31-October-2006: In waking life I have a friend called Nathan who I haven’t seen in a few months because he moved to a different town called Stevenage. In my dream I was talking to Nathan’s mother and father about going to stay at their house for the weekend while they go on holiday.
30-October-2006: I had a dream that I was fighting hideous bugs with Tim Allen, the American comic actor. Tim had invented a new liquid that was ideal for killing the huge bugs, which I later discovered was simply paint stripper –spilling some on my hand it stung my skin and I recognized the sensation, plus Tim admitted it was only paint stripper. The whole bug-fighting thing took place in a broken old building on several levels with holes in the floors and ceilings. There were lots of little pools everywhere and the floors were chequer patterned. I was frantic at one point because a huge black millipede landed on my hand and I couldn’t get it off without pulling half my hand away with it – at least that’s what I thought until Tim came along and said, ‘what’s the problem?’ then peeled it off and slung it away.
29-October-2006: I dreamt that Marcia decided I was an important businessman and that I need to have all my shoes personally labelled. Instead of putting my name on though there was a large ‘P’ embossed into the bottom of my shoes. I think there may have been a connection with a paraplegic guy called Paul that I visit twice a week.
28-October-2006: Where we now live in waking life we have a landlord who is sort of a sub-landlord to an all-owning supreme landlord. I only ever see the sub-landlord in waking life but in my dream I got to meet the proper, supreme landlord and he was asking me what things need fixing in our building. He seemed really together at first, like he could get the jobs done that needed doing, but turned out to be just as tight and penny pinching as our usual landlord.
27-October-2006: In waking life I used to know a woman called Kat, well I still do but haven’t talked to her in years. Kat is a big animal lover and a little bit of an eccentric hermit type person – at least she was the last time I saw her. The other day, in waking life, I was telling Marcia all about her and how they’d probably be good friends if they knew each other. In last night’s dream Marcia had coincidentally met Kat in town and become friends with her without knowing she was the same person I’d been talking to her about. I was quite surprised when they walked into our house together, chatting like old friends.
26-October-2006: I dreamed that my old childhood house on Heslington Lane had been turned into a homeless shelter by my mother, who has spent most of her real life being a social worker. I was living in the house too and everyone thought I was one of them, a homeless person, and didn’t realise I lived there all the time.
25-October-2006: I had a dream that a girl called Louise Lunn, who I went to school with in waking life from the age of 5 to 16 (and haven’t seen since), was telling my wife to take more time to be romantic with me.
24-October-2006: I dreamed that I was running around an area of my hometown called Foxwood. It was dark and I didn’t want to spend any more time there than was necessary, it’s one of the rougher areas of town in waking life. So I ran along beneath the orange street lighting, avoiding back streets and dark alleyways – all the time wondering how someone might attack me, if they would thrust a knife at me in a really obvious manner like they do in Aikido training or whatever. There was a very clear image of a large silver blade as I considered the possibility of attack. I eventually came out into a large hilly field that doesn’t exist in waking life, but is often in the same location in my dreams. By this time it was daylight and I was enjoying running along, thinking about a TV soap character called Doctor Kennedy who goes running from time to time to keep fit – I wondered if I would do that when I was his age, and quite liked the idea.
23-October-2006: I had a dream that I was a lonely schoolboy who only had one friend, then that friend got a girlfriend and I thought I’d become an annoyance to them. I found the two sitting in front of a couple of old-fashioned, yet pristine cars that had been parked so they were touching each other. I remarked about the cars touching and how bad it was to park them that way, but my friend seemed more interested in his girlfriend and they both sort of dismissed me. I walked away from them and was nearly crying, then jumped down the middle of a stairwell and floated gently to the ground as I reached the bottom, which is something I do a lot in dream – i.e. jumping from high places but landing gently at the bottom. I walked out of the school and a teacher hollered that I needed to sign a paper if I wanted to go outside, but I ignored her because I thought I was never coming back. My friend’s girlfriend came after me to apologise and I broke down in tears, admitting to her that he was my only friend in the world, that I was very lonely. After that she turned into Marcia, my wife, and comforted me.
