Between The Wheels

Early this morning, I dreamed that I had a sort of cut, or scar running down the side of my hand, from the base of the little finger to the wrist. Very neat, very straight. It could be prised open very slightly but it was completely painless and bloodless.

A doctor told me that it was a generic feature.

This morning I dreamed that I introduced a young woman to Ed Straker (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Straker), and she was inducted into SHADO (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UFO_(TV_series)#SHADO). She was slim, medium height, black with short hair. I thought she looked about 19 but when she was filling out the forms she entered her year of birth as 1970.

Later, I dreamed that I was out jogging with Danny Baker. We were running down Acorn Way, which is a long road down a hill near Oakwood in Derby. He became competitive and started trying to outrun me, but my feet weren't even touching the ground. I was just gliding down the hill a few inches above the ground, without having to move my legs, like a shallow fall. So I got ahead of him very easily.

2 days ago I dreamt I woke up because I heard water dripping op the landing. Went to check and sure enough the ceiling was leaking in 2 places. When I bent over to see where it was on the floor someone jumped on my back. So I screamed and cursed, waking up the wife who told me I curse asleep the same as I am awake.....  ;D
Of course I had to pee, which was the water dripping.

Was taken prisoner by Russian soldiers in Ukraine, they were killing my fellow prisoners by holding onto their ears and bashing their heads on a wall, they grabbed my ears and as I prepared for the inevitable I woke up, phew!

I didn't sleep well last night. I went for a nap at about 4pm this afternoon and dozed off in bed with 5 Live on the bedside Echo Dot.

An hour or two later I got up and went down into the living room. But I couldn't understand why I was still hearing the radio - where was it coming from? I was still asleep in bed of course. I woke up not long after that and listened to the radio for a bit.

Then I drifted off to sleep again. I got up again and went down into the kitchen. I started looking for bread to make myself a sandwich. But I was still hearing the radio. I realised I must still be asleep and dreaming, but I made a sandwich anyway.

Possibly my favourite track from the 5150 album. ;D

Odd dreams this morning ..

I'd applied to join the military, and one of the tests was to jump out of an aircraft at the very edge of space, and collect some objects on the way down. There were five or six of us, and we'd all been given large manila envelope packages with our names printed neatly on them.

I was on a space station, or possibly a base on the Moon or some airless planet, and about to leave the (huge) airlock. I'd pressed the button to start the decompression, but I hadn't put my space suit on yet. I had another two minutes to get into it and zip it up.

Quote from: Slim on June 11, 2022, 11:16:30 AMOdd dreams this morning ..

I'd applied to join the military, and one of the tests was to jump out of an aircraft at the very edge of space, and collect some objects on the way down. There were five or six of us, and we'd all been given large manila envelope packages with our names printed neatly on them.

I was on a space station, or possibly a base on the Moon or some airless planet, and about to leave the (huge) airlock. I'd pressed the button to start the decompression, but I hadn't put my space suit on yet. I had another two minutes to get into it and zip it up.

Classic anxiety dream............in space. Never made it off the planet with mine..yet  ;)

I'm playing cricket for England. It's a sunny day. Possibly at Lords. I've only just come out to bat and I hit the first ball for a four, but I run anyway and get run out. Somehow.

I walk back to the pavilion, go inside and look for the dressing room. But I can't find it. I open a door. There's a bench and dark green painted walls. But it's otherwise completely empty. Is this it?

I was sitting on my sofa when the fabric started to split and our old sofa started to appear though the fabric, metamorphic like.

I think this dream is based on the time, many years ago, when I applied for a firearm licence and two police officers came round to interview me about it.

I've applied for something, and one of my old managers from Rolls-Royce and her husband Gavin, who was a director there, arrive at my front door. I haven't seen them since 1994, so they look older. They come in and I sit on the sofa.

Gavin sits next to me. He's got the application form and we go through it, while he fills in the answers or checks tick-boxes with a blue ball-point pen. He's impatient and irritable.

I never actually spoke to him in real life though he'd sometimes glare at me in a slightly disapproving manner, because I didn't get on brilliantly with his wife and I upset her once or twice.

I'm attending a Saxon gig, something I haven't done in real life since 1980, or possibly 1981. It's an outdoor arena or stadium gig of some sort and I'm right at the front but it's the soundcheck or something; the gig hasn't started yet. Or it's finished.

The drummer is a young short-haired woman dressed in black. I'm about to tell her that I first saw Saxon in 1979 at a club in Hartlepool (which is true), but I wake up.

Also - I had my recurring dream about trains. I can't remember it well but I woke up knowing that I'd had the train dream, again. Or a variation of it. I want to get home, to Hartlepool, I'm at some unfamiliar railway station somewhere and I don't know which train to get on. Sometimes I get on the train, unsure if it's taking me in the right direction.

It could be a metaphor for life choices but I'm sure it stems from my time in my late teens, commuting to and from Huddersfield Poly every weekend from Hartlepool by train. I found train travel fascinating. I still love a long train journey. It's as though you enter a sort of alternate netherworld at the railway station, and emerge from it at your destination.

Sometimes, especially on a Thursday afternoon going to Hartlepool from Huddersfield, the journey wouldn't quite go to plan and I think this informs my recurring dream. I remember spending a couple of hours at Stalybridge station one Thursday afternoon, for example. There must have been engineering works or perhaps I'd caught a wrong train at Leeds or something, because I wouldn't usually get off there. But I had to work out a route to get back to Hartlepool.

OK I've just checked Stalybridge on a map, and I'm very confused. It's further from Hartlepool than Huddersfield.

Quote from: Slim on July 01, 2022, 10:38:47 AMI'm attending a Saxon gig, something I haven't done in real life since 1980, or possibly 1981. It's an outdoor arena or stadium gig of some sort and I'm right at the front but it's the soundcheck or something; the gig hasn't started yet. Or it's finished.

The drummer is a young short-haired woman dressed in black. I'm about to tell her that I first saw Saxon in 1979 at a club in Hartlepool (which is true), but I wake up.

On the subject of Saxon, I got a post on my FB feed of the band about to board a private jet to Verona the other day. They were obviously chuffed to bits, by the nature of the post. So much so that another followed in quick succession of the band aboard said aircraft. The message from Biff said something like - " on private plain to Verona". Bless him, made me smile. Doesn't he look a lot like Denis Healey with long hair now? They were, without doubt, the funniest metallers around in the early '80s. A really strange mix of spandex, moustaches and funny (or 'no') hair!  ;D

One of the guitar players had a special guitar strap that allowed him to spin his guitar round 360 degrees, I remember that. Reputedly he once chinned himself with it, though I never saw that myself.

That first Saxon gig I saw was about two weeks before I saw Zeppelin at Knebworth, so late July or August 1979. It may well be the only time I've ever walked home from a gig. Most of the people there weren't even there for the band, it was just one of those places you'd go to for a drink although I wasn't fond of it, because it was in a rough part of the town, just off the main road out of the town to Seaton Carew.

My mate Barry and I were definitely there for the band, though. We had the first album, released only a few weeks earlier and we wanted to hear Stallions of the Highway and Big Teaser, which of course we did. There were probably about 20 fans there that night, and we stood seven or eight feet away from the little stage, shaking our dandruff, pints in hand. I remember Biff saying "nice to see we've got some friends in tonight" after we noisily applauded one of the tunes.

This was just about the time the New Wave of British Heavy Metal was breaking and the next time I saw them was a year later, on the same bill as Motorhead at the "Brain Damage Party" at Stafford Bingley Hall.

Quote from: Slim on July 01, 2022, 12:14:14 PMOne of the guitar players had a special guitar strap that allowed him to spin his guitar round 360 degrees, I remember that. Reputedly he once chinned himself with it, though I never saw that myself.

That first Saxon gig I saw was about two weeks before I saw Zeppelin at Knebworth, so late July or August 1979. It may well be the only time I've ever walked home from a gig. Most of the people there weren't even there for the band, it was just one of those places you'd go to for a drink although I wasn't fond of it, because it was in a rough part of the town, just off the main road out of the town to Seaton Carew.

My mate Barry and I were definitely there for the band, though. We had the first album, released only a few weeks earlier and we wanted to hear Stallions of the Highway and Big Teaser, which of course we did. There were probably about 20 fans there that night, and we stood seven or eight feet away from the little stage, shaking our dandruff, pints in hand. I remember Biff saying "nice to see we've got some friends in tonight" after we noisily applauded one of the tunes.

This was just about the time the New Wave of British Heavy Metal was breaking and the next time I saw them was a year later, on the same bill as Motorhead at the "Brain Damage Party" at Stafford Bingley Hall.

They were the band that all proudly posessed nicknames: Peter "Biff" Byford, Paul "Blute" Quinn, Graham "Olly" Oliver, Steve "Dobby" Dawson and, not forgetting, Pete....ahem...Gill (;D).Hilarious

I think my first experience of seeing them was on Motorhead's 'Bomber Tour'. Obviously this was pre-Spinal Tap so not too many rolling around the stalls in catatonic fits of laughter. That first record was OK but they really were unsure of what they wanted to be. Some of it was even a bit 'proggy', though Big Teaser was fairly unambiguous  ;D
They were championed by Sounds, if I recall and their USP was that they eschewed R&R excess for...cups of tea! (Yorkshire tea, I guess).

They certainly made the most of their talent, I'll say that about them. 

Oh yes I did see them supporting Motorhead on the Bomber tour, that would have been the second time I saw them. Then the Brain Damage Party would have been the third and last.

I'm in a record shop - the old-fashioned kind, with wooden racks and LPs - and I'm looking for Colin Blunstone records. I'd never buy vinyl in real life - so I suppose this dream is a throwback to the past.

My younger brother's there as well. Someone has given us a huge box of chocolates, a big tray about 2ft square filled with them. I don't particularly want to eat them all now but he's already started, and before I know it about 2/3 of them are gone.

I think I must have had this dream after waking up, putting 6 Music on then drifting off to sleep again, because Maconie did play a Colin Blunstone record.

I'm watching Top Of The Pops. Some band or other is playing their latest record, featuring the sonorous tinkling of an electric piano.

But wait, doesn't that piano player look familiar? The camera zooms in on him, slowly. As the identity of the band's keyboard artiste becomes apparent, the studio audience begins to boo, loudly.

