A Dream Diary #6 - July 2022

Photo by David Clode on Unsplash

What a month! I feel entirely energised, as if new blood is pumping through my veins. My dreams have returned in force and, what’s more, I remembered every single one of them, every day, for the entire month.

There have been many changes in my life of late. Perhaps it was simply the stress of them causing some blockage in my brain. Maybe I just needed some time to regain my balance, get used to a new schedule. The blockage has now been completely destroyed. I no longer feel I am fighting against my brain as I try to remember the strange and surreal lands I visit every night. The memories come swift and sharp, as if I have actually lived them out.

An observation I’ve made since regaining this ability is that much of the sense that I make of my dreams is created afterwards, as I remember them. My brain cannot help adding information that was never present in the dream itself. For example, the entry on 29.7.22 describes an ‘alien planet’. Other than the other-worldliness of the location, there was nothing in the dream itself that explicitly told me the setting was an alien planet – this is just the best guess my mind could come up with afterwards. I wonder how much we do this with our other memories too - those from what we consider our lived experience? How many details of our ‘real life’ are in fact added in post-hoc, by brains that need to make more sense of them than ever really exists?

1.7.22
I am walking on a path in Maypole Green, Colchester. Ahead of me, the path is lined by two wooden fences I have never noticed before. There are a couple of people ahead of me, walking between the fences. As I follow them between the sharply rising structures, I realise they are built into two hillsides, which narrow and deform the fences. The person ahead is making slow progress, squeezing through the rocks on either side. Stupidly, I light a cigarette and squeeze through behind them, arms in the air to make it easier to fit. The path grows narrower as I continue. I wonder if, at the end, there will be a huge line of people, unable to make any further progress.

2.7.22
I arrive at a bus station – a small, brown building that looks more like an old fashioned dweet shop from the outside. A metal sign over the door reveals the name, Palmer’s Green. I think it must be the one I need, so I enter. The inside looks like an old fashioned sweet shop too: a tiny room with three assistants sat behind a small counter, with rows of bottles behind them, and a small queue of people in front. I join the queue, then realise I don’t have my wallet with me. Bob Mortimer is behind me in the queue. I ask him if he has seen my wallet. He shrugs, and says I probably left it at home. So I leave the building, and find myself in an ice cave below a motorway. There is an alligator here as well, and a few human corpses. I do not fear it, but sidle along the wall out of its way to be on the safe side.

3.7.22
I am in a huge, sprawling fortress at night. A great battle is raging between two armies, one in green uniforms, the other brown. I am fighting alone, but on the side of the greens. Running and jumping from room to room; sliding behind doorways to attack with the element of surprise; clambering up ruined towers. The tide of the fight shifts constantly; rooms full of browns are soon replaced by greens, but when I return a while later the browns are back again.

4.7.22
I am cycling home along a narrow cycle path. I catch up with a young teen, on a scooter. He is swerving all over the path ahead, taking up all the space. I slow down, cycling patiently behind. He turns round, sees me, and slows down as well – on the wrong side of the path. I slow down more, hoping he will realise his mistake and move to the other side. This time, he stops completely, waiting for me to overtake. I slow down more, and fall off the bike, but the teen helps me back up. I am surprised by this, but thank him, before getting back on my cycle and riding away.

5.7.22
I am in a building that seems to be both a supermarket and a garage, carrying a large pile of wooden pallets. I drop the pallets into a wood chipper, but they emerge on the other side, unharmed. As I pick them up again, I find a porcelain model of a dog the size of my hand. The dog is missing its head, and I remember then that I had accidentally knocked it off a friend’s shelf a few weeks ago. I kept it to return to them, but have no idea how it ended up here. I’m tempted to visit the garage and ask them to check the tyres on my bike, but decide instead to return the porcelain dog to my friend.

6.7.22
I meet up with an old friend in a dark castle, which is also some kind of hostel. We make plans for the evening: I decide to go into town, and arrange to meet him later. I pack everything I need into my rucksack, making sure I know where my phone is in case I need to contact him, then head outside. I am in a rowboat, trying to cross a large tract of grey-brown tidal water get to the main town – I know the place well, I have been here many times before – but the current is sweeping me towards another cluster of tall buildings in the wrong direction. I realise I need to row the boat, so pick up the oars and force them back against the current. I am surprised how easy I find it to row against them, considering the speed with which they were carrying the boat, and soon make dock in the town. I go first to a board game shop – there is one in particular I want to get, for us to play later. Entering the shop, I am surprised at how few customers there are, and also that one assistant has parked a trolley directly in everyone’s way, and is busy tossing a heap of old plastic bags and boxes into it. I walk around this obstruction to the area where the game I want should be, but as soon as I get there the lights go out. I realise it is much later than I thought, and the shop is closing.  I cannot see the game I want anyway, so decide to leave. It wasn’t that important. Outside, I rummage inside my backpack trying to find my phone. It isn’t where I thought I had put it, but eventually I find it. There is a message from my friend, but it makes little sense. This doesn’t surprise me. I reply, asking where he is and if he wants to meet up early. I go to a café to wait for him.