22-October-2006: I dreamt about Linton-on Ouse again. This time I was with an autistic boy called Joseph that I see in waking life. He wanted me to take him to an island in the middle of a bend in the River Ouse. We waded out across the water and got to the island, where we found a dinosaur museum and a nice little café that looked over a larger-than-waking-life expanse of the River Ouse.
21-October-2006: I had a dream about the house that was next door to the house in last night’s dream, though I didn’t think about it at the time and only just noticed that now as I write this. The house next door to where I grew up is about three times larger than my childhood home, and it’s back garden is twice the size in width – which makes it a very large garden for a residential suburb. In this dream I owned the house next door, which was owned by Colonel Harris in waking life when I was a child, and I was very proud to live there. Before I obtained the house a nouveau riche-type family had been living there and built over all of Colonel Harris’ rose gardens, greenhouses and perfect lawns and made a sort of mini ski resort with a chair lift that took you to the back of the garden. I said I wanted to restore Colonel Harris’ garden, but keep the chair lift so we could all look at the garden from above, and so I wouldn’t have to walk all the way to the tool shed at the back all the time.
20-October-2006: I had a dream that my friends Neil Kay and Jenny Sharp were living at the house I grew up in, which they actually did for a few years in waking life. I went around there to see Neil and he was outside the front of the house drinking beer and showing some art students a portfolio of tattoos and, what I considered to be, very corny fantasy art.
19-October-2006: I had a dream about a pub in a place called Hartoft Street, a couple of roads down from where we live now and where I used to live about eight years ago. The pub doesn’t exist in waking life and never has, but I visit the place from time to time in my dreams. It’s a really small pub like someone’s front living room in a house, only with a bar and tables. I don’t know what the place is called, but it always has the same types of people in there – sort of middle-aged and upwards hippy types, vegetarians and Greenpeace followers. In this dream Marcia and I had been invited back to the living area behind the public bar after closing on a Sunday afternoon. I was naked and captivating an old cigar-smoking hippy woman with my personality and Marcia was sitting in an arm chair, waving her arms about and explaining stuff to everyone. I don’t know what she was saying but I felt very proud of her.
18-October-2006: I dreamt that I went to a place called Linton-on-Ouse, which is where the main river of my hometown originates. I went there recently in waking life to take some photographs. In this dream I was putting an inflatable boat into the water and a guy called Jason Foster, who I went to school with as a teenager in waking life, was going to get in the boat with me. Unfortunately my friend Dave Smiley was also getting in the boat and he had crampons attached to his boots, spikes that you use for climbing rocks and ice walls. Dave seemed oblivious to the implications of him getting into an inflatable boat with spikes sticking out from his toes as the two of us tried to persuade him not to.
17-October-2006: I had a dream about Canary Warf in London, England. I dreamt about Canary Warf being the headquarters of Torchwood, which is an anagram of Doctor Who – a TV series where the organisation called Torchwood stems from. In the dream I travelled through time to World War II but can’t remember what I did there. There are many ads on TV in waking life at the moment for a TV offshoot from Doctor Who called Torchwood. I have lots of time travel dreams so I guess my subconscious connected the two together.
16-October-2006: I kept dreaming about Baba Yaga’s Hut, a little dwelling that runs around on chickens’ feet, because I’m thinking of writing a little story in waking life with Baba Yaga in it.
15-October-2006: I dreamt that my brother, Ben, was trying to sell ideas in Thailand. He actually had two ideas but gave one to me so I could join in and try to sell an idea too. A famous Thai TV presenter was appraising our ideas and said that mine was acceptable, but they could not use Ben’s because he had been outside Thailand during the judging period and was considered an outcast, or enemy of the government. Ben decided to take back the idea he gave to me so none of us could win. I said he could have his stupid idea and all the other ideas he had, he was a cheating bastard anyway!
