Second sun

An explosion in the sky, growing until it appeared to be a second sun. Those around not looking that way, not paying attention. Bracing for the impact that would, eventually come as a result.

Imaginary beetles

I woke up (in the dream) to see a couple of small beetles on the corner of the sheet. I got up, vaguely thinking about catching them in something and putting them out of the window. Then as I looked I noticed more of the things, groups of them all over the place and then some large black cockroaches amongst them. The scene in the room was getting that weird nightmarish quality to it where things start to spiral into the more and more bizarre. At this point I somehow stopped, there was a change of gear, a change of mood. It was clear to me that what I was looking at didn't make any sense and couldn't actually be true. As I thought this the creatures began to disappear until eventually they were all gone. I felt satisfied that I'd managed to see through the illusion and get rid of them.

Eyes

Turning away to put in false eyes. Then noticing that the fake eyes have round holes in the middle that I will be looking through.

Mousey friend leaves

A friend (in real life) was once described by a mutual acquaintance as 'the mousey one'. The description surprised me at first but once it was said I could see how there was some truth in it. In the dream this friend, rather quietly, said that she was leaving and went out of the door.

Not trapped

A number of people are caught underneath something heavy, possibly an overturned truck. Rescue workers are assessing what to do. I ask about one woman and they say she's not a priority as she is not actually trapped. I wonder why she stays there if she isn't.

Unsecure

This is a house I seem vaguely familiar with, as if I lived here long ago. The rooms are large and it is elegantly decorated in pale colours. Then I notice a hole in the floorboards over in the corner, moving closer I see that it goes right through to the room below. Going downstairs I find that part of the ground floor wall by the back door is down, leaving a gaping hole. Clearly it would be impossible to secure the house in the state it's in. I get the feeling that it's beyond repair.

The Queen

After the Queen's wedding a meal of, surprisingly, only one course. After this was served the Queen, who appeared to be impatient, rose and left. I followed her at a discreet distance down the broad stairs and through the wide corridors of a half-familiar house and saw her march out of the front door.

Dancing

Dancing with an androgynous female.

Station platforms

At a station with lots of platforms and no signs, with only a small suitcase. Thinking of trying to find the right platform by instinct, by going the way that seems familiar, but then thinking that might mean ending up on the wrong train again.

A Michelangelo-like fragmentary image

The Creation of Adam. Focus in on the hands. But no, it's not The Creation. One hand is clearly male, one clearly female. Both are in a similar position to that of God's hand in the original: each actively directed towards the other.

Bag baby

I used to have baby dreams as a recurring theme, but haven't had one for a while. In the latest I am on a journey with some other people, a man and a woman. The baby is in a bag that I am carrying. For some reason it has to be packed in a bag for the journey and can't be carried openly. It worries me that the baby has no air or room to move. I am torn between wanting to open the bag and check on it and not wanting to. I have a bad feeling about what I might find. I'm irritated that the woman, whose baby it is, does not seem interested in it at all. When we get to our destination I open the bag cautiously. At first the baby is very still and it seems to confirm my fears but when I look again it's waving its arms and smiling. Its a relief, but I'm still concerned that the woman is not interested in feeding it or looking after it.

Upper and lower class

The university had built a theatre. There was one entrance within the main university building that led directly into the plush circle level and a street entrance from a run-down part of town into the stalls.

A note in the hall

Having written the last entry another dream came back to me that I'd previously forgotten. One of the rented flat series. This time I am finally able to return to my flat after some time when I have not been able to get there. I go in the street door which is not locked, but not into my flat as I don't have the key with me. Pinned inside the front door is a note with my name on it. I read the note.

Inside

This is just a marker to indicate another plane dream. Can't recall any details. Only an impression that I was inside the plane. This is a change. I usually see from the plane's POV.

Women in red

A group of women wearing red clothes, sitting together in attitudes that suggest relaxed confidence and slight amusement. The feeling that they will talk amongst themselves more frankly than they will to anyone else.

Clearing out a house.

In room after room so much to sort out and move. At last its done. I decline the option of using a strange curve-bladed tool to straighten the edges once the room is cleared. It looks dangerous to me and I don't know how to operate it. Then opening the door to a kind of inner room that was over-looked. Not sure what to expect here. I know that this is where I would have put away all the worst things. But when the door opens it's dusty and almost bare.

