Trenches

In my dream last night, I was digging a trench for some pipes.

This would make the dream very unusual and weird indeed, because usually in dreams things are weird and unusual. What could be more mundane and usual than digging a trench for some pipes?

Well, it was slightly odd, because there were a lot of women standing around wearing strange burgundy-coloured outfits that covered them from head to toe, except for two holes, one for each breast.

And instead of using a spade to excavate my trench, I was using an enormous cucumber, that had a “1st Prize” sticker on it – obviously won at a village fete or similar event.

Moreover, the sky was filled with a hordes of squawking parrots, who were shitting fluorescent green poo over everything and everyone. The breasts were all getting speckled with green poo.

I *think* (but I’m not sure) that the reason I was digging a trench for the pipes was to supply a nearby set of shower cubicles to which I could direct all the women, who would be glad to disrobe and clean off all the fluorescent guano.

Freaked Out

Sometimes you have to be very tough as a parent. Muffet just emerged from her bedroom, shortly after having been put to bed. I asked her what the matter was. She said “I dreamed, no I was falling asleep, and I felt two hands on my shoulders, and I thought it was you. But then I heard a voice say ‘Your Daddy is already with us’”.

Jeepers creepers: I felt a chill go down my spine, and I had quite a job not showing it! Aaaarrrrggggh!

Proposal Madness

I am listy today:

1) mad mad mad last minute text for doomed proposal and deadlines in, like, five femtoseconds

2) I got trounced by sarahparah last night on the Oscar picks. My choices sucked huge donkeys’ dicks and I only got six right.

3) Summary of the Oscars: boring films and nobody gives a monkey’s. The dresses were awful, just awful.

4) More vivid dreams: I was organising an expedition for conferences attendees, and had to marshall everybody into a set of tour buses. But people kept getting in the wrong ones. And finally, when they were all settled, there was no place for me, and I had to follow along in a beat up old Jeep Grand Cherokee, that had been completely stripped of all interior fittings, but which somehow worked just fine.

French Garage

I had a dream this morning, just before I woke up. I could say it was weird, but I’d be fibbing. I could say it was interesting, but I’d be fibbing there, too. But it has stuck in my mind.

I’m in central France somewhere, driving my pale blue Renault 12 (in fact the Renault 12 I used to have was dark blue, but my folks used to have a pale blue model, and it is that which I’m driving). I need to park somewhere because I’ve got an appointment. I pull into this typical French rural garage: a few petrol pumps, rusty 2CVs, scrap metal, old engines, dilapidated shacks, the whole place sort of encroaching onto neighbouring fields. There’s plenty of space, so I park the car. Almost immediately I’m back at the garage, after my appointment (which the dream tells me nothing about), and trying to find my Renault. It’s not there. Dusk is falling and it’s clear I have only a limited amount of time before the garage shuts. I go into what looks like the main building. Inside it’s a little like Home depot: a warehouse, with chaps in overalls wandering about, checking out. There’s a metal counter, with an old guy in a machinist’s coat (like a white lab coat, except grey), and he’s ticking off items on a clipboard. He comes towards me and I say “Excuse me, but I parked my car here earlier and I can’t find it!”. He says something like “Well, that’s a coincidence, because I’m just dealing with our pound cars, come with me.”

So we walk out together to another building and inside there he consults his clipboard, and I can see the words “Renault, blue” and he’s placing a tick mark next to it. I then see him write “200 FF” (200 French Francs) next to the mark, and I realise he’s going to charge me. Before I can protest he turns to a stack of denim shirst that are embroidered with the logo of the garage, and he starts leafing through them, saying “Is Medium alright?”. And I say “No, XL please.” At that point I realise that I’m going to have to pay 200FF but I will get a nice denim shirt, and so somehow that seems alright. The dream ended there.

I have been left with the feeling that this dream is telling me that I should move into the parking lot business, with the embroidered shirts as a salve for the exhorbitant rates I should charge.

Linda Barker

This morning S and I were having the giggles as we walked into work, doing impersonations of Linda Barker: “I’ve just coated these shutters in scumbal glaze, and I think it works really, really well!” [You have to say it in a northern accent, otherwise it doesn't work].

I had a dream last night about gfrancie! No, not *that* sort of dream In fact, to be perfectly frank (not my real name), it’s the first time I’ve dreamt about an LJ friend who I haven’t actually met. In the dream, I was supposed to be meeting gfrancie at a busy station or airport or some place with a lot of people milling around. I saw her in the distance, before she saw me. She was standing at the top of an escalator, in a crowd of people. She had a lovely smile on her face, and she was sort of bathed in light, like as if there was a spotlight on her. She looked très sympathique.

Go figure.

Lucid Dreams

I had a lucid dream once, as a boy. In my dream, I slowly became aware I was dreaming. I realised that I could take something from my dream, and wake up with it. I saw a beautiful Ming vase on the ground, in my dream, near my feet, and I picked it up, thinking that my Mum would be so amazed and delighted if I brought it back from my dream and gave it to her. So I clutched the vase tightly to my chest, and woke up. Sure enough, when I woke, I had the vase! I put it down on my bedside table, and lay in my bed admiring its beauty: it was very richly decorated in red and gold images, with Chinese ladies standing around with parasols. It was so beautiful and obviously valuable, it was going to make my Mum so happy when I gave it her in the morning. Presently I fell to sleep, admiring the vase.

When I really woke up, the vase was (of course) gone.

After that, I went to the library to find any book at all that talked about the sort of dream I had had. Eventually I found a book by Celia Green called “Lucid Dreams”, which I read avidly.

One true story in that book sticks in my mind. Basically, two chaps were each regular lucid dreamers, and in their waking lives often discussed their dreams. They agreed that, the next time they had a lucid dream, they would try to meet the other in the dream. This actually worked … they met one another in their respective lucid dreams and had a conversation. On waking and meeting the following day, their recollections of the conversation they’d had in their lucid dreams matched in every detail!

My reaction now, on remembering this, is: balderdash and poppycock! But it amazed and impressed me at the time. Unhappily, since reading Celia Green’s book, I have never had a lucid dream.

What would you do in a lucid dream? The possibilities are endless and very exciting.