It's Jimmy Savile.

Was meeting someone in a hotel. The meeting floor inside was a series of huge swimming pools in all shapes and sizes and all interlinked. As I swam there was an artist at the side of the pool painting images of horses hoofs, there was supposedly some great art mystery about it but I never found out what it was.

I'm lying in bed with a woman. There's nothing sexual going on, and there are other people in the room. I'm talking to her, she wants to talk about politics and I tell her I'm a Tory. I think I also tell her my name is Richard for some reason. In the dream, perhaps it is.

One of the other people in the room joins in the conversation, and climbs into bed with us. I think there were something like four of us in the bed at one point. Naturally this is uncomfortable, so I get out. Then I'm packing a large suitcase.

Quote from: Slim on July 07, 2022, 08:27:07 AMI'm lying in bed with a woman. There's nothing sexual going on, and there are other people in the room. I'm talking to her, she wants to talk about politics and I tell her I'm a Tory. I think I also tell her my name is Richard for some reason. In the dream, perhaps it is.

One of the other people in the room joins in the conversation, and climbs into bed with us. I think there were something like four of us in the bed at one point. Naturally this is uncomfortable, so I get out. Then I'm packing a large suitcase.

You are Boris Johnson! Of course, you are lying about your name  ;D

I'm out in the country somewhere. It's early morning, not yet full light. I'm in a field, but there's a a small stone house about 20 metres away.

A large group of swans, or white geese are sleeping, tightly packed into a circular shape in the field. Like a huge Polo mint formed of aquatic birds.

I have a hand grenade. But instead of being heavy and made of metal, it's like a tennis ball - soft and a bit squidgy. I want to throw it. After thinking about it I pull the pin, then I allow the safety lever to spring free. I look at it for a moment, then I throw it, in the opposite direction of the birds.

It doesn't go quite as far as I wanted. I wait for it to go off, but it doesn't.

Oh yes later in the morning I had another dream. I'm sitting next to an old colleague of mine called Mike, we're in a cafe somewhere. One of the waitresses is wearing a white dress but it's far too short and her entire bum is showing. She's about 25 and she has a fantastic body. She tries to pull the dress down once or twice but it's no use.

I was in LA and got friendly with Peter Frampton. He fixed us drinks at his place, possibly rum or cocktails of some sort. Very odd shaped glasses that kept slipping down in your hands.
He took me around the town and pointed out all his undesirable acquaintances that led him astray whilst he was there. He told me he was leaving LA to live just outside Ipswich.
Later, I returned to visit Peter in LA as he'd invited me to an awards ceremony. I was with someone else(?) and we each had small hire cars like Fiat Pandas. I picked up Peter and his gay(?) brother. I followed the other car over a roundabout and just avoided colliding with two other cars. The next thing I know, we are on a huge freeway, going the wrong way! I can see carnage in the rear-view mirror and ahead of us as cars try to avoid us but we don't get hit, as if we are floating above the road. Hundreds of cars are being totalled.
I pull over and say to Peter, "this will cost us millions". He replies,
"We are ruined"

I'm watching some sort of parade with guardsmen in bearskins. Some of them are wearing red bearskins, some are wearing black bearskins. I have a semi-aerial view, as though I'm watching from an upper floor in a nearby building. I think they're marching along Whitehall.

As I watch, a guardsman runs to take his place and slot into the parade, while they march. He's late. They're marching four abreast. But his bearskin is the wrong colour! The different colours make up a sort of symmetrical pattern. He hurriedly changes places with the guardsman to his right.

I had a variation of my recurring train dream. In this one I'm in London, and trying to go somewhere using the tube network, or local trains. I get off at a stop where I think I'll be able to change trains to get where I'm going. But as I walk up the steps away from the platform I think that I've left my briefcase on the train, although I'm not sure I had it with me.

Also had a sweet dream in which I'm at some sort of informal work meeting. There's a young woman present, about 30 years old, short brown hair, very chic. She's obviously attracted to me and as we're standing talking, she moves very close to me. I ask if she's noticed that my accent is different from the other English people present (I think she's from the continent somewhere), because the others are all from the south, and I retain a vestigial trace of generic Northern in my own velvet tones.

I can't remember what she said. But I kissed her softly on the lower lip. Then I woke up.

Quote from: Slim on July 24, 2022, 04:17:30 PMI had a variation of my recurring train dream. In this one I'm in London, and trying to go somewhere using the tube network, or local trains. I get off at a stop where I think I'll be able to change trains to get where I'm going. But as I walk up the steps away from the platform I think that I've left my briefcase on the train, although I'm not sure I had it with me.

Also had a sweet dream in which I'm at some sort of informal work meeting. There's a young woman present, about 30 years old, short brown hair, very chic. She's obviously attracted to me and as we're standing talking, she moves very close to me. I ask if she's noticed that my accent is different from the other English people present (I think she's from the continent somewhere), because the others are all from the south, and I retain a vestigial trace of generic Northern in my own velvet tones.

I can't remember what she said. But I kissed her softly on the lower lip. Then I woke up.

Shame. Would've been a banger if it had ended with you kissing her softly on the left lip  ;D  ;)

I'm in a bar somewhere. It's an unsophisticated place. I think it might be a pub I went to once in East Leake.

I order a whisky and soda, and it comes in a disposable plastic cup - the sort that you buy in a stack of 20. But while I'm paying for it, Jamie Vardy sneaks up to the counter and steals it. He's very short.

I walk over to the table where he's sitting. He stands up. I take the drink back. I ponder what I should do if he kicks off. I decide just to punch him. Sure, he's younger than me. He's fit. He's aggressive. But he's only 5 ft tall.

But he grabs the whisky and soda, takes a big mouthful and blows a big raspberry right in my face. I've got whisky-scented footballer saliva in my eyes.

I wake up.

I'm sitting at a table in a front garden. I think it's in East Dulwich, where I lived in London. The house has French windows at the front and they're open. I'm the guest of a lady there and her daughter. The front garden is very small, just a narrow space between the front of the house and the pavement.

The lady who owns the house walks through the French doors out into the garden with a cake. It's a chocolate cake, quite small and shallow, about the size of a tea plate. It has cream in it.

I hear a bird squawk behind me in a tree on the other side of the street. It's a budgie. South London wouldn't be the same without them, she says.

She asks me to cut the cake. As I sink the knife into it, the cream starts to ooze out. It's runny, almost like milk. It bleeds out copiously and overwhelms the tin-foil base the cake is standing on, onto the table.

Kept pulling out small bits of plastic that were embedded in my left ear canal.

This may relate to my ongoing tinnitus and worrying about hearing loss.

Had a dream recently that seemed to turn "lucid", i.e. I suddenly felt in total control of how it was playing out.

I was walking hand-in-hand with my daughter in a strange and unfamiliar city, trying to navigate a way out, continually frustrated at finding only dead ends, as if in a maze.

To add to my frustration, I was aware of being tracked by a hoodie-clad group of maybe half a dozen youths, always on the periphery of my vision, sometimes walking in close to me and constantly passively-aggressively trying to intimidate me.

Eventually, my patience snapped and that seemed to break the spell; the dream suddenly seemed lucid and I felt like I was in control: I stopped walking, abruptly turned round to confront a youth to my side and said, firmly, "Mate, do us a favour and stop getting in me face, yeah?"

The youth didn't seem to expect my show of force and looked completely taken aback, at which point he and his equally undesirable companions slunk away and I woke up.

I've felt that sense of being able to guide dream direction recently. I don't know why. Maybe it has something to do with the Glasgow Scale. Many of my dreams are very troubling. I wouldn't post them here.

The over riding themes of my dreams often include
Being able to fly
Finding Money
Being Chased
Sitting Exams
Going to a gig then being being told you have to fill in for the the band
Dreaming songs..original ones with lyrics which when dreaming them sound like the most wonderful songs I've ever heard
Loose teeth

Awful dream last night. I was back in Hartlepool, in one of the bedrooms at the back of my mum's house that overlooks a neighbour's house. When I was a teenager two similarly-aged sisters lived there with their parents.

I was somehow in the secret service, and I had to shoot one of them. I didn't want to but I was under firm orders. I'd been given this gun - an old-fashioned, silenced submachine gun - and I was supposed to wait at the window until she appeared, then shoot.

I did shoot at her when she appeared but I missed, and next thing I know she's in the room with me. I'm under strict orders to kill her so I start to strangle her. But I can't do it, so I stop. Then I woke up. So disturbing.

I experienced what I believe is known in Rush-lyric parlance as a "fitful sleep". In the early hours I had a version of a recurring dream in which I'm at work, in a company office somewhere. This time I was sitting at a large table similar to a dining table, next to a school friend I've mine who I haven't seen since the late '70s, Andrew "Lambo" Lambson.

About a year ago someone told me that Lambo had died, I suppose that has something to do with it.

Then later I dreamed that I'd got up, come down to my study, and found both monitors missing from my desk. Most of my guitars were missing as well. Curiously, my best PRS was still present (in real life I don't keep it in there anyway). I examined the window, it had been broken into.

Very happy to wake up out of that one.

Was strapped to a missile in the Ukraine, incredible acceleration as it took off, looking down was a scene from the English countryside with a nice old church.At the peak of the climb I closed my eyes as the rocket descended, woke up before the impact/explosion.

Quote from: Nick on October 30, 2022, 07:33:37 AMWas strapped to a missile in the Ukraine, incredible acceleration as it took off, looking down was a scene from the English countryside with a nice old church.At the peak of the climb I closed my eyes as the rocket descended, woke up before the impact/explosion.

Been listening to Distant Early Warning?  ;D

I dreamed I was at a gig. Janick Gers had put together a version of White Spirit, the Hartlepool band he played in over 40 years ago. It was a tiny place, like a village community centre. The audience consisted of people sitting politely in three or four rows of plastic chairs. It was the middle of the day, with bright light coming through the windows.

I was sitting in the front row. Janick was talking to the audience while the band were playing. It was all very quiet and low key. He recognised me from the days when I used to go to White Spirit gigs and talk to him in pubs. He came down off the tiny stage, rested his chin on my shoulder and kissed me on the cheek.

Later I dreamed I was at another gig, again a really small place but this time everyone was standing. I can't remember anything about the gig except that there were two guitar players. Steve Lukather and Wayne Rooney. Wayne was playing a Fender Jazzmaster.