14-October-2006: I was dreaming about a tiny wooden submarine. It was a model at first but later I could shrink myself down and get inside it, then pilot the wooden submersible underwater in a river.
13-October-2006: I dreamt that I was driving my stepfather, Brian, to the local horse racing track at the Knavesmire in a Ferrari, really fast, lurching and skidding around corners at sickly angles.
12-October-2006: I had a dream that a friend called Carl Hillery, Carley, was insisting that I owe him 15 pence (like 30 US cents) from years ago and making a huge deal about it.
11-October-2006: I dreamt that I met a gay guy in London called Robin, someone I know in waking life, and that he was skipping around like a fool in a shopping mall. He skipped ahead of me around a corner, then came running back because a gang was chasing him to beat him up. I stopped the gang and fought them all off so Robin could get away, then the gang members befriended me and I became a kind of God figure to them. They followed me as their new leader because I’d shown them that they could love themselves more than the crack they were addicted to, I set them free of their dependence.
10-October-2006: I was dreaming about finding clues at the bottom of the sea under a metal grid. I’m not sure what the clues were for or why I was looking for them. At one point I was sitting on a couch that was being pulled by a speedboat across the water before I went diving for clues under the metal grid again.
9-October-2006: I had a dream that I offered a job, scanning documents, to my ex flatmate Ian. I thought he’d be pleased with the job but he kept making out like we were spies or something, and would get caught any day.
8-October-2006: I had a dream that I’d put together a list of amazingly brave and scary things I wanted to do before I die, and that I was to attempt them one at a time whenever I felt up to it. One of the things was sliding down some thick steel cables on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, which I somehow found myself accidentally doing when I appeared there at the top of the bridge for no apparent reason. I don’t know what the other things on the list were but I exclaimed that I’d nearly done them all after the bridge things was over. There was one more thing to do that involved me and a woman sneaking onto a plane with false passports. The woman was going under the alias Miss Butt Cheeks and I was going as Mister Butt Kiss, which made it very difficult not to snigger on our way through passport control. The lady checking our passports was very suspicious, but she had to let us through because, other than our silly names, there was nothing wrong with the passports.
7-October-2006: I dreamt that I was living in my childhood home again and my old university lecturer, Andrew Gordon, was in our front garden taking photographs for an art project. He didn’t know that I knew he was there, so I took pictures of him taking pictures to show him later.
6-October-2006: In waking life we need our boiler, for the heating and hot water, fixing and a plumber was supposed to come tomorrow to fit a new one. In my dream we’d gone to Brighton on the south coast of England for a little break, which was really nice until I realised we were supposed to be back home to let the plumber in to fit the new boiler.
5-October-2006: I dreamt that I could do the tune to the 1970s TV show Starsky and Hutch just using my own voice. Not just imitate the tune but create an exact replica with my voice, which would be pretty much impossible in waking life and caused quite a sensation in my dream. It’s all 1970s waa waa noises, cars, pianos and guitars and quite funky. In fact I just found it: Starsky and Hutch WAV.
4-October-2006: I’m not sure of the location but the entire dream was based on some salt marshes, which did eventually turn out to be in London. It’s hard to remember what happened but the essence of the dream was all about life on salt marches, that is the life that lives in salt marshes and the people that live around them and the river as it joins the sea.
3-October-2006: I was dreaming about a shaman’s hut that a group of us built in my old childhood back garden. It was mostly underground in a large hole and we all went inside to do shamanly things. We sat around a fire that burned in the middle of the floor and took it in turns to put some crystals in our hands and concentrate on our life purpose. After a moment the crystals would rise up into the air and swirl around in a spiral formation and leave you saying, ‘Wowwww…’ After we did this I said I must go and tell my friend, Neil Kay, all about our new hut so he can try the spiral crystal thing.
2-October-2006: I had a dream that was obsessively based on websites and the way they are designed and put together.
1-October-2006: I had a dream that I was studying for an unusual degree in travel and sports at university. One particular module title that stuck out from the rest was Hip Hop Maths. I asked someone what it was but they wouldn’t tell me.