31-July-2006: I had a dream that I was with some Jewish people, they were discussing different Jewish games with Marcia and I felt a bit miffed/embarrassed that I didn’t know any of the games myself.
30-July-2006: I dreamt that Marcia and I met a man who ran an ice cream business, and he wanted Marcia to test his ice creams to see why they weren’t selling too well. Rather than taste them Marcia was analysing the chemical content and found that they contained 48% antifrimozone (doesn’t exist), which she said would confuse people who eat it – leaving them in a state of not knowing whether they should be happy, working hard or going for a run. Marcia suggested he change the recipe so there was only 12% antifrimozone.
29-July-2006: I had a dream that Marcia was going away somewhere, but she would say where, why or for how long. It was very upsetting.
28-July-2006: I had a dream about Coventry train station in England, it was much bigger and grander than it’s waking life counterpart. I got on a train to Birmingham that crashed on the way there, somehow leaving me stranded amongst the rubble of a fallen down building in Wolverhampton. A kid from my childhood school called Anthony Allison was with me and we were both been harassed by two huge bears. One of the bears started humping my leg but I used Soul Speak to persuade the two bears to leave us alone – they were surprised I could understand them.
27-July-2006: I had a dream about breaking into a castle, bypassing some modern security to gain access to an office, then tearing a hole in reality to reach into a counterpart office in an alternate universe and steel some money and documents from the desk drawer.
26-July-2006: I was with two brothers, Carl and Ché Sanderson, who are friends of mine in waking life, in a dream set in a pub called The Saddle. We were all talking to a stranger and Carl seemed to be trying to impress him, only it wasn’t working too well as the stranger was more impressed with me. Seeing this Carl decided it was better to impress me instead, or say something that pointed out we were all together, so he said, “We’re all (Carl, Ché and myself) drinking Guinness because the beer tastes of cows.” I thought this was interesting, but discovered my Guinness tasted like cow pats when I tasted it and couldn’t drink it.
Carl asked me if I was going to miss him when he goes to America in a week, which was his way of telling me he’s going to America as he hadn’t mentioned it before – he does this kind of thing a lot in waking life too. I thought about going with him, thinking it might be fun to talk on the plane, and asked Marcia what she would think if I went to America on my own (without her) with Carl. Marcia said, “But what about bombs?” meaning if the plane was bombed we wouldn’t be together, and I agreed that going anywhere without her was a silly idea.
25-July-2006: A boy I went to school with as a child, Anthony Allison, was telling me that he was gay. I told him that he was not because it didn’t feel right that he was, and it transpired later that he wanted to be a woman and wasn’t gay at all.
24-July-2006: I dreamt that I was in a kung fu sect that was operating from my childhood back garden. The students were practicing a very complex set of movements combined with chants that culminated in their deliberate, spontaneous combustion. There were about four of us left behind, who never joined in with the movements, and we spent a long time in shock, not knowing what to do. Someone buried the remains, then someone else dug them up the next day, saying their families should be told what happened to them. Then, after about four days, someone suggested we should tell the police and it became obvious that we should have done that in the first place. As it was I was certain they wouldn’t believe any story we told them, after we’d had four days to make anything up we wanted, and thought we were all going to be locked away for a long time.
23-July-2006: I’m not sure what the details of my last dream were, but a phrase from it echoed in my mind as I woke: “It is time to fulfil the wishes that have already been granted.”
22-July-2006: I was in the dark in an open square with cheep housing around the edge. It was a sort of science fiction dream where I was being chased by helicopters for some knowledge I had of future inventions. I was talking to someone (a lizardman I think) about the houses, asking why the front doors made a noise every time someone came in or out. He told me it was so people knew a door had been opened when it was off camera.
21-July-2006: I had a dream I was the Doctor from Doctor Who, intervening an alien invasion of London, though it was set in the future a little and looked quite a bit like Budapest.
20-July-2006: I dreamt that Avril, my tutor from art college twelve years ago, was explaining to me that she was upset about her parents being alcoholics when she was younger, and how no one understands what it was like. I told her that I understood, that my own mother was a terrible alcoholic pretty much all through my teens – she can’t even remember half the stuff she did. My mother was sitting next to me as I told this to Avril and was a little upset and embarrassed, protesting that she was never that bad. I did an impressing of her crawling around on the floor and slurring her speech after a bottle of vodka and my brother agreed that it was pretty accurate.