I had a dream about watching the Open Golf on TV *Shudders*

One from the other night:

I witnessed a murder (but strangely it wasn't graphic or disturbing as such) and was arrested on suspicion of committing it.

I was taken to some kind of holding room, where a sort of metal trolley was wheeled in and I was handcuffed to it.  The room was full of seats, all occupied by friends and others who were there to advocate for my innocence and offer moral support - including Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson.

After a short while, a police officer came in, released me from the handcuffs and declared I was free to go.

My companions erupted into cheers and applause, and when it subsided Alex said, "Well I thought he was guilty!"

Hearty guffaws then filled the room and the dream ended.

I woke up at 0730 this morning. Didn't really want to get up too early so I drifted in and out of sleep for a couple of hours.

I dreamed that I saw David Lammy using a mobile phone while riding a bicycle. Then I dreamed that I bought another guitar second-hand. When I got it home, I noticed that someone had written something on the scratchplate using a marker pen. And two of the locking tuner knobs were missing.

Very vivid dream early this morning. I was in a huge hangar at NASA, with a Space Shuttle in it. There's scaffolding all over the Shuttle and a walkway leading to an open door on the side.

I'm invited to go in. It's a double door, like an air lock. Inside it's like a busy office with all sorts of scientific equipment in racks - I think this was a sort of flashback to the year I worked for ICI as a student, some of the offices and labs had stuff like that.

I mislay my glasses somewhere in there so I wander around looking for them. A young NASA lady comes up to me and politely reminds me that I'm not supposed to go nosing around in there on my own.

I don't remember any dreams when I wake.  I sleep really badly too, typically awakening around 3am and tossing turning for an hour before falling asleep and then getting up at 6.

I'm asleep at the dinner table 5 minutes after eating as well.  Must get better sleeping habits.

Quote from: captainkurtz on November 23, 2022, 05:14:25 PMI don't remember any dreams when I wake.  I sleep really badly too, typically awakening around 3am and tossing turning for an hour before falling asleep and then getting up at 6.

I'm asleep at the dinner table 5 minutes after eating as well.  Must get better sleeping habits.

Similar here, I wake throughout the night (don't consider it a problem) and again like the Captain ready for bed after the evening meal.

I have plenty of dreams. Mostly mundane and not worth reporting, occasionally so strange that I can't put them into words.

I do have a recurring dream where I need a crap and I'm faced with a series of traps which are all unusable: One will have shit smeared over the handle, the next will be full to the brim with turds, the nest will have a pebble-dashed seat etc. etc. I then wake up to brown sheets...

I don't usually post in this section as I dream so often and so vividly that it would be a constant diary. I've been retired a couple of years and don't miss working but continually dream about work with a mash-up of employees and situations from various employers. Most of it very confused and frustrating and some of it quite depressing.

However, last night I had one of those very welcome but too infrequent dreams about Rush. The band were retired, but only in their thirties and had arranged a kind of friendly meet and greet with a few fans, maybe around a dozen. It was in an establishment not unlike the coffee shop you would find in Waterstones. I didn't speak to Geddy or Alex strangely, but sat down with a white T shirted Neil who couldn't have been warmer or more welcoming but a bit shy. I asked him about certain keyboard parts (weird) so we turned to a dream altered form of a Minimoog with big black pad triggers along the top.

When I asked him how they played the synth intro to Tom Sawyer he triggered one of the pads. I asked him then why did Geddy still play Subdivisions on the keyboard but he just seemed confused and the dream faded to something else. Quite a pleasant memory on awakening. Only too rare. I've just remembered, when leaving the place I was chatting with a few other fans as we walked, wondering whether the band would return to do this again as it had been great. Someone piped up that they had a few dates lined up in the US so might not be back for a while.

Supposedly everyone dreams, but many people don't remember them. Often I've woken up from a dream thinking BLOODY HELL, having had such an imaginative and dramatic feature going on in my unconscious head, only to be completely unable to recall it a few hours later.

Early this morning I dreamed that my next door neighbour to the left was sawing long planks of wood on a stand then passing them over my garden to my neighbour on the other side, who was building a shed with them.

Yesterday morning I had a very agreeable dream. I was at a student hall of residence and in some sort of relationship with two of the girls living there. I think they shared the room. At one point I was lying in a large bed with both of them at the same time, although the dream wasn't sexual at all.

The college janitor or handyman came into the room, climbed a stepladder and removed a large video camera from a cabinet in the wall.

There was also a scene with a car, I was supposed to drive it outside (must have been in a garage or at least indoors somehow) but the entrance didn't seem to be wide enough. Outside there were sprawling acres of green grass.

Weirdly, I actually had a dream I remembered after the last post I made. 

In the dream a member of the old TNMS board came to my house with his children and started setting up his games console in my office.  He had taken my work desk apart and basically shoved all the paperwork and other work accoutrements across the floor surface. I got angry and told him to leave.

Then I woke up.  Weird.

Extraordinary dreams this morning.

In one of them, I'm James Bond. There's some kind of crisis at a shopping mall or similar public place. A railway station maybe. People are flooding to the exits - a bomb scare, or something like that. Maybe Blofeld's going to detonate an atom bomb in there or something.

But I'm on my way in there, wearing a sharp suit. I'm going to nail the bad guys and fix it. I know I can't fail, because I'm 007. I always win. I stride purposefully past a row of shops on the ground floor. I feel indestructible. Dominant. It's a very empowering feeling.

Another dream, very affecting this one - I've met a woman and I'm in that uncertain period where we're just about to start dating, she seems to be interested and I really like her .. she's a black woman, very gracious and mild-mannered.  A long time ago I dated a Jamaican girl and I think the dream may be an unconscious flashback.

So later in the dream I'm talking to my wife.. this makes no sense of course but she tells me that she's bumped into this woman while out shopping, and she said she was really keen to see me again .. at this point the emotional dissonance must have been too much and I woke up.

Finally a brutal dream set in a prison cell .. I'm only a spectator in this one but there are three people in the cell, one very dangerous and aggressive. Two of them have a row, or the aggressive one is bullying the other one. He has him on the floor and he's trying to kill him. The other one picks up a gun and fires it into the air, through the open cell door to attract the prison guards. The guards come running and there's a snarling confrontation in the cell.

Rush announced a last tour and I can't get tickets for the uk show. I turn up at the gig and can see the band playing in a circus like tent. The box office tell me all tickets are gone but somehow I get in. I pass a row of old uni friends but they have no spare seats, why are they there? I think, they were never fans. The band are playing and I am spending my time going up and down the rows, the last row is full of Ukrainian armoured personnel carriers. I'm aware I'm missing the show but then wake.

Some humdingers this week including a couple of nightmares but the standout for me was;

Enjoying a beer with Matt Hancock and a few others at a table outside a local pub. Matt suggested to a couple sitting opposite that they might be able to help him with something that might make him laugh and be very hungry afterwards. They gave him a brownish baked bean shaped object which he swallowed in an instant. A short time later he ran off towards the local river, fell backwards on the bank and hit his head. He bounced up obviously dazed but took off again. No one could find him. I was taken along with a group of friends to an office where we were given black blazers with a yellow badge on the breast pocket.

I instantly enjoyed this authority I had been given and set off with the others to find Matt. I received a call though that I had to visit Prince Charles (not King) on another matter and unfortunately this meant relinquishing my new role. I mentioned this to the prince and he immediately ensured that I be given back this power. I was delighted.

I have no memory of whether the dream ever reached the point of finding Matt.

Driving in the van and the rear tyre splits and deflates. 

I had a Neil Peart dream early this morning, which I think may be a first. I've never particularly been an acolyte. I've seen better drummers and lord knows there are better lyric writers.

In the dream, Neil is sitting - symbolically I think - in some sort of scaffold structure which represents him being networked to the world. I'm in some sort of open space. Someone remarks that he hasn't said anything for a while, which refers I think to the time I noticed he hadn't put a new blog piece on his site for months.

In another dream I'm watching old footage of Jimmy Tarbuck on a telly in a cosy living room somewhere. Liza Tarbuck is present. I tell her that that I used to think her dad was very funny when I was a kid, which is true.

Bizarre dream this morning. John Travolta was part of the Coronation Street cast, and one of the episodes involved John recreating one of his song & dance routine with Olivia Newton-John from Grease. One of the other Corrie regulars stood in for Olivia.

How does this stuff come into my head? What possible train of unconscious thought led to that?

I'm in a living room with my ex-girlfriend, Sara. She's vandalising our settee, painting words - a slogan of some kind perhaps - on the side of it, with a small paintbrush and yellow fluorescent paint.

When she's finished I go to the kitchen, to get a cloth to remove the paint. I start to scrub it off, and she tells me she's leaving. Don't try to follow me, she says. I tell her that I won't. I hug her, and tell her that I'll always remember her. I mention her brother and sister by name and tell her that I hope their lives bring them everything they would wish for themselves.

I haven't seen her for over thirty years, but I still dream about her sometimes.

Some stinkers last night. I think it's a reaction to the excess food and alcohol pollution of the bloodstream during the holidays. The dream I remember was being in a Greggs type shop trying to buy my lunch during my break at work. I keep dreaming about work even though I've been retired a couple of years now. The shop is full of really tasty looking filled rolls or to be more accurate filled crusty bread loaves. Crammed full of meat, cheese, salad and looked really appetising. The only thing that was more crammed full was the shop itself. Guys literally shoulder to shoulder, like the old football terraces, and all really big, burly gangster looking types. When it was my turn to be served the girl behind the counter just couldn't seem to figure out what I was looking for and kept giving me options which I'd agree to but she still didn't understand. The crowd of guys became noisier and more threatening and a couple of faces actually morphed into a kind of painted on appearance with weird frightening eyes. Suddenly, the crowd disappeared except for one guy who had been the most threatening. He began to mock me in front of the staff until I noticed he was wearing a name badge from one of our competitors. I think in the dream I was telling the truth when I declared I was a major shareholder in the company he worked for, and with one phone call he would lose his job. Things evaporated fairly quickly after that and I woke up with heart racing and that horrible cold nightmare feeling of dread. Not a good night's sleep.