7.7.22
I’m trying to navigate colourful platforms high up in the sky, jumping from one to the next as they swing around me. Like being trapped in a kaleidoscope.

9.7.22
I am visiting a lecturer from the university I work at. She is older than me, and appears to be married to the actor Geoffrey McGivern. They are planning lots of renovations to their house, and she shows me the plans. A few workmen are already wandering round the place. I can tell from the way she behaves with all of us that she is likely polyamorous. I have no idea if Geoffrey realises this, and feel a bit sorry for him. I tell him that I thought he was really good in the film The Ghoul, to make him feel better, just in case. I am then in a tall and wide glass building filled with control desks, overlooking a nest of pylons and electrical boxes that stretches some way across the land ahead. I am here with a partner, to sabotage the building. As we place our charges, someone outside notices us and begins shooting up at the window. I put on my parachute, edge out onto a narrow rail and jump off, floating down to the ground while trying to avoid incoming bullets. I then escape by running away up the road. In a dark and empty art gallery, I am studying three sculptures on a black table. One is of a thin man’s face, and coloured orange; the next blue, and of a stern woman’s face; the third red, and of a chubby man with glasses. I realise that these are my next targets. I leave the art gallery and go to the location where the first man should be: it is a very hilly area, but seems completely empty. He sees me arriving, and sets a herd of dinosaurs on me, which charge towards me. I have no choice but shoot them before taking him down as well. I then go after the next target, the chubby man with glasses. I find him outside a building in town, and am alarmed to see he has someone with him who looks exactly like me. I follow them to a hotel, then barge into their room to confront them. Realising he had planned to kill me and replace me with the lookalike, I spend some time teaching the lookalike to act just like me, and we all reach a silent agreement not to kill each other. It could be handy, having a double.

10.7.22
I am at a theme park that is also a coastal town, looking for two ex-lovers who are both there as well. I find them together on a bench, talking like old friends. I’m surprised but pleased they have found each other and are getting on. I still hold a flame for one though, and spend much of the time trying to get her attention. She is too caught up in everything that is going on around us. I decide to leave them for a while, and arrange to meet up later that day. I wander round the amusements on my own, but don’t feel any urge to have a go on any. I return to the others, and find them on a different bench overlook a large lawn. Another person is with them now, a man I don’t know, and I grow jealous, and more determined than ever to win back my love. So it is, the whole charade plays out again.  

11.7.22
I am outside a countryside cottage, painting its image on a canvas. A blue-haired cat jumps onto the stool beside me, and I stop painting to give it a stroke. I go to work in a warehouse that is also a supermarket. As I arrive somebody says ‘This is the life, isn’t it?’ I’m not sure I agree. I start moving barrels of goods down to their correct shelves, then notice Roisin Conaty sitting on a sofa. I sit down next to her, and we talk for a while. I invite her back to mine for drinks, and am delighted when she agrees. I am now at home, telling my housemate about the dream I had involving the cottage and the cat. They say the cat is a sign of good luck.

12.7.22
While driving down a house-lined street, an old man steps out into the road in front of my car. I stare at him, and realise I know them. Getting out of the car, I ask where he is going. He says he doesn’t know, but I can go into their house and stay there until he gets back. I enter the house through the front door, into a small hallway. When I close the door, an electronic beeping begins. Thinking the burglar alarm is about to go off, I try entering what I think is the code but it has no effect. The beeping grows louder. I realise it isn’t coming from the burglar alarm at all, but from somewhere upstairs. I start to ascend, and the noise grows into a fiercely loud alarm. Smoke is curling down the staircase from the upper floor. I turn to escape, but discover that the fire has now broken out below as well.

13.7.22
I’m in a dingy landscape of country roads, swamps and hills, battling off strange flying creatures with a sword. The fight has been going on forever, and I’m extremely tired, but I only have a few more to kill before the creature’s master appears. I wipe the sword clean and wait. A huge form lumbers out from between two hills, a lumpy rock golem. It is massive, and there is no way I can destroy it with my weapon. This is not what I signed up for. I decide to return later, when better prepared. I am now in a house, at night, with a few other people, making plans. My hair, I realise, is much longer than usual, and there appears to be a shock of green running through the strands hanging over my eyeline. I tease the hair with my fingers – the green appears to be some kind of moss. I leave it alone – I like how it looks.

16.7.22
A plate with three skulls on, surrounded by candles and flowers in a cave. Was I in Mexico?

17.7.22
I am controlling two bands of colour in my mind. They seem to be able to reset aspects of people’s lives. I find no real use for them.

18.7.22
I arrive at an air base, with a hangar shaped like a huge mobile home. Realising I deperately need the toilet, I go straight to the bathroom, but inside there is too much junk to climb through. I can just about see the top of the toilet, and on it, there is a deep, square wooden box. A web stretches down from the ceiling into it, and I worry that there must be a spider somewhere too. Climbing carefully over the piles of old furniture and chocolate wrappers, I see little coccoons dotted over the web. As I watch, they hatch open, and creatures curl themselves out, winged, with eight spidery legs. I clamber back over the rubbish, getting out of the room as fast as I can.