Communication Conference

I was at a conference. Well, not exactly. I was conferencing. It was one that did not depend on location. You could participate anywhere. I had gone to a central location of some sort where there were rooms, screens and other facilities. It wasn't too easy to move around as I had several items of luggage and equipment with me. I might be presenting, but it was possible that my collaborator might be doing it, in which case I wouldn't be actively doing anything. I stopped in a room that was off to the side area to sort out some of the equipment. I began watching or more acurately absorbing, in several rather difuse ways, one of the early presentations. After a while I found it hard to follow. I explained to the presenter that I was leaving as I was unable to understand but I had to do it by scratching a message in the bed of some kind of shallow, silty water. I decided to move to a more central location and see if there were other delegates there. Someone was explaining that communication was in fact not at all as we thought of it. It was much more fluent but less well understood than language, and that our attempts to render it in language were always a poor translation. In fact we are communicating fluently all of the time in ways that we can't articulate. It had a lot to do with proximity and colour. The relationships between spaces and things in them and the colour of them. Orange and white, in certain proportions, could be used very effectively to communicate certain things that were demonstrated.

Dream pun

About a week ago, a fragment in which I saw a room that had no colour in it, all was in shades of white, and I wondered aloud who's it was. The answer? It's not Hugh's (hues). Why the pun?

A rented flat

It's nagging at me again. The unconscious or whatever it is that nags at you through dreams. I get the impression that it wants me to pay attention to something when a thread or theme runs through several dreams, but all I can recall are fragments.

A rented flat featured in a couple. Not a flat that I've ever actually lived in but a mean and shabby little bolt-hole with unfamiliar things in it. I had a suitcase with me and was annoyed to find I'd brought an inappropriate selection of clothing so it's clear I wasn't living there. In a more recent dream I had trouble pronouncing my own name which had changed for no reason that I knew of. It had a similar feel to the flat dreams, a sense of dislocation.

Cube library

It's like a cross between a Borg cube and a library. Each of the small cube shaped rooms that make up the whole is lined with books. I'm in the central cube, it's not well lit, the books appear to be old.

Wrong station

Got off the train at the wrong station. There were bears in the waiting room.

Forces

I'm not sure who they are, but someone tells me they're the Norwegian army. They're telling us what to do in a high-handed threatening manner but they don't do any more than threaten even when resisted or openly provoked.

Fragments

Only fragments and isolated images lately.

Reckless flying

In the air again. This time in a small plane being flown by female friend. We arrived in the vicinity of our destination, flew a few rather wild loops and made a steep descent. Backwards. Which seemed a little reckless and unlikely to end well. But we landed safely in a field just outside of Tesco. (I could not make these up!) So I got out and went shopping.

Red room

A red room. Red carpet, walls, curtains, ceiling. Even the air seems tinged with it.

When I noted this down I didn't recall the HG Wells story, but I think I must have read it. Reading it now it seems very familiar so I would not be surprised if there is a connection.

Undergound: a fragment

A journey on an underground railway. The tunnels leading to the platform are so low that people have to walk stooped. On getting into the train it's a relief to sit. I have no feeling of claustrophobia, just a vague annoyance at the limited space.

Round trip

Somehow the person I was with had taken over the controls in flight. After flying for some distance he managed to land the plane on water and we got to the shore. Suddenly it occurred to me that we might not be able to get back. I asked him if he knew how to start the plane again. He said it was alright, we could go home in the car. I wasn't happy about this, not feeling safe in the fast car on the narrow roads.

It seems strange now - but didn't in the dream - that I felt more unsafe in the car that the other person was confident about driving, than in the plane that I knew he didn't really know how to control.

--

Why don't I trust the ground? Am I right or wrong not to trust it? Does flight in these dreams symbolise 'flight of fantasy' or 'flight from the mundane'?

I know, and knew in my dream, that flying is considerably safer than driving.

Desert ship

A high, narrow wooden walkway led to an old wooden structure, perhaps a ship. It seemed to be beside the sea or the sand but it was very bright and it was hard to see for all the light. The tide may have been out, or it may have been in the desert. I couldn't be sure if the inhabitants were lawyers or lifeboatmen. They gave the impression of carrying on an ancient, venerable tradition. Something more than just their lifetimes had been dedicated to this. Someone described it to me as a world apart. I was unsure what to do, or how to behave. It was very dry and hot and there were drinks on the table - orange juice and something that looked like beer. I didn't know which, if any, to take. It wasn't a matter of following specific set rules, but of finding how to live in the right way, and I didn't know how. I moved from the brightness a little into the shade. I realised that the knowledge I had was of very little use here. The inhabitants continued with their business in the area where I was sitting and in an area below two of them were discussing an arcane point that I couldn't understand. They were polite but took very little notice of my presence among them.

This dream seemed significant enough to make me start recording my dreams.