There seems to be a theme running the ones I remember (which happens only occasionally) where I am feeling disconcerted or in some kind of oppressive circumstances, yet find a resolve to make some kind of verbal or symbolic stand against it.

Take last night's: the dream started just after I had played 90 minutes in an 11-a-side football match on an indoor, full size 3G pitch, the other team being a classic bunch of sh!thouses, constantly trying to intimidate us with vicious and belittling verbal abuse.

The game had ended in a draw, so there was a penalty shoot-out to settle the winner, but unfortunately our 'keeper was worse than useless, possibly having caved in to constant sledging and insults.  As the ring-leader (possibly captain) of our opponents went to take the deciding penalty, he actually got some abuse back from my team, resulting in a knee-jerk "bite" where he made a vile sexual reference to the four-year-old daughter of one of my team-mates.

It was so shocking that it stunned absolutely everybody into a momentary silence, ended by a few "whoooaahhs" from players on both teams; then one of my colleagues (possibly our captain) came out with a perfect slam-dunk put-down, the exact words of which I would love to remember, but can't.

The penalty was scored and we lost the game, but the other team didn't celebrate, just filed past me mumbling things while I smiled at them sarcastically, knowing that my team and I had the moral high ground.

Another troublesome production of vulnerability and frustration from the makers of my nightly mental routines. Work again. I wonder if I'll ever shake off the unhappiness that being in the wrong jobs clearly caused me, yet I was unaware of the scale of the problem at the time. That last part probably isn't true. Last night was again office based, with a dolly mixture of staff from various employers, unable or unwilling to help me find a commonly used 'phone number to pass on to an increasingly frustrated client. There was the usual appearance of a guy who folk saw as a bit of a daft, harmless character, but who I believed to be an odious Machiavellian rat who would land you in it instantly if he had the opportunity. On and on it went with it seemingly impossible for me to write this number on a piece of paper to pass on. When I did manage to remember it and write it down, the note would mysteriously disappear into the mess of other scraps on my desk. All this time the evil court jester in the background, passing comment, but being entirely unhelpful. A therapist would have a field day with this stuff but the money would probably be better spent on beer.

I dreamed I was walking across an empty and huge petrol station forecourt, on my way to pay for a tankful of petrol. There's a tiny spy drone following me, just over my right shoulder. I shoo it off and it flies off quickly, like a startled wasp.

I get to the counter in the petrol station, and find that I don't have my debit card on me. I can't pay for the petrol. Can't remember what happened after that.

That was a pleasant change. I met Bob Mortimer and we quickly became friends and just hung out together having a laugh. We visited my local butchers which was owned by Jim Moir and we had a good bit of banter going with him at the expense of the old ladies who were being held up from being served. Strangely for a butchers the stock in the chill counter was mainly fish including huge whole herring, much larger than I think they are ever able to grow to. I persuaded Bob to try an Arbroath Smokie and we ordered three for our next day's lunch with Jim.

We later went for a walk where I saw a guy I had had a bit of a fall out with in our late twenties. We patched things up afterwards but things were never the same again and he later moved South for a really good job. I introduced him to my new friends knowing he would be jealous. He was wearing a 70s style cagoule with the hood up, something he would never wear.

I wish the dream had gone on longer but it fizzled out. More of this type please.

Just remembered I had an earlier dream last night. The eBike I have on order (in real daytime life) had just been delivered. I decided to visit a friend a few doors away who in reality moved from there decades ago. Her house, a semi-detached, was more like a hotel in the dream, with people coming and going and my precious bike chained up outside in a car park where the back garden should be. When I returned to collect my bike, all that was left was the frame and even the battery and motor had been removed. I burst out crying. Nothing like a good night's sleep.😂

One of the most random dreams I've had in a long time last night.

For some reason, I'm visiting the studios of GB News (which in real life I occasionally watch for their take on things) and I'm in a green room; Nigel Farage has just finished his show and walks in, all jovial and matey with everyone and engages me in a short but amusing conversation.

Sitting nearby is John Squire of The Stone Roses, who acknowledges my presence with a nod and a smile, so I feel the urge to go right up to him to shake his hand and get a selfie to impress my friends and acquaintances, but I resist, thinking it might be seen as too forward, so I play it cool, intending to accost him later.

Farage disappears, and I walk outside the studio building to get some fresh air.  Peter Sissons is there, possibly having had a cheeky fag.  We greet each other and suddenly my hands are full of hen's eggs, some that look normal and some unmistakably of a humanoid shape.  I drop one of the latter, and on managing to pick it up see it has yolk gushing out, so I curse loudly and put it in a bin.  I apologise to Peter Sissons for my clumsiness and bad language, but he assures me he's fine with it, and heads into the studio.

Then David Dickinson rocks up, seemingly not in the best of moods, and asks me if I'm also going in the building.  I say I am and, as I set off toward the entrance, the dream ends (or my memory of it does).

I'm almost certain this was prompted by pressures at work, given for my role it's one of the busiest times of the year. 

Really odd dreams this morning.

I'm at a funfair with Boris Johnson, standing next to him at the shooting gallery. The targets are all symbolic - for example there's a swastika representing Nazism printed on a little plate. I can't remember the others but there were six or seven of them. The great man takes careful aim with the air rifle and hits all of them.

He wins a prize - a red water pistol with a very long barrel. He gives it to me and I walk with him back to his car.

I go into a gun shop, to look at the air rifles. There are two shop assistants in there, black men in their 30s. I think my wife is with me. I tell one of the assistants that I want an accurate one, to plink at tin cans in the garden.

I'm at my brother's house in Stamford. My favourite Les Paul is hanging from the ceiling in their living room. I take it down, so I can take it home with me. I also have more stuff to take home from there in cardboard boxes, but why I don't know.

I'm sitting at my PC watching a young couple play cards in their living room via a hidden camera. Then somehow I'm in the same room, but lying in a bed (I suppose I must have been dimly conscious that I was in bed and this seeped into my dream). I pretend to be asleep with my eyes closed. Their cat is climbing all over the walls, then it tries to get into bed with me. Then she goes to the kitchen, comes back into the living room, drops her pants and bends over. Oh god no they're going to have sex. Awkward. They aren't an attractive couple and I definitely don't want to watch.

I wake up.

Another strange one this morning. I'm in some sort of office building with clear partitions between the offices - really small cubic spaces. There are a couple of people visible through the partition; one of them is David Oyelowo, an actor who was in Spooks, the first Reacher film and a few other things. Here though he isn't David Oyelowo, he's a young system admin at the beginning of his career and he's there to apply for a job. He's also a bit shorter than I suspect he is in real life.

I go through to the next office to visit them.

David is sitting at a desk that's a sort of console - it looks a bit like a mixing desk in a studio. But there's a stubby steering column sticking out of it, with a sporty little steering wheel attached. This is somehow a metaphor for sys admin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_administrator). In the dream you do that job by literally driving the console, with the steering wheel.

I start to remove the steering wheel from the steering column.

Was my dream trying to tell me something, I wonder? Do I need to figuratively keep both hands on the wheel in my job to prevent someone younger taking it?

I'm in Hartlepool, cycling along a leafy suburban street called Claremont Drive that used to be part of my walk to school. But uh-oh - the handlebars are a bit loose. It's not a modern bike, definitely not one of my own real-life bikes. Can I tighten the nut sufficiently with my fingers? If I can make it to the town centre I'll be able to buy a spanner.

Later, I'm in my bedroom in Hartlepool. It's a sunny day and light is streaming in through the open curtains.

I'm on the outskirts of Halifax town centre (though it doesn't look like the real-life version) atop one of its hills, and in trying to take an unfamiliar short-cut towards town I get a little lost.

I happen upon a pub, so go inside to have a drink while intending to use my phone to get my bearings.

There is a sort of self-serve buffet lunch available, which entirely consists of a large bucket of nasty looking red slop; still, I pour some out into a bowl and only then decide I don't want any.*

I take a seat (not having ordered a drink, but there was one on my table anyway) and sitting facing everyone in the room is a rock DJ/quizmaster, who happens to be Bruce Dickinson.

Bruce - ponytailed and in stage gear - is going through his usual matey patter over a mike, amusing the small number of punters with wise cracks and frequent effing-and-jeffing.

He rises from his seat and looks far shorter than I anticipated.  He swaps banter with a couple of folk before noticing me and he smiles and walks to my table.

"Farkin' 'ell", he says to me, "I'm glad you didn't have any of that lunch, it looks a right load of shit!"

"Yeah mate!", I reply, a little starstruck, "Um, any chance we could have a photo?"

He seems to ponder this for a couple of seconds and, just when it looks as if he's going to respond, I wake up (15 minutes before my alarm was going to go off).

* Almost certainly influenced from two nights earlier by watching S1 E2 of Breaking Bad, featuring graphic scenes of liquefied human remains.

A couple of seemingly lengthy sagas last night but at least a rare Rush appearance to report. I was in an auditorium which I seemed to realise was contained in a university building. I was explaining to a friend that it was my favourite concert venue due to its acoustics and pointed out the baffles and wall insulation panels to him. Geddy appeared on the stage for rehearsal and laughed at my comments in a way that suggested he had heard me say these things too many times before. He and Alex began to get organised and my next vision was the band playing although I was watching from a kind of cafe area. A girl approached me and said, "sorry, I know I'm stating the obvious to you of all people, but they're rather good". The song which Rush performed was very reminiscent of their PW days. As I woke I reached for my phone and recorded my memory of the chorus into Voice Memo:

He beat the cars
He beat the sun
He beat his enemies
Before things had begun

Gobbledegook obviously, but I only need an intro and verse from a future dream for a complete cosmos given Rush song.😁

Bizarre dream this morning. I'm sitting next to Randy California, in some sort of office canteen, talking about guitars and practice. I mention something I read in an interview (for real) many years ago, that Ted Nugent used to practice with his first guitar until his fingers were sore and the guitar had left marks across his torso.

No idea where that came from except that I've been feeling guilty about not practicing enough. But how Randy California burbled to the top of my unconscious mind, I can't imagine.

Was stuck forever in a tiny room in a castle, the only escape was down a triangular twisting slide that went on into infinity.

I spent some time this evening Googling stuff about nightmares having had yet another horrible one last night. Tons of theories about causes but no really satisfying self help simple solutions. One rather surprising pointer was to consider a bedtime snack which is mainly protein. They suggested a couple of boiled eggs and more surprisingly cheese. There must be a reason for troubled  dreams but I just can't figure it out.