19-July-2006: I waking life I went to a screenplay writers’/writer directors’ seminar where they are looking for new talents in my area. In last night’s dream it turned out that the whole thing was a big scam and they were going to say everyone’s scripts are amazing, then tell us we had to pay £2000 to get to the next stage.
18-July-2006: I had a dream that I was standing at the edge of a vast, green and brown landscape, feeling utterly free.
17-July-2006: I dreamt I was on a plane waiting to take off. We started moving and headed off down a street instead of into the air, with the front of the 747 bouncing up and down over the dips and potholes in the road. I shouted towards the cockpit, “You’re supposed to fly it, it’s not a fucking bus you moron!’ After a while, when we hit a lamppost, other passengers became suspicious so we stormed the cockpit and found that there was nobody in there but a cabin steward trying to figure out what to do. She admitted that her holiday tour company was running out of money, that she was trying to run the whole show by herself.
16-July-2006: I had a dream set slightly in the future where company labels were no longer allowed on products, even though the same companies still made the same products. Someone had a bottle of shampoo that had all the same information on it you’d expect, apart from a company name. I told them I thought it was probably Alberto (a shampoo company in my dream, not sure about waking life?) and Marcia asked me how I could possibly know that. I showed her the label at the back where it said, ‘bottled in Alberto, Alberta, Alberta, Canada’.
15-July-2006: I dreamt that I was working as a freelance computer expert in the offices where my wife, Marcia, works in waking life. They had a few rows of beds in amongst the office cubicles whose occupants were supposedly refugees or ill. I recognised one of them as someone I used to know ages ago, called Richard Richardson, who had the nick name of Kipper. He was worried about going to America with his dad, who in this dream was a guy called Keith from a British TV soap called EastEnders. His dad (Keith not his real dad) was a total layabout and Richard was worried that he would spoil everything. I told him that he must go anyway, that he could abandon his dad when he got there and take a bus out into the vast areas of America. All the while I was doing this some of the senior staff in the offices were eyeing me strangely, disapprovingly, for fraternising with one of the ‘bed’ people.
14-July-2006: I dreamt that this guy I used to hang around with when I was a kid, Sean Easton, kept trying to touch me in a sexual way. I kept telling him to stop it and he would leave me alone for a bit, then he would forget a few minutes later and start stroking me again. It wasn’t creepy exactly, more like he was a bit retarded and didn’t quite get the idea that what he was doing was inappropriate.
13-July-2006: I had a dream that I was a teenager again, being harassed by other teenagers. The other teenagers were teasing me and my brother, who was only my brother in this dream, all the way to an airport. When we got to the airport a man from India, our father, reprimanded the other teenagers for teasing such unfortunate kids who only wanted to fly to India and see their folks for one last time. At this point I was afraid to get on a plane to India and kind of hoped the other teenagers would carry on harassing us and make us miss our plane, but this never happened. The others became sympathetic and ushered us onto the plane, where I was terrified of flying. The dream turned out okay though, the teenagers all added some money to our tickets and the two of us flew first class in black leather seats and the flight was very relaxing and not scary at all.
12-July-2006: I dreamt that I was at a training camp for skydivers, with my friend Carl Sanderson. We were riding an old twin-engine propeller plane, but not intending to jump just yet, to get used to the idea of going up high.
11-July-2006: I dreamt I was in Brighton again, only this time I knew where I was and didn’t have amnesia. I did, however, discover a new train station across town that I hadn’t noticed before. It was a more direct route to London, which I decided to use to see how quick it was. I went to London and back and thought it was quite a nice journey, until I got outside and a security officer stopped me because he thought I hadn’t bought a ticket. I was annoyed that he picked on me, saying I looked like the kind of person who might not buy a ticket, but when I looked for the ticket I couldn’t find it anywhere. I told him to go and check the security cameras from two hours earlier and he would see me buying my ticket. He said it was a good idea and that I should come with him, but I thought he was trying to trap me so I ran away and got on a bus.