Stone slide

I'm thinking about the speaker who referred to a building with a long slide in it, put there to encourage a playful, creative environment. I'm surprised to remember that our building has a slide, and I go to look for it. The floors are all empty and it's very quiet as I make my way up the stairs. I find the entrance to the top of the slide and it's not a shiny metal tube, like the one the speaker showed, it looks like smooth, pale stone with very large sculptural curves. It goes right through the centre of the building. I slide down it and find that I can easily control my speed by making very slight movements.

Mr X

Disconcerting dream fragment in which I agree, finally, after much resistance, and with a definite sense of relief, that I should marry Mr X. Mr X is someone I used to know. He does not appear in the dream himself. I seem to be agreeing with a group of people but none of them are identifiable individuals.

Is there something that Mr X personifies for me that I lack, and need to be more open to?

Something nasty

On the steps of a rather grand town house a man with a bucket pours something congealed and nasty down the steps into the basement.

A mad scene where the congealed and nasty stuff has flooded out everywhere and people are slipping and sliding in it. A man is very angry and shouting, insisting that someone be employed to shovel it away and clean it up. No one would want to do it but he rants that you should look for someone with no other option, someone with this issue or that. He lists several. Someone nods and winks and says 'Or someone with ALL of those issues!

Changing

I'm in a queue for what appears to be a changing room. The person at the front of the queue has not pulled the curtain across but I can't really see what she's doing anyway. I'm distracted because the person behind is pushing me forward. When I get to the front of the queue and the line where the curtain would be I resist and won't be pushed any further.

The person behind me then takes a paper from a large official looking envelope she's carrying, gives it to me, and starts to wander off. I look at the paper and can't tell what it is, but I know I don't want it. I go after her and try to give it back but she doesn't want to take it. I say to her that it's clearly an important document and she should take it. She still won't, so I push it back into the envelope she's holding.

--

I take the first part of this to mean that I won't be pushed into changing faster than I want to! Don't get the second part though.

Hmm. Yes. It does help to write these things down and think about them! How ironic that I said I 'didn't get' the second part. Of course I didn't - that's exactly the point - I wouldn't (won't) 'get' it - even though I said myself that it was 'an important document'!

Landing

Back to the flying dreams again. Coming in to land this time past a long row of dark tenement buildings that are being demolished. Large sections have fallen away from the end of the row, leaving gaping holes and the ground is littered with debris. A disused railway line runs below, the tracks are rusted.

The office

I haven't had any flying dreams lately. I'm having a different kind now. I'm going to work in a new town. I don't know my way around and I don't know the people. I know the name of the company and manage to find the building but once inside there is nothing I recognise. I don't know what I'm supposed to do, but I know that admitting to that would not be good. I have to carry on as if I have no doubts at all. I avoid talking to anyone but when I listen l notice that all the conversations are evasive, sliding away from specifics, avoiding the definite. No one makes eye contact.

Going... down?

"Do I have to go down to go up?" That's what I remember thinking. The lift was an open platform, suspended on the side of the building. It was quite a way below the floor I was on and I was trying to judge if it was safe to jump down. I thought it was, but I clearly wouldn't be able to climb or jump back up again once down there. I'd have to trust the lift to bring me up. There was no other way to get to the floors above.

Flying

For years now I've had recurring dreams around the theme of flying. They happen so regularly they're becoming difficult to ignore, and even within the dreams I sometimes get the feeling they are way beyond subtle hints and are definitely trying to get something through to me.

The one I've had lately that especially gave me that feeling was about taxiing for so long I went off the runway and down a street between buildings and round a roundabout with the normal road traffic. The feeling around that one was, 'how obvious does this have to be for you to get it?'

Previous to that there was a very vivid one where I was coming in to land and found the ground a scene of devastation with whole sections of the runway broken and up-ended at sharp angles. It was obvious that the only safe place was up.

Earlier dreams were mostly about skimming over tree tops and buildings, trying to gain height but being unable to.

I'm not flying like a bird with wings in these dreams, and I'm not flying a plane, nor am I a passenger. It's more as if I am the plane. I'm never afraid of crashing, although I have a strong sense of frustration at not being able to gain more height.

It seems clear that I'm telling myself something about not feeling able to reach my potential, but there's more to it than that and I can't quite get a hold of it.

Launching the Lifeboat

Over the last few years I've had a series of dreams with recurring themes which have become more and more insistent in calling for my attention, so I've decided to start writing them down. I'm going to capture a few particularly insistent ones from before the time the journal actually starts and then go on to record them as they happen.