist asking me to tattoo him.

Why he would ask me is a mystery.

He chose a very small design, about an inch high, and wanted it on his upper arm. He had no other tattoos visible, which of course is silly because he is, in reality, fully sleeved up.

However, before he would let me loose he needed to check something. You'd think he want to test my artistic ability first, wouldn't you? But no: he needed to check that there was no gunky matter coming out of my ear piercings.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Falling

It's been a while since I had one of those dreams were you dream you're falling and suddenly wake with a heart thumping jolt. I guess the image below reminded me how bad they are!

4/10/06 Dream

I'm going to have to start writing these damn things properly. The piece of paper by the bed, where I jotted the dream down just says:

With Will @ comedy club. Louise - chips. She talks to Sasha.

Now Will is of course Wichita Willis from The Customers, who I went to college with. As is Louise, an ex-girlfriend from college. Who appears to be talking to my dear partner. I remember it being a weird-ass dream, significant enough to jot down in half-sleep...but I'm really going to need more details.

Irritating dream

I'm trying to dial the phone..
except the phone has gone all weird..numbers are all mixed up, missing some buttons.
and my fingers are too big and i keep messing up and having to start over.
thats it..
me constantly trying to make a call., over and over..
who in the world was i calling?

1/10/06 Dream

I'm in school, for some reason, even though I'm an adult. Sitting next to me is the shockingly pretty sixth-form girl who gets the same bus to work as me most mornings. We're trying to do some difficult tables or sums or something, and it makes us laugh as I'm clearly getting the whole thing wrong. She wrenches the book from me and starts to correct it, as I look round to make sure the teacher isn't watching us. She gets (from somewhere) a wet sponge and wipes it across the written pages of my exercise book, as if this is going to fix the problem.

And then I wake up.

And then I go to sleep again.

And for some reason dream about a cartoon cow which is attached to a milking machine and is sucked of all it's milk, leaving it wizened and skinny, only the next moment to be pumped back full of it's own milk until it is large and bloated like a beach ball with little legs and udders.

And then I wake up properly.

Doesnt take a rocket scientist

..This dream is crazy....I must have left CNN on while I slept.

I'm on a big luxury boat, it's lovely, but ominous..i'm walking around exploring, and I see Kim Jong-il !..I think, this is crazy ..
I walk over to where he is and he looks at his watch..he's wearing a nice watch but it only has half a face....
he looks up and smiles at me ..
I feel scared but i think, we're on a boat what can he do really ? ( its a dream people..why a boat would be safe is beyond me )
He looks at me and smiles
Then slowly lifts a crossbow and takes aim..at me !

Recurring Dream Films

I have two favourite recurring dream films. Well OK, one is a TV thing...but you know what I mean.

Dead Of Night (1945)

Architect Walter Craig, seeking the possibility of some work at a country farmhouse, soon finds himself once again stuck in his recurring nightmare. Dreading the end of the dream that he knows is coming, he must first listen to all the assembled guests' own bizarre tales.

(from imdb)

This is a standard anthology horror film, little stories linked by a framing story - the recurring nightmare. One of the stories is quite famous - it's the one where the ventriloquist dummy comes to life. But the framing story is just excellent and really chilling, as the architect realises he is stuck in the loop of the recurring nightmare and even predicts things that will happen later in the film. Go seek it out.

Hammer House Of Horror: Rude Awakening (1980)

The real estate agent Norman Shenley (Denholm Elliott) hates his old wife Emily Shenley (Pat Heywood) and wants to divorce her to marry his secretary Lolly (Lucy Gutteridge). When a new client wants to sell an old and isolated mansion, Norman begins to have odd nightmares, and he becomes confused between reality and dream. When Norman awakes, a surprise waits for him.

(from imdb)

This really gives me the willies. Denholm Elliot is just awesome, and as his confusion and desperation rises, the whole thing is just frightening in the great way those seventies/eighties horrors do. The cycle of his recurring nightmare goes on and on with similar scenarios, but with people playing different roles each time. Track this down, I think there's a box set DVD somewhere with it in.

Now I look at these two films together, it looks like the older influenced the younger. Or maybe it's just coincidence.

(I have a recurring nightmare I've had since I was around 6. I hardly have it anymore, but I'm not ready to share it yet.)

Work anxiety dream

Although I dream quite a bit, they tend to be very fugitive once I awake. Here is a curious one that stands out in my mind though. This dream has happened a couple times. I dream that I am dreaming but my dream is cut short by my alarm clock. It is time to get up for work. I dream that I think it can't be time to get up for work because I'm too tired. I dream that I sit up in bed and look at my clock to confirm that yes, it is that unhappy time.

Then I actually get up, shut off my alarm (that I have dreamt is ringing), and actually stagger off to the shower..... On both occasions I have showered and have been half dressed before I realize it is something like 2:00 in the morning and I have become way dislocated in time. On both occasions, I'm sure the dream was related to some kind of work anxiety.

This was so odd

I do not dream often , or i just never remember them ..
But last night..
I was staying at some really posh hotel..and i grabbed two towels to go take a shower..
I just wandered all over the hotel looking for a shower..
And it was that really spooky irritating slooooooow mooootion walk.
And yes i was fully clothed in my dream..
Thats it..just me walking all over a hotel looking for a shower..
god

OK - this one's for the books

I have in the past kept dream journals and I have really bizarre dreams. Last night's is up there with the uber-weird.

In the dream I am with a much younger partner (who is not Kate) and we go to a mixed gay/lesbian club called Extreme. Mostly lesbians in the club. I don't like the club, but my unnamed partner is very happy to join in. She makes a play for other women while I am in plain view of her.