I had a variation on an old recurring dream in the early hours of this morning; a dream I used to have often but I don't remember having it for years.

The wife and I go into a branch of Boots in some distant town. Perhaps we're on holiday somewhere, but we've never been there before. It's an unusually sophisticated branch of Boots, with several floors. I mention to my wife that it's more like a department store.

We go to the next floor up, then the one after that. On each floor the staircase to the next floor becomes more obscure and difficult to find and the floors become quieter and more disconnected from the usual business of the store, like storage spaces.

Eventually we're climbing a ladder into a sort of dingy attic space .. it's small though there's more than one room. It has a dusty old patterned carpet. There are no windows. But there's some sort of mechanism there - maybe like the clock mechanism in a church tower. An old woman appears from the next room and remonstrates with us .. we've invaded her private space. I explain that there's no sign or barrier to indicate that we've left the store into an area that's out of bounds.

Strange one this morning. I was in a busy school lab type environment with a mix of acquaintances, friends and former colleagues. I think my very unreliable financial adviser was in charge. A news item was shown where someone I think I might vaguely know was involved in a F1 accident. I don't know if he survived, but due to his misfortune there was a further gathering of people in this room. I was immediately drawn to this girl with long, slightly unkempt raven black hair. We chatted and it was clear we were interested in each other. After she left I asked a friend if he knew her. He said she was Ann van Lear and was a bit weird so I should forget about her. I followed this up by going to find her. She was in a relationship but it was crumbling so we started seeing each other due to our strong bond. On awakening I Googled Ann van Lear. The first entry was for a woman who lived in Pennsylvania in the 1700s. She married a Scotsman called John Hutton. My only visit to the US was a week visiting three states with the party spending most of the time in Pennsylvania. The Google article mentioned Kane County where we were but the details were behind a paywall. I suppose the accident was probably triggered by a chance meeting I had with an old friend earlier in the day when he told me of a pal's recent motorcycle accident. The girl in the dream seemed very familiar with a distinctive accent. I later unscrambled that she was Sophie (Aimee-Ffion Edwards) from The Detectorists whom I always found very attractive. So strange how the mind can conjure up such random names during sleep. Makes you think!

Quote from: Slim on April 10, 2023, 06:26:21 PMI had a variation on an old recurring dream in the early hours of this morning; a dream I used to have often but I don't remember having it for years.

The wife and I go into a branch of Boots in some distant town. Perhaps we're on holiday somewhere, but we've never been there before. It's an unusually sophisticated branch of Boots, with several floors. I mention to my wife that it's more like a department store.

We go to the next floor up, then the one after that. On each floor the staircase to the next floor becomes more obscure and difficult to find and the floors become quieter and more disconnected from the usual business of the store, like storage spaces.

Eventually we're climbing a ladder into a sort of dingy attic space .. it's small though there's more than one room. It has a dusty old patterned carpet. There are no windows. But there's some sort of mechanism there - maybe like the clock mechanism in a church tower. An old woman appears from the next room and remonstrates with us .. we've invaded her private space. I explain that there's no sign or barrier to indicate that we've left the store into an area that's out of bounds.

Sounds like The Wasp Factory mechanism.

I read that book in 1995, perhaps I'll reread it some time

Quote from: Slim on May 19, 2023, 11:07:44 AMI read that book in 1995, perhaps I'll reread it some time

Just about the time I read it too. I picked it up recently but I'd forgotten about the animal cruelty angle and I find that I just can't handle that anymore. So I put it back down. Any record of animal distress these days is just too much for me. I can't even watch those superb Attenborough programmes anymore as I know something dreadful will happen at some point.

I stroll into a record shop and immediately I see an absolutely pristine, original triple-gatefold vinyl copy of All The World's A Stage. It looks brand new. There's a small queue at the counter and as I make my way there I look for my debit card .. can't find it. Then I do find it. Then I wake up.

When I got round to buying a legit copy of All The World's A Stage back in 1978 or so, the original import triple-gatefold sleeve version was long sold out. So I had to make do with the UK release, which only had a double gatefold sleeve. Since then I have tracked down a couple of triple-gatefold copies, one on Mercury which I acquired in the '90s, the other on Anthem that I found on eBay about ten years ago.

Quote from: Slim on May 22, 2023, 09:12:44 AMI stroll into a record shop and immediately I see an absolutely pristine, original triple-gatefold vinyl copy of All The World's A Stage. It looks brand new. There's a small queue at the counter and as I make my way there I look for my debit card .. can't find it. Then I do find it. Then I wake up.

When I got round to buying a legit copy of All The World's A Stage back in 1978 or so, the original import triple-gatefold sleeve version was long sold out. So I had to make do with the UK release, which only had a double gatefold sleeve. Since then I have tracked down a couple of triple-gatefold copies, one on Mercury which I acquired in the '90s, the other on Anthem that I found on eBay about ten years ago.

A tri-fold ATWAS was the holy grail for me too. I got a decent one a couple of years ago.

I can actually remember a dream from last night. I was out seeing Rush, not in an arena, but a leisure centre sport's hall, which is by-the-by but it's where I was.

I'm about three rows away from Lerxst and he's launched into a guitar solo where he's extemporising on various Christmas Carols. This makes me laugh - yes, it's a dream - and I start singing along. Lerxst sees me and starts to encourage me, because I'm the only person who's recognising what he's doing. I'm belting out the words to "See amid the Winter's Snow" and I look round and see the likes of Neph, Gebs and Dave Ogg who are obviously recording the show and they're simultaneously looking daggers and grinning like loons at me. Next minute it's morphed into one of my regular needing a piss and finding that all the urinals are overflowing dreams. So I get up for a tiddle...

I woke up from a long, strange dream this morning but can only remember the last couple of minutes now, which had nothing to do with the rest of the dream.

I'm with Al Murray, the pub landlord. We're at some dockside somewhere and we're supposed to be on a ship. Somehow we manage to climb up the side of the hull and over the railings. We walk along the deck. There's a small cabin on the deck near the aft of the ship. Inside are several men in black uniforms with caps. One of them is no older than 18, but he's smoking a foot long cigar.

I realise that it's a Norwegian Navy vessel, and we're on the wrong ship. But at that moment the ship takes off from its mooring like a speedboat. I jump over the side to swim back ashore.

I woke at 6AM this morning and dozed in and out of a series of vivid dreams for the next couple of hours. As usual I can't remember them now but one of them was a recurring dream in which I'm working for some large company, but I'm not sure what my job is .. almost like I'm an impostor there. In this dream sometimes I go to the staff restaurant though I didn't this time.

I do remember sitting at a computer workstation and discerning that it was a very old OS .. I think that must relate to my time at RR.

I'm at some sort of fan event with Sea Power. It's in some sort of run down area of Hartlepool in a big yard. The band are there and they're handing out food on paper plates.

I'm in a restaurant and at a table to the right and behind me there are two attractive women, both dark-haired, one a little chubbier than the other, both wearing elegant black dresses. One of them announces that they're getting married. I start to clap, hoping that the rest of the clientele will join in (which they do).

I also had some sort of dream in which I'd been living with a woman in a flat somewhere and one of us has to go and live in a different town for work .. actually I think it was somehow tied in to the Sea Power dream but I can't remember it properly now.

I don't visit this thread very often as it could easily take up so much of my time. My dreaming is troublesome. Very regularly paranoid, neurotic stuff that is so vivid and which I can usually recollect. I've started to read about REM sleep and the causes of vivid dreams. I'm convinced it must be some type of nocturnal chemical imbalance but I doubt very much if my GP would find it a cause for concern. There are people who are frequent visitors to my dreams but whom I rarely think of in my waking life, let alone discuss them with anyone, and they're people I'm very unlikely to ever meet again as they are in the main former colleagues. I enjoy the occasional Rush appearance and will continue to report those.

With bank holiday weekend shenanigans putting my sleeping patterns out of sync I just knew I'd have some kind of fitful-sleep-induced-anxiety-dream the night before going back to work, and so it proved.

I was in an unfamiliar town and casually mentioned to a young local who looked like a far left activist something about my stance on the raging trans debate - I can't remember exactly what I said, but it was literally one sentence referring to biological facts.

Before I knew it, I was being hounded by an ever increasing number of people not just vehemently disagreeing with me, but threatening physical harm, so I ran off to seek refuge. But I was discovered, so had to find another place to hide. And so the cycle continued.

No matter how good I thought my hiding place I was always tracked down. It got to the point where the dream felt deeply sinister and unpleasant, to the point it could be fairly be categorised as a nightmare.

I'm pretty sure this came about partly as a consequence of other major personal things happening at the moment which aren't actually "bad things" as such, just transformative.

All will be revealed when things are "sorted", but I expect more quite vivid (and hopefully far more pleasant) dreams in the meantime.

Quote from: Matt2112 on August 29, 2023, 08:14:23 PMWith bank holiday weekend shenanigans putting my sleeping patterns out of sync I just knew I'd have some kind of fitful-sleep-induced-anxiety-dream the night before going back to work, and so it proved.

I was in an unfamiliar town and casually mentioned to a young local who looked like a far left activist something about my stance on the raging trans debate - I can't remember exactly what I said, but it was literally one sentence referring to biological facts.

Before I knew it, I was being hounded by an ever increasing number of people not just vehemently disagreeing with me, but threatening physical harm, so I ran off to seek refuge. But I was discovered, so had to find another place to hide. And so the cycle continued.

No matter how good I thought my hiding place I was always tracked down. It got to the point where the dream felt deeply sinister and unpleasant, to the point it could be fairly be categorised as a nightmare.

I'm pretty sure this came about partly as a consequence of other major personal things happening at the moment which aren't actually "bad things" as such, just transformative.

All will be revealed when things are "sorted", but I expect more quite vivid (and hopefully far more pleasant) dreams in the meantime.

That's precognition

I very often dream about a particular ex-girlfriend, or I could say ex-partner - we had a joint bank account and a mortgage. But a girl I dated in 1992/93 made an appearance last night, or early this morning. She was called Julie. I think that's a first, certainly in recent years anyway.

