Dream Baby
My dreams have been bizarre lately. I mean beyond the usual expected degree of weirdness. This is a good thing as far as I’m concerned, because they’re as vivid as they are memorable. At times it’s almost like being in a very random movie, and of course I get to experience things I would probably never get to experience in my waking life.
As a rule, I go through phases of dreaming about slightly different versions of the same thing over a period of weeks. This first manifested itself in nightly dreams of my teeth falling out. These dreams would invariably begin with me doing something mundane and far from extraordinary, like going to work or cleaning the house etc, and for some reason – end up with me stood at a sink. I lightly flick my tongue against a single tooth in my mouth, only for it to roll painlessly and without resistance in my gums before I spit it out into the sink, along with a stream of blood-tinged saliva. The same thing happens to the next tooth my tongue brushes against; it rolls out of it’s gum and lands with a clink, in the sink – at which point I naturally start to panic. Over the following minutes I find myself repeating this process, until I am completely toothless and staring at a sink full of bloody molars, incisors and canines. This is the point at which I usually wake up and my tongue races frantically around my mouth taking an inventory to ensure all teeth are present and correct. Needless to say the relief when I realise it was ‘just a dream’ gives me a renewed appreciation of my teeth – and I thank each one mentally, before systematically destroying them throughout the course of the days that follow by drinking obscene amounts of Coca-Cola.
Another recurring theme involves the sea.
Sometimes I’ll be at a beach I know and have visited in real life. Other times it will be a fictional coastal town, (or an amalgamation of the two more often than not). Each dream begins with me playing in the sea, with the weather sunny and calm. Then comes the realisation that the sun has disappeared and the sky has darkened. I watch anxiously as the weather deteriorates further, and in turn the waves which surround me grow gradually heavier and higher, until each wave is unimaginably tall, towering angrily above me. These monstrous waves seem to hang, fully formed right above my head for an eternity, before eventually crashing thunderously down onto me.
As scary as that particular type of dream can be, I actually enjoy them. I’ve always being fascinated by the sea, drawn to it even. I think maybe that stems from having lots of family holidays in Scarborough as a child. The sea can be so powerful and intimidating, yet so calm, hypnotic and enchanting. When I’m struggling to get to sleep sometimes, I’ll close my eyes and imagine that I’m floating on a lilo in the middle of the sea at night-time. Looking up at the imaginary stars, and enjoying the rhythmic sway of the imaginary ocean around me is usually enough to send me off into a nice deep sleep.
There are other recurring themes in my dreams, including post-apocalyptic wars, nuclear bombs, celebrity deaths, and lottery wins. Of course it would take too long to write about them all in detail, but I will share the short tale of my latest memorable dream, which was the inspiration for this blog.
I was at a lake in the countryside somewhere. It was dusky and humid and I was with a group of journalists and a news crew. I think they were filming an item about a new radical type of sport. A man had invented boots which looked similar to ice skates, but were fitted with some sort of buoyancy device which allowed the wearer to skate fluently along the surface of water. Not frozen water, but wet bodies of water. We were there to trial them and the media were going to report on the story.
I was one of the first to have a go, and it was great fun; skating around this lake effortlessly without the noise of a motor etc, feeling the water beneath you but knowing you weren’t going to fall in thanks to these innovative boots.
Some time after I’d finish my skating session, it was the turn of the news presenter. As far as I know she was a fictional character, I certainly didn’t recognize her from Look North or the BBC news team (but she looked a bit like Neneh Cherry). Anyway, she nervously took to the water, and began to skate around, microphone in hand. By this time it was dark, and the inventor had activated a light function on the boots, which made them glow in various shades of luminous yellow/green or bright neon pink – depending on the model. As people whizzed around the surface of the lake, their boot-lights reflected on the water beneath, creating an impressive visual display, which was observed by myself and the other onlookers as we chattered excitedly amongst ourselves on the banks of the lake.
Amidst all this excitement and for some unknown reason, the news reporter ‘crashed’. I didn’t see it happen, but I made my way over to the edge of the bank where she was groaning in pain and her injuries were being assessed. She seemed ok, except for one leg which appeared to have split completely open at the knee, exposing the white bone of her kneecap. At this point, she looked up at me – and explained matter of factly that she had to go back to the studio, and that I would have to go to the hospital for her. (Of course this doesn’t make any sense whatsoever in the real world, but this is dream-land remember – anything can happen). So I thought about it for a minute, and said ‘Ok’. I then looked down to find that MY kneecap was now hanging out, furthermore, the news reporter’s injury had vanished completely and I watched as she walked nonchalantly off with the rest of her crew towards the news van, without so much as a limp.
I remember thinking it strange. I also thought it was odd that I wasn’t in a great deal of pain with my hideously wounded knee, just a dull ache really. But obviously I couldn’t put any weight on the leg, so this meant I was required to hop to my destination. So off I hopped, heading to the nearest hospital.
For some reason it was mid-afternoon and daylight when I reached Leeds city centre, and I soon found myself having to navigate down some stone steps. I asked a nearby tradesman if he would mind helping me down them, pointing to my leg by way of explanation. He refused to assist me, so feeling a little defeated but more angered by the rudeness of the man, I somehow managed to hop down the steps, through the main entrance to the train station, past McDonalds, and the swarms of people around the ticket booths, out the back