A Dream Diary #12 - January 2023

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

I am designing and building old fashioned wooden signposts using only code. I finish one and upload it to a webpage, which features thumbnails for various books and other signposts. I zoom in on one of the signposts. It reads ‘Way out’.

Another battle, running around a broken landscape, hunting from alien forces, hiding from them, watching others on my side being cut down all around me. So tired, but have to keep going.

I’m supposed to be meeting someone, I’m not sure who, but I know it is important, perhaps potentially life-changing. Problem is, I don’t know where I should be going to meet them. My only hope is a voodoo doll I have of the person I’m supposed to meet.  I pour all my love and blessing into it, hoping it will lead me in the right direction.

So cold. I squeeze my body into a tight ball, contract my muscles so hard that my left foot cramps. But still the chilly draughts sweep over my skin.

I wake in a vast building with glass walls and many beds.  I take an escalator down to the ground floor, a large, airy room filled with dining tables and crowds of people bustling around. At one table I recognise a group of people as my teammates, and sit with them. Some of them look pretty beat up. I realise this must be some kind of hospital – or at least, it’s being used as one. I ask after their wellbeing. They’re all feeling very down and seem to have given up hope. I get some food from the buffet, then return to sit with them again. A few of them have now been led away for further treatment. The food is filling, but hardly appetising, and the plastic tray it is served in makes it even less appealling. As I eat, there is a disturbance at the main entrance. A short man outside the glass door is arguing with security guards inside. He pulls out an automatic rifle and enters, aiming it wildly round at all of us, telling us to stay calm and not move. The building and everyone in it has been taken hostage. For what reason, I don’t know, but more masked people with guns come down the escalators and through other doors to surround us. For what seems hours we mill about glumly, whispering escape plans to each other, wondering if there is anyone left in the outside world to come and save us.

A strong, dank woody smell. I open my eyes to peer through a dark and grainy hole. Outside, the world is continuing as normal; people walking their dogs and children around the park. I try to call to them, but nothing comes out.

I’m living in a large, old house with many winding rooms, waiting for people to come round. I hear the doorbell ring and head for the front hall, but as I walk I notice an uncomfortably wet and lumpy sensation in my trousers. I know without looking that I must have soiled myself, so duck into the ground floor toilet to clean myself up before the visitors arrive. Carefully I strip off my shorts and boxers, placing them in the sink and running hot water over them. Then I sit on the toilet to wipe myself. It feels wrong. I look down and realise the toilet is facing the wrong way, and is disconnected from the cistern. My housemate must have been doing some kind of maintenance on it and has left it unfinished.

A friend and I have started playing acoustic gigs in the neighbourhood. We are invited to the house of an infamous ‘business leader’ to play for him. As soon as we step through the front door, I feel something is wrong. There is an air of danger about the place. Two of his men bustle us through to the living room, where we unpack our instruments - my friend a synth, myself a guitar. But he doesn’t ask us to play. He seems to just want to ask questions and examine our instruments. He takes hold of my guitar. I want to tell him to put it down, but I’m afraid of what he might do, so have no choice but let him molest it. He flips it round hastily in his hands. Part of it falls off, but he doesn’t even notice. When he isn’t looking, I pick it up and slip it in my pocket. He tells us that he has to go to a meeting, and asks if we can return later. We say yes, and leave, eager to get out of the house. Outside, the air tastes cleaner and more welcoming than ever before.

I am sitting in the lounge watching television with my housemate. Suddenly she looks at the floor, worried, and says ‘Don’t look. It’s huge.’ I know what that means – spider. I peer cautiously around the objects on the floor, trying to spot it without letting it see me. It must be very big if my housemate isn’t even prepared to do something about it. She leaves the room to get a drink, avoiding going anywhere near where it might be. Curiosity gets the better of me. I get slowly down from the sofa, still looking for the spider. There is a sudden movement to my right, something scuttling behind an upturned white-mesh basket. I peer closer. At opposite sides of the basket – some two feet wide – I notice two knuckle-like protuberances. At a safe distance, I move around the basket, then finally see it, stretched across the opening. Dirty white and woody – like a cross between a parsnip and a spider. I stare in awe-filled horror a moment, then climb back on the sofa, leaving it do to whatever it needs to.

A knot of wood opens before me onto a tree-filled glade. A deep, ancient voice asks if I am all right. It sounds genuinely concerned. I am not sure, but tell it that I am. It asks if there is anything I need, anything it can get me. I think about this. I am not hungry or thirsty – something seems to be taking care of that for me. I need no entertainment, nor am I am interested in what is happening out there. I remember people though, people I know. Perhaps even cared about. At the very least, seeing their words, their images again, would be… I don't know - emotional, in some way. A pleasant feeling? "My phone," I say. "I would like my phone." All is quiet a while, the only sounds a nearby rustling of leaves and branches, and the distant chirrupping of what might be children playing. The voice returns, tells me this will be fine. There is a fluttering of wings, a flash of black and white descending from the branches and gliding away. "It might need charging," I call out. Time passes. Snows fall; rains thaw ice; sun dries rain. I watch it all, impassive, uninterested. More fluttering, and a beak prods something through the opening. My phone. I pick it up; turn it on; browse the unread messages. There aren't many, but they seem worried. I reply, reassuring them. Everything is all right now. Don't worry. Then I check the news. Greed, deceit, intolerance, hatred, violence, inequality, devastation, callousness, incompetence. I push the phone back through the hole and hear it drop to the floor. The grass will grow over it, soon enough.

I am in an abandoned warehouse, taking down enemies and looking for something…