She was an absolutely delectable 25 year old woman. Unbelievably fit and vivacious. She had the body of an elite athlete and the personality of a teenager. She worked in the company library and I never would have approached her, except that she discreetly approached my boss at the time to ask if I was single. Which I wasn't, I was in a relationship with someone. But that was very easily fixed.

Anyway - long story short it went complicated quite quickly and I became entangled as the Other Man in a (bizarre) love triangle. I hated myself for sharing her with someone else but I've never been so powerfully, chemically infatuated with anyone, before or since.

So anyway last night I dreamed that I was at home in Hartlepool. I think it was Christmas. She lived in (or was visiting) a house on the other side of the road, and she just walked over and came through the front door. I think she hugged me but the dream has pretty much faded now.

I should start a memoir section.

Night after night dreams of work with random ex colleagues. Really frustrating. I don't miss work at all. Maybe that's at the root of it.

An anxiety dream with a coprophobic theme and featuring the top boss at my new work place.

Basically, I had, let's say, followed through into my undies and trousers so I went into the toilet to try and clean them up.  But the more I tried the more the poo seemed to stick.

Then the boss (who looked exactly as in real life) came in with a few other colleagues (who didn't); obviously I felt mortified but, bizarrely, while still trying to get my pants clean they all just casually discussed work stuff with me as if nothing unusual or embarrassing was happening.  And that was it.

The new job is going fine, just for the record, but obviously I'm keen to make a good first impression; I'm certain that was manifest here.

Quite an affecting one early this morning. I was at my grandparents' place in Hartlepool. It was Christmas, again. My three cousins from that side of the family were there, but my grandparents weren't. There was a lot more to it than that but I can't remember it now.

Strangely, last night was mostly sport-related.
I remember I was playing cricket, under a marquee, and putting in a great innings with the bat.
I was also skateboarding with Russell Brand (he was probably trying to get a break from his current predicament)

Strange dream yesterday morning. I was at some sort of reunion, maybe a work reunion of some sort, maybe a school reunion .. maybe not a reunion at all, it was vague. I was smartly dressed in a blazer or possibly a suit, with a blue open neck shirt.

It's dark and we start to filter outside, to take a coach, or to walk along a long drive. We're at a big house, like a mansion. Andy Price (latterly of TNMS) is there for some reason.

I hear music playing. It's Georgie Fame and he's singon a tune that has a refrain "belong to the moon" that's a sort of vocal pentatonic bebop riff. I made a note of it when I woke up, it's actually quite a nice little riff.

A US Army general visits a hospital somewhere in France, during World War II.

He's introduced to the patients, and he comes to a young soldier leaning back in a chair next to one of the beds.

"Hello, son", he says. But the young man doesn't reply. He doesn't stand, or acknowledge the general's greeting. He seems to ignore him.

One of the doctors comes over and explains that the young soldier can't help it. He's not being disrespectful. He's just not well.

And the general is a kind, considerate man. He understands.

Had a vivid nightmare a couple of nights ago.

I was riding a skateboard through a concrete mogul field when it changed to snow. At the bottom of the run I was with my wife but did not have a board (skate or snow). I scrambled back along the run to search for it but it was not to be found. We decided to return to our apartment. Once there we decided to go shopping and found ourselves looking at winter sports clothing in a typical sports shop in a complex.
This just happened to have a train platform just outside the shop (but still within the shopping centre). I told the wife I was returning to the apartment on the train and duly hopped aboard the next one to stop, entering the carriage through large sliding doors. I stood towards the front where a large window allowed a view in front of the carriage. As we pulled out of the station, I surveyed the other occupants who were mostly Japanese. Ah, we seem to be fulfilling our dream of snowboarding in Japan!
There were only a few others on board but directly behind me, seated, was a Japanese couple with a little girl. As the train gathered speed I noticed it was leaving the rails and slewing sideways. Still accelerating, we seemed to be going sideways across a muddy field towards a precipice. The carriage went over the edge and hurtled towards a catastrophic collision with the ground. What was fascinating was the end-over-end motion and the kalaidescopic images of trees and rock-face through the windows. We were, strangely, not being flung around. In fact, those seated, remained so. At this point the little girl was eerily smiling as if she was enjoying the ride unaware of what was about to happen. The falling seemed to last long enough for me to contemplate the 'end'. I remember wondering whether it would come from a piercing tree branch or from the collision with the ground.
Of course, I woke before I found out but the traumatic period lasted longer than usual.

Two dreadful nightmares last night, one following the other immediately it seemed. Part one, a friend and me trying to escape two dangerous young guys. We tried disappearing into crowds and buildings, even using the trick of going in and out of entrances and exits to station platforms, almost succeeding in giving them the slip, only for the train to pull away too soon. Then part two, very sinister dream. I'm with another friend this time in some kind of horrible, gigantic entertainment complex. Being a disturbing place I decide to leave alone as my friend was reluctant to go. I'm then in an unrecognisable hugely built up area with no phone and no idea where this place was. I try to join a bus queue believing there was only a few people waiting only to be told the queue stretched for miles with no hope of getting on any bus. A devastating feeling of loneliness and loss descended upon me which fortunately signalled the start of  awakening up process. I was tempted to fall back to sleep again but I felt the spectre of the dreams too strongly, pulling me back in, so fought sleep for as long as I could.

I saw someone thrown of a snow-mobile and smash his head into a tree last night. I felt I should've helped but continued to walk past. I was sure there was nothing I could do to save him but he did come round as I walked past. I was still certain that he would die so had no guilt about the situation

I'm walking out of a building, to a car park where I've left my car. My wife is with me. I'm listening to a radio programme on my personal radio. I don't want to listen any more. I pull the earbuds out.

That's odd .. I'm still hearing the radio.

I get into the car. The car radio's switched on. That must be it. I switch it off. I can still hear the radio. I turn to my wife and tell her I've got a radio programme playing in my head. I repeat the news headlines, as if to prove the point.

I wake up. I left LBC playing on the bedside Echo Dot when I went for an afternoon nap.

I am in a car park, I was sent there to check up on someone's car. It is the car park for a hotel. I am being seen by a group of young men hanging around and am aware that I need get out of there. I leave and enter the hotel, there is no reception. Just a little concrete staircase that leads up only a handful of steps after which I can choose to go right or left, I choose right and run up the stairs which are out of sight for anyone following me. I can hear him enter the first staircase just before I close the door of the 2nd floor behind me.
I am safe.

Had a brief Rush dream last night. A change from my usual troublesome and usually work related type. The band decided they needed to rehearse to check that Neil was up to speed as they had concerns. They set the gear up in a public park in the middle of a grassy area. I got to stand beside the drum kit as they began to play. I can't remember the song, but Neil was playing with these long thin sticks and was just very poor. It was like listening to one of those isolated tracks where you realise that the volume and effects in a Rush performance cover up a lot more inaccuracies than one might expect. I seemed to be chatting to Neil as the dream faded into something else.

I haven't had a Rush dream for a while. I do get them from time to time. And it's always a similar them to that one, some sort of disappointment. The atmosphere's not quite right at a gig, usually. The audience is subdued, and the band is disinterested. Sometimes it's in something like a school hall instead of a proper venue.

I can't play a musical instrument at all, but I often have dreams about performing on stage. Generally I get asked to step in and  play, knowing I have no ability fills me with anxiety but usually I seem to get by.

Quote from: dom on December 07, 2023, 12:33:15 PMI can't play a musical instrument at all, but I often have dreams about performing on stage. Generally I get asked to step in and  play, knowing I have no ability fills me with anxiety but usually I seem to get by.

I've had that dream many times...and also dream songs which I can never remember

Quote from: Fishy on December 07, 2023, 01:45:19 PM

Quote from: dom on December 07, 2023, 12:33:15 PMI can't play a musical instrument at all, but I often have dreams about performing on stage. Generally I get asked to step in and  play, knowing I have no ability fills me with anxiety but usually I seem to get by.

I've had that dream many times...and also dream songs which I can never remember

Me too. Often taking the role of guitarist

Quote from: David L on December 07, 2023, 02:04:20 PM

Quote from: Fishy on December 07, 2023, 01:45:19 PM

Quote from: dom on December 07, 2023, 12:33:15 PMI can't play a musical instrument at all, but I often have dreams about performing on stage. Generally I get asked to step in and  play, knowing I have no ability fills me with anxiety but usually I seem to get by.

I've had that dream many times...and also dream songs which I can never remember

Me too. Often taking the role of guitarist

Yes I'm usually guitar and vocals...

Quote from: Fishy on December 07, 2023, 01:45:19 PM

Quote from: dom on December 07, 2023, 12:33:15 PMI can't play a musical instrument at all, but I often have dreams about performing on stage. Generally I get asked to step in and  play, knowing I have no ability fills me with anxiety but usually I seem to get by.

I've had that dream many times...and also dream songs which I can never remember

Yes I woke up once with a decent riff I'd come up with.  Forgot it soon after though!

 

QuoteYes I woke up once with a decent riff I'd come up with.  Forgot it soon after though!

I once woke immediately after dreaming a cracking melodic hook which I immediately hummed into the voice memos app on my phone, even though the temptation to fall back asleep again was strong.

Unfortunately that audio clip isn't time-stamped and I can't remember which of the many on the app it actually is; inspiration usually strikes when I'm alone walking the dog, or something.

 

A couple of nights ago I didn't sleep particularly well but had a dream that actually felt quite pleasant.

One minute I was playing football with a good-natured bunch of people I didn't recognise but "knew".

The next, those same people and I are backstage at Leeds Academy, all hyped and apprehensive as we are about to play a gig.  Even though there are at least a dozen of us, we're a Queen tribute band and I have Brian May's role.

It's soon showtime, so we get in line (I'm near the back) and make our way up a few short flights of steps; as we get near the top, I can glimpse the auditorium (it doesn't look exactly like the real Leeds Academy) and become extremely excited, but nervous, as it looks packed to the rafters out there.  As the intro music plays and I reach the last step at the side of the stage and marvel at the glare of the lights just beyond, I think to myself, "This is it!!" - and wake up.

I'm in a large room. No artificial lighting is switched on and it's gloomy outside. It's a big kitchen, with a big wooden table.

Suddenly a huge bird flies in through the window and collides with the edge of the table. It's big, something like an owl, but with colourful plumage like a pheasant.

I pick the bird up. It looks stunned. But it recovers quickly. I take it to the window and release it.

And now by the magic of television or perhaps due to an unconscious continuity error, I'm in in my own real life kitchen, looking out of the window to the right. The bird is hovering about ten feet away. But it's human sized now. In fact it's something like an airborne woman. A middle-aged peasant woman with black hair and coarse, weathered features. And huge wings. Like an angel.

She speaks to me, but I can't make out what she's saying.

Had one of my least favourite recurring dreams last night. I'm travelling to an examination centre in a local college to sit my final professional exam, but I haven't studied, at all, and other than write my name on the paper I don't know what else I'm going to be able to answer. It's a troubling dream but not nightmare status. My other recurring dream is far more disturbing. It involves a former colleague who I didn't particularly like but I had no real issues with. He was annoying but not a threat of any kind. However, when he appears in a dream, which has been fairly regularly recently it usually results in violence which is completely against my nature. Sometimes it is quite brutal and at other times ridiculous. The other night he attempted to attack me and I struggled to keep him at bay. As he struggled violently I held him down and began to fold him up. Weaving fingers and limbs over each other. When he was completely flat I slid him into a lever arch file and box. Bizarre, unpleasant but again stopping short of heart racing nightmare. I do wish I could make them stop though.

Quote from: The Picnic Wasp on December 24, 2023, 09:37:46 PMHad one of my least favourite recurring dreams last night. I'm travelling to an examination centre in a local college to sit my final professional exam, but I haven't studied, at all, and other than write my name on the paper I don't know what else I'm going to be able to answer.

I get that one a lot. But then again I didn't really do any studying, so it keeps coming back to haunt me.

Very vivid dream in the early hours of this morning. I'm at my old grammar school. There's a huge amount of building work going on, as though it's being converted into something else. I walk around, visiting old corridors and rooms that I remember from the '70s.

But I'm aware that I'm dreaming. I look around me, marvelling at the visual detail that I'm able to perceive while dreaming.

Probably based on a visit to the old school in 2008 when I looked round the place with a small group of alumni just before it was extended, and part of it was knocked down. It's a sixth form college now.

I dreamed that Kiss incorporated a dance routine into their act. All four of them in black suits and white shirts and the usual makeup in perfectly choreographed unison, like the Jackson 5 or the Temptations.

Later, I'm walking over a bridge in a park with the band. I'm in the band myself somehow. Tommy's saying he'll do it, but he doesn't like it. I say that I'm too old to dance like that for a whole set. Gene says that he isn't. I tell him that he is.

Paul is the most keen on the idea, because he's been asked to do it for a special gig for the US Navy by a rear admiral.

Quote from: Slim on January 10, 2024, 10:24:29 AMI dreamed that Kiss incorporated a dance routine into their act. All four of them in black suits and white shirts and the usual makeup in perfectly choreographed unison, like the Jackson 5 or the Temptations.

Later, I'm walking over a bridge in a park with the band. I'm in the band myself somehow. Tommy's saying he'll do it, but he doesn't like it. I say that I'm too old to dance like that for a whole set. Gene says that he isn't. I tell him that he is.

Paul is the most keen on the idea, because he's been asked to do it for a special gig for the US Navy by a rear admiral.

Dressed to Kill then  ;D

Had a dream during my 8 minute snooze between alarms this morning.

While not quite a recurring dream, it had a recurring theme of being on a passenger jet (in this case a British Airways 747-400, except it transformed into something more like a 767 mid-dream).

It was taxiing to the runway via an impossibly narrow route between airport buildings where its wings magically didn't collide with anything. Once it got to a clearer area, it deployed its thrusters at full power to commence take-off. 

At this point, I had a moment of semi-lucidity, thinking, "At last, a dream where I'm on a plane which is going to take off and fly successfully". Because whenever I have a dream like this, that never happens. At best, the plane I'm sitting in gets to a few thousand feet and finds it impossible to get any higher (the symbolism seems pretty obvious!).

Anyway, my second alarm rudely ended the dream just as the plane started rolling down the runway.

A very lucid, lengthy Rush dream last night, probably fever driven. Geddy and Alex had got back together with an anonymous drummer for a show. The venue was a huge cinema style building. The stage was quite ornately presented and all looked good for a welcome return to touring. I was very surprised to notice a few former work colleagues across the aisle from my seat. Folk who would definitely not attend a concert of this nature.

A lot of the dream was given to me desperately trying to procure alcohol before the gig, eventually managing to buy some vodka which I secreted in a plastic water bottle. There was some introductory music and then the audience started to welcome the band with a song they had put together like a musical football chant. The words and tune were crystal clear in the dream but I can't remember it now. The gig didn't really ever start. Geddy would say a few words now and then but none of those familiar songs was started. People started to gather in a circle where the seats had mysteriously disappeared complaining about this being the worst gig they had ever attended.

After a half hour interval the second half failed to produce any music. I spoke to a pretty young girl who had sneaked into the seat next to mine. She didn't appear to have a ticket but I only became annoyed when her friend joined her and left me very little room.

Something very similar to this situation happened in real life to me at R30 in Wembley Arena first night. Anyway, I became more fixated in having a drink and wondering why my friends didn't want to do so too. The dream then faded into some other fluey inspired drivel.

From last night:

I'm casually walking through Halifax town centre (which looks nothing like it actually does) and I happen to spot Bono doing the same.

I go and introduce myself and it appears he's due to leave town imminently. Given this urgency, I effusively recommend that his band plays at the Piece Hall, explaining that I know it's a much smaller venue than he's used to, but it's become iconic and they could do it as some sort of warm-up gig.

He responds warmly, so I suggest that he can immediately go and look at the venue for himself, since we are barely two minutes walk away.

But he politely insists he doesn't really have time and the dream ends.

Drifted in and out of a series of odd dreams this morning. In one of them I'm on a cruise ship, but I'm travelling alone. I realise that I haven't bothered to look around the ship properly, haven't even visited the promenade deck. Then I bump into my wife on a stairway.

Yesterday on a different forum I was saying how I prefer just to hang round local beaches, bars and restaurants and not go anywhere when on holiday and I think the above is a metaphor for that. Mrs G likes to go sightseeing and travel around.

Next, I'm in some strange city, going for breakfast. I think the scenery is based on London Bridge station. I see my younger stepdaughter walking ahead of me. Then I realise I haven't brought a debit card so I turn back.

Yesterday morning, an odd one in which I go up in a hot air balloon with both stepdaughters. But the "basket" of the balloon is an enclosed wooden cabin with a small window. I barely feel like we're up in the air at all. I'm about to check the altitude (there's an altimeter like a clock on a column in the cabin) when we land again.

Had a dream last night that my Blue Suede Chelsea Boots had been eaten by Beetles, leaving them as a brittle plastic.

Just been to look at them and they're covered in mould. Spooky huh?

I went for a nap after work, and I had two dreams. In the first, I open my wardrobe door and I see a dark blue fleece. Why don't I wear that more often? I think to myself.

When I woke up I realised that it was a fleece that the firm I worked for gave me as a freebie in 2000, everyone who worked on a particular project got one. It had the company branding over the left breast pocket and the name of the project, which I can't remember.

I left it in a Starbucks in Nottingham in 2006, went back to get it five minutes later and it had gone.

I have a pic of myself wearing it somewhere .. found it. Selfie at St Pancras Station, August 22nd 2005.

(https://i.ibb.co/gtktNnx/selfie050822-073.jpg)

And now I have a compulsion to buy another blue fleece.

A bizarre cornucopia of dreams this morning. I awoke at about 6AM from a powerfully emotional dream in which I'm a member of some uniformed service - the police, or the armed forces, and one of my colleagues is a blonde woman with short hair. I'm in love with her, but she's being posted back to the US and I won't see her again.

Just before I wake, she tells me I'm projecting my feelings about something else onto her, and they aren't real.

Then I go back to sleep, and I dream that a real-life colleague of mine called Pete, who plays bass in a band occasionally, is telling me about recording sessions (as far as I know in real life he's never set foot in a studio). He's telling me that the best session players are sometimes invited to take part in a second session at midnight, and are called "moon finches".

Then I dream I'm in a large house with a number of other people. One of them is a woman in her 20s. She strips completely naked. She has very pale, almost fluorescent skin with freckles, and she's very thin.

A very vivid, lengthy and complex dream this morning but unusual in the respect that my subconscious seemed to be able to successfully manipulate situations in my favour. I had been tasked with taking notes in a crowded tribunal situation due to a colleague's (a stranger's) misconduct. I hadn't taken on board the importance of this duty and failed to keep details.

When trouble started to brew due to this, I was able to transfer the responsibility onto a former colleague (who actually exists). He was a strange young guy whom I made time for as he was treated quite badly by a number of idiots at work. I believe he had undiagnosed Asperger's as his behaviour was textbook. He wasn't valued at all although his workload was ridiculous and he carried everything out without question. Strange that I should exploit him in a dream. I wish the judge's words hadn't faded as he was a  madcap character.

Quote from: The Picnic Wasp on February 11, 2024, 01:45:39 PMWhen trouble started to brew due to this, I was able to transfer the responsibility onto a former colleague (who actually exists). He was a strange young guy whom I made time for as he was treated quite badly by a number of idiots at work. I believe he had undiagnosed Asperger's as his behaviour was textbook.

What sort of behaviour?

Poor guy just seemed to avoid any kind of social interaction that wasn't part of his role. He couldn't look you in the eye and stuck rigidly to a daily routine, becoming upset if slight changes were made. He would stay at his desk for lunch every day having the exact same snack meal and didn't engage in conversation with the two older colleagues he shared an office with. I would ask him about computers as he seemed that's how he spent most evenings and as a result I learned that he liked a couple of bands like Queensryche and Iron Maiden. That opened things up a bit between us and it was clear he started to search for Rush stuff online which we would then chat about.

When the company was sold he was made redundant. I was really worried for him so I put a good CV of his skills together for him but I later found out he didn't use it. I even 'phoned a friend who owned his own company and who was always on the lookout for hardworking trustworthy people. He understood his less than usual traits and had a suitable position for him practically within walking distance of his home, but he didn't contact my friend and I don't think he worked again after that.