19.7.22
Trails of ants, climbing everywhere. Over the walls, the furniture, and all over me as well. I am not worried, or frightened – they are just doing what ants do. We are all part of the same experience.

20.7.22
I’m on a coach trip in another country. The coach climbs up a spiralling road like a helter skelter.  Below, I see an immense octagonal building, which seems to be rotating.

21.7.22
An ex-lover and I are on the run in a grass-covered area of land. People are hunting us, but I don’t know why. We enter a plush apartment, looking for clues. On the bed is a black duvet, lumpy and swollen. I pull back the covers to find two people, a man and a woman. They are both dead, holding each other, their bodies covered in dried blood. The bedclothes are alose covered in it, all matted and crunchy. A single knife lies beside the bodies. Definitely some kind of suicide pact, I conclude.

22.7.22
Three jagged blue lines on a piece of paper. I can stretch and squash them just by thinking about it.

23.7.22
I am on holiday in a large town. I must have made a lot of new friends because I keep talking to people I don’t recognise at all as if we know each other well – and their families too. We are in some kind of small hotel for a while, then a couple of us go for a bike ride around the town. My cycle is tiny though  - I have to pedal ridiculously hard to get anywhere. In the end I fold it up and put it in my pocket. We look for shops of interest to us, but find ourselves at the base of a large pointed hill. As we begin the climb, I am aware of something following us. Now and then I catch a glimpse of it behind – a large black dog. We walk faster, but I am sure it is following still. We finally get back to town, and to the hotel. There are bodies lying all around. The victims of the dog? We go out onto the roof. The dog comes bounding after us - not just one though. Two of them. We try to fight them off with our bare hands, but it is difficult as they keep turning invisible.

24.7.22
Some kind of beige and white panels on a screen with instructions on how to draw images. I keep reading it over and over again, but still can’t seem to understand it.

25.7.22
I’m sitting at a large banquet table, too large for the cramped room it is in. Next to me is an old friend I haven’t seen in over two decades, and many younger people that I don’t recognise. On a stage at the end of the room a band begins to play an old punk song that I remember well. The musicians are also young, no more than teenagers, and I’m surprised they know the song at all. They play it well though, and do it justice. I tell my friend I'm impressed with them, and he is smugly pleased. He is a big fan of punk music, and I get the impression he is the band’s manager. He goes and sits at the end of the table, to talk to the other guests. The room is too cramped to dance, so I just stay where I am and eat. After the gig, the two of us go to a multi-story car park that has been converted into a race track. We join in with the race on powered bicycles, speeding up and down the levels. The very top level is covered in huge rolling meadows though, and quite confusing to navigate. At one point, I lose control and fly off over the edge, down a ravine. I have to take a caged lift back to the top, but when I get there the race is over. I decide to go home. Leaving the bike on, I walk to the edge of a platform where the crowd are sitting. The drop is about twenty feet to the concrete below, but it is the fastest way down. I jump off, and land cleanly on my feet. Surprised by my agility, I look back up at the platform, to see how high it was. A young woman stares down at me, awestruck, as if I’m some kind of superhero. I wave at her nonchalantly, the turn around and walk home.

26.7.22
I leave a pub to go home. It is late at night, and everywhere is closing. Through the window of a bakery, I see a worker putting pints of beer out on a counter. I walk back to where I left my car, but eventually find it two streets away. Joe Wilkinson is sitting inside on the driver’s sear, talking to a passenger in the back. As I approach, the other person gets out and walks away before I can identify them. I climb in, and ask Wilkinson if he has seen my key. ‘Tim Key?’ he asks. I don’t think this is what I mean, but say ‘yes’ anyway.  ‘Oh,’ he says. ‘He just left.’

27.7.22
I’ve just finished creating a park full of large stone scultpures but they need painting. I wander round the park looking for paintbrushes, but find only people who refuse to help me.

28.7.22
In a small cottage embedded in a large hedgrow that stretches far across the countryside, I am making plans with two women for the future of the world. We place ingredients into a cauldron, strangely knotted pieces of plants that I do not recognise.

29.7.22
I am on an alien planet, in a large and sprawling village of peaceful humanoid beings. The village is made up of twisting, labyrinthine outdoor corridors that stretch around and in between each other, and it is very difficult for an outsider to navigate. As I try to find a way through, small troops of another warlike species teleport in, attacking the villagers. I try to fight them off, but they keep appearing. In a small ravine to my right, I spot a ceremonial altar, with a few villagers gathered round it. I remember that this is a secret entrance to an underground passage, and consider jumping down into the ravine to try this route. Then I remember I already have, and this is how I know about the secret entrance. The passage would just lead me back to where I’ve already been anyway. So I continue to fight my through the grass-covered streets, trying to protect as many of the peaceful species as I can, though my efforts seem doomed to fail in the end.