My parents as well as my sister and a new boyfriend are also at the club. I go to them and we talk. They want to leave the club as they don't feel comfortable. So I go find my partner and she's with a group of young ladies and is clearly not interested in me. I say: "We're going." She says "Stop being a stromo," (which I took to mean a stroppy homo... no idea...). I respond with, "You and me? We're over." I walk off to find my family.

I ask my sister and her boyfriend to stop by the apartment I share with this partner. I tell them I am leaving her and I am packing up. They take me to the apartment, I walk in and there are these big steal coffins with pipes siphoning blood coming out of them. These tall women in black PVC are overseeing the operation. (Very menacing and very Silent Hill, even though I've only ever seen the trailer for the movie) I tell them I am here for my stuff. They say our bedroom has been turned into an operating theatre - I check and it is - and my stuff's in the kitchen. My sister and I go to the kitchen and I grab the essentials, I just want to leave and don't mind leaving stuff behind because stuff is replaceable. I throw a fit about a bottle of brandy I bought which the partner has drunk most of. As we leave, the partner arrives with a new conquest and demands to know what I am doing.

I wake up.

3/9/06 Dream

I guess since giving up the sauce over the summer, it was inevitable I would have a dream like this...

I'm entertaining at home - some kind of house party. And in the kitchen I pour wine for everyone, and then, on automatic, test one to see how it is. Then I take a tray of glasses of wine back through to the guests.

Pretty boring dream. But I've spent the last few days confused as to whether it really happened, or was a dream. The sensation was extremely vivid. And I've had a feeling of disappointment in myself. That I let myself down. Even though...it only happened in a dream.

(for the record & those who don't already know, the whole giving-up-drinking thing was not a medical, religious, moral or AA based decision. And in truth it would make no difference if I started again...apart from the snoring).

Childhood nightmare

I'm lucky I have rarely had nightmare's however one sticks firmly in my mid form when I was about 6 or 7 years old. It's one of the few times I have actually woken up screaming from a dream to find myself being comforted by someone.

It was set in the next village along from where I grew up, and I was alone, next to this river surrounded by lush pasture. Alone except for two dogs on the opposite bank of the river. Not ordinary dogs but ones which had huge fangs which were dripping drool and saliva everywhere. I shouted out for help. Then I remembered everyone else in the surrounding villages were dead, having caught rabies from these dogs. I have vague memories of the dogs jumping into the water and almost catching up with me as I ran. That's when I woke up, o maybe was woken up ny my mother.

It might explain why I still feel nervous around dogs. I think the dream was a result of those public information films they used to show at the time of people coming in to land on a deserted beach with a dog. The story behind the film being that they had been abroad, and had brought their dog back with them secretly without going into quarantine.

Metal and models

(Note: The boys from metal band Trivium kept popping up throughout this dream at the most inopportune moments, discussing what the best tracks for their forthcoming album would be.)

I have made it to the final five contestants in Britain's Next Top Model, and today's task consists in putting on a full face of make-up in five minutes. As soon as a faceless task-master shouts "Go!", we all head to the pile of make-up products in the corner. When I look around me, I realize that I am the only one who has picked a certain brand. I succumb to peer pressure, return to the make-up pile and choose what everybody else has chosen. I feel very uncomfortable, partly because I know that after this task we'll be asked to remove the make-up and do a close-up beauty shot au naturel. I am concerned that my skin is not up to the scrutiny of the camera.

Just as I am about to start putting my make-up on, the contestant who was voted out in the previous week comes crying into the room. She makes a beeline for me and, still sobbing, she goes on to tell me how unfair it was that she was booted out. I don't know if she implies that I deserved to be the one to go, but I just try to console her and tell her that I myself have no hope of making it to the final two, and that it's been a good experience that will serve us well in the future anyway.

Then, a fellow blogger I have never met in person (but of whom I have seen pictures) pops up. She has amazing teeth. I am hypnotized by them, they are so white. I compliment her on them, but on closer inspection it is not the teeth that are white, but the fabulous clenching inhibitor she is wearing. I am in awe of it: mine is nowhere near as flashy as this. Then I notice it really sticks out at the front, like the lip of that Indian chief who used to hang out with Sting. And I think to myself, "That can't be comfortable."

Gangs and trains

A small group of gangsters is sitting on the sofas and enjoying drinks in a club. A party of young girls (in paper hats) and guys moves from their table to the dancefloor, but in doing so, they cross in front of the gangsters, which the latter take as a personal slight.

They decide to exact their revenge. The two main guys go to the bathroom to weapon up. Now I can see that the leader is French actor Vincent Cassell and I am the other guy. Vincent is looking for the weapons he had stashed in the bathroom a few days before, but he can't find them. However, there are two brass golf clubs hanging on the back of the door, so we arm ourselves with these. We separate.

Now I'm on my own, looking to smash in the head of people who have done nothing to me. I also realize I'm in the corridor of my school in Italy, which runs all around the perimeter of the building, around an internal courtyard. I don't have a beef with anybody, so I dive into another bathroom and splash some water on my face. All the toilets are blocked with small chunks of burned wood, and overflowing.

Next, I'm looking down two train tracks. A train is coming towards me, and I can see a black man on a stretcher as he falls from the train on to the tracks. Fortunately, the stretcher remains upright and the man is not injured (further). However, the stretcher has now become a runaway vehicle on the tracks. Another train approaches; it's on a collision course with the stretcher, but the latter somehow manages to pass underneath the train carriage. Then a man comes out of his car and stops the stretcher.