10-July-2006: I was dreaming about a seaside town where I used to live, Brighton in the south of England. I had amnesia, sort of, and couldn’t remember the address where I lived. I knew the area and walked all over the place hoping one of the street names would make me remember. I tried phoning the post office to see if they had any mail for me, hoping that something may have been returned because I wasn’t around to pick it up, and that they’d be able to tell me my address. The post office thing didn’t seem to work, they thought I was up to some scam or other. I thought about asking a local police station but woke up before I could try.
9-July-2006: I dreamt that I was part of an army elite force in the 1950s. Our squad was all living in a remote country house near the sea. While exploring someone found a tunnel and two connecting caves that, when drawn out on a map, were shaped like France and Spain. The tunnel and caves lead all the way down to the sea, but they were very unstable so we couldn’t stay in them very long.
Then I came up with an idea so that we could always enjoy the walk down to the sea this way. Before I could voice my idea a guy next to me with a handlebar moustache announced that he was thinking exactly the same thing. Then the dream flashed to the future and the house had been remodelled to include the area where the caves had been, so there was a long covered walkway down to the sea. We were all much older, like it was now, and living together in the large house with our respective families.
8-July-2006: I was dreaming about being in India with a friend called Lewis Evans. We were staying at a sort of hippy camp, like a kibbutz in Israel. I think there was something slightly wrong with me or the both of us, like we couldn’t remember how we got there or where we came from. I went to wash my hands once in a stream but I got stung when I put my hand under the water, I lifted it up to my face and it was covered in tiny leeches. I went to the campfire and ran my hand through the flames until all the leeches fell off, it carried on stinging and itching right through the dream. We took train rides a lot to a city in India somewhere, it was always hot and dusty. I did think that I could go to the airport and fly home, if only I knew where home was.
7-July-2006: I dreamt that I was at the gym when the manager came up to me and she said I don’t exercise for long enough.
6-July-2006: I dreamt that I was back near the end of my previous marriage to a woman named Masayo. We were kanoodling together and I was feeling bad about it, partly because I knew she was going to leave me but mostly because I knew in the dream that I was going to be in love and married to Marcia in the future.
5-July-2006: I had another religion-related dream. This time I dreamt that I was taking an exam that I hadn’t revised for. When I turned the page the questions were all about a book publisher from the 17th Century called Faith Press, which I’d never heard of. I tried to blag my way through the first couple of questions using my knowledge of printing, but I soon had to give up as the questions became more specific.
4-July-2006: I dreamt that Fulford Church, near to where I grew up, was having its surrounding buildings demolished. It looked kind of strange, this church rising above piles of rubble completely untouched. There was a service for people to assure them the church would be fine, and thanking them for all their support. I was a little surprised that my name was read out amongst the list of supporters as I walked up to the sermon, which was taking place in the open air just in front of the main entrance. I was surprised that the woman reading knew who I was because I hadn’t been there for about 26 years.
3-July-2006: I was dreaming about the writing circle I’m a member of in waking life, or something related to them at least. There was a meeting at a Yorkshire (England) seaside town called Scarborough for potential writers, I was supposed to meet some of my group there but I couldn’t find it. When I did find it Christopher Sharp, a friend from childhood was there collecting a reward for best newcomer novelist. In waking life Chris was a really good painter when I was a child, I was kind of jealous that he appeared to be a good writer too, like he was infringing on my talents.
2-July-2006: I dreamt that the whole of England had been overrun by Daleks and Cybermen (from Dr Who), I was escaping to the hills in a stolen Jaguar car.
1-July-2006: My friend, Ché Sanderson, has just moved to a place called Barlby in waking life. In my dream I was driving with him to his new house, which is only about 10 miles away but we seemed to get lost on roads I’ve never seen before. We did eventually get to Barlby via a very strange route and Ché’s house had an impossibly huge back garden. He moved there because the houses are cheaper but I always thought it was too far away from the city for my taste, when I saw the size of Ché’s garden I thought it might not be so bad living there after all. I was a bit disappointed when I woke up and realised it wasn’t true.