Folk at work would laugh about him and say that one day he'd come in with an AK47 and get his own back, but I always wondered what actually went on in his head causing him to be trapped in his narrow world. I've experienced shyness in my life but nothing so devastatingly powerful.

A variation on a traditional theme, early this morning. I'm in a small bedroom, it's my room at a hall of residence. I've come to the end of my time there but I haven't engaged with the course at all, haven't done anything. And now I'm packing my things, taking them out of the wardrobe to catch a train home.

Apart from the room not being the same, this mirrors my real-life experience of my first degree course 45 years ago quite closely. I didn't take a train home though, my dad came to pick me up on my last day there.

I look around the room, thinking that I'll never see it again and maybe I should take a photo. Then I look at my watch. It's 10pm! Far too late to catch a train to Hartlepool. So I'll have to stay another night. I put some music on, on my phone. It's loud, too loud. I don't want to annoy the other people in the building so I plug earphones in.

Later - possibly on my way home - I'm visiting a small business, in a little office. A guy in his 50s is there, and a young woman - a coworker or assistant. I have some software for them, or I'm supposed to collect some data, or something. I think it might be a university actually. The guy I'm visiting is an IT guy at a university department.

The guy tries to do something on a computer screen in his office but an error message comes up. He's slightly irritated but he selects FORMAT DISK from a menu on the screen to initialise a new disk. It's some sort of cloud or networked facility.

I ask him to think about how much harder it would have been 30 years earlier, having to replace and format a physical disk.

Do you have places in your dreams that keep recurring there, but don't exist in real life?

I dreamed about two of these places early this morning. One is a place a way out of Hartlepool, on the road to Elwick. The road forks to the left and there's a pub there, a quiet place with a gravel path. I've dreamed about it many times, but it's not real.

The other one is a place in London. It's an oddly low key place, almost like a nondescript part of Middlesbrough or Northampton. Like residential streets near a provincial town centre. Sometimes there's a small shopping mall there. One time I went in, and sat in a coffee shop; a drab place with wooden seats. But if you keep walking through these streets, eventually you come to some sort of theatre district, lit up brightly with tall buildings; theatres and glittering lights. Not only that but when you turn back, there's some sort of upmarket hotel with an outdoor garden. Again, I've visited them many times in dreams but none of them are real. Sometimes the basic plot of the dream  is that I can't find them.

Yes, I do seem to have a recurring place theme in my dreams at present. Not specific towns or buildings but a bit of a dark (mood) urban landscape. I thought about this going to bed last night hoping that a more lighthearted atmosphere might return at some stage but alas, not yet. I had some horrible but not quite nightmare level dreams last week. One night I had three lengthy, very detailed troublesome events. I almost recorded them here but it would have rambled on a bit. I am always staggered by the random characters which turn up though. People from the past whom I rarely if ever think about.

Also, the fairly frequent appearances by former colleagues that I had no great ties with at the time but there is one individual that gave me some difficulties at work, who operated under the camouflage of being a daft wee laddie. In reality he was quite a devious character who would chuck you under the bus without a second thought. I'm very often violent towards him in dreamland which isn't me but he seems to possess a superpower resilience when faced with this and never gives in regardless of injury. Quite disconcerting.

Boris Becker appeared briefly on my doorstep last week although this was probably inspired by the real-life unexpected canvassing visit by a well known Scottish politician a day or so before. Seemed a nice chap and when I complimented him on the fact that he came across quite honestly in TV interviews he replied wryly, "Well it's quite a low bar". I appreciated that. Made my day actually. If this gets a political comment yellow card I'll just claim that I dreamt it.😁

I forgot to mention, I very often dream that I am barefooted, usually on a night out, or having to make my way home on manky, wet, stony pavements. My state of self- consciousness about this during the dream is quite overpowering. Definitely one for the psychologists.

I'm finding that my dreams lately are tending to mirror the ebb and flow of my challenging (but rewarding) week at work.

The other night I dreamt I was causally walking around a nondescript but local town centre with Madonna, as she looked in the Into The Groove video from back in the day - but even sexier, with denim shorts that barely covered her hips and made her legs look better than I'd ever seen in my life.

We were walking arm in arm down a shopping precinct like teenagers, constantly kissing and clinging to each other, which of course in my dream was a massive ego trip - I had pulled one of the sexiest female icons of the eighties.

As soon as I was "aware" of my extraordinary luck the dream ended.  But it was quite nice while it lasted. :)

My usual mad concoction of rubbish mainly involving coach travel with my personality being massively different from the real me, but nothing worth reporting. Except, close to wakening I had a very brief Rush dream. The three guys were dressed up in exaggerated Victorian gentlemen's outfits, complete with ghoulish face makeup. As it ended and I awoke a musical chorus occurred;

In an English photograph,
In an English photograph.

I realised in was pleasant and catchy and thought of recording it to perhaps use at some later stage. Then, as the mists of sleepiness departed I heard in my head;

In a vapor trail,
In a vapor trail.

Oh well!

A pleasant and catchy version of Vapor Trail? Nice!

Last night I dreamed I was buying some pickups at a guitar shop. They showed me into a store room round the back, a huge room with dusty racks and shelves. Said pickups had been installed in a Les Paul for me to try. I pick the guitar up. Select the neck humbucker. I'll just knock out a couple of bars of a jazz blues or something .. oh - the amplifier is set extremely loud with the gain turned right up .. OK I'll just crank out a couple of heavy blues licks  .. oh god no my fingers won't obey my brain .. a deafening sound of musical ineptitude rings out

Quote from: Slim on March 28, 2024, 04:04:15 PMA pleasant and catchy version of Vapor Trail? Nice!

Last night I dreamed I was buying some pickups at a guitar shop. They showed me into a store room round the back, a huge room with dusty racks and shelves. Said pickups had been installed in a Les Paul for me to try. I pick the guitar up. Select the neck humbucker. I'll just knock out a couple of bars of a jazz blues or something .. oh - the amplifier is set extremely loud with the gain turned right up .. OK I'll just crank out a couple of heavy blues licks  .. oh god no my fingers won't obey my brain .. a deafening sound of musical ineptitude rings out

And full circle back to Vapor trails..

My dreams are worryingly bizarre. I dreamt this a few days ago but didn't record it here initially as it's embarrassingly strange. It began with me trying to walk my dog on a narrow mountain path with a sheer drop. He's 11 stone and drags me all over the place in my waking life but somehow we survived this nocturnal danger. The dream followed on with my sister being given a huge amount of banknotes by a mystery uncle. She split the notes into three massive wads and gave equal amounts to me, Matt from on here, and a third unknown individual. We looked at the value of the currency and we were stunned to discover that most of the notes were £655 face value each. An absolute fortune in total. That was the extent of the dream.

I met Matt once for a few moments before a Rush concert at the SECC. I don't remember us exchanging anything other that a hello with the only lasting memory of that brief exchange being that Matt looked quite ill, but bravely decided to attend the concert. The random selection process that occurs in our brains during sleep is beyond any explanation.

I had a variation on my train dream. I'm somewhere in London, at either a local railway station or an overground tube station somewhere. In the dream there's always confusion over which platform I should be on, where to find the ticket office, if I'm supposed to get the train that's arriving now, etc etc.

I go to buy a ticket but I can only buy a bundle of them. It costs £55 and the guy behind the counter hands them over in a transparent plastic bag.

I dreamed I was at a Sea Power gig. But, in the tradition of my old Rush dreams, the gig is very unconventional. It's a small hall, there's no stage and the band are lined up standing next to each other, like a boy band.

I had a lengthy and detailed dream about being partly responsible for the discovery of penicillin. Sheldon Cooper was actually the man behind the science but I was having praise heaped upon me though at first I couldn't figure out why. As the dream progressed and I was involved in preparing large quantities of sausages and fried eggs for a team of people, it dawned on me that no one was quite sure what to do with the penicillin but I was able to wipe down surfaces with it to make them safe. I think I still gained an award for this part of the process.
On awakening, it came to me that this dream probably stemmed from my subconscious disappointment at not having the opportunity to meet Sir James Black, a Nobel Prize winner in medicine. He died in 2010, very shortly after my mother. My family has become very close with a dear friend of Sir James' not long before this time and over the following years enjoyed some great stories about the man and his achievements. I think I would have loved to have been in his company. He gave the world so much and yet remained very modest.

Paul McCartney is playing a gig at a railway station. The stage is down on the tracks, with the audience crowding either side on the embankments. I arrive only to find that I've left my ticket at home.

But Paul comes up to the entrance gate to meet me, and say hello.

I'm in some dusty, dingy basement club. It's more like an old storeroom than a music venue, but Motorhead are playing there. I have a seat on an old chair in the front row.

The band walk on stage. Lemmy throws cans of beer to people in the audience. He throws me a can of Newcastle Brown. I open it; it's warm. Then they walk off again, and the support act comes on. They're a five piece band with two drummers.

I get up to walk to the loo, and when I come back someone has nicked my seat. But a few minutes later he goes to the loo as well, so I take it back. His mate in the next seat tries to tell me that the seat is taken, but I tell him that I had it first.

Then suddenly, the seat rises into the air .. it's somehow part of a "teacup" style fairground ride, set on a spinning circular base levitating on a huge mechanical arm. I'm spinning around in circles, near the ceiling.

I'm in a small room, possibly my old bedroom in Hartlepool. The bloke from the Classic Rock Review channel on YouTube is there, sitting next to Mark Knopfler. Both of them have acoustic guitars.

Classic Rock Review bloke hands me his guitar. Oh no. I've got to play in front of Mark Knopfler. But wait .. I pick a couple of notes and it's obvious the guitar is in a weird folky tuning. I have an excuse. Phew.

I mention to Knopfler that I enjoyed an interview he did a few weeks ago, in which he mentioned that he used to window-shop guitars at JG Windows in Newcastle (this happened in real life, it was the Patrick Kielty show on 5 Live). I tell him that I bought a guitar myself there in 1983, a second-hand Les Paul (that happened in real life as well).

Mark hands me his guitar, it's a Takamine. OK I'll play a few bars of Blackbird (McCartney's tune from the white album). That'll be easy enough. But my fingers won't obey my brain! I make a total dog's breakfast of it. In front of Mark Knopfler.

Two nights of terrible nightmares which I won't describe. Hopefully tonight will be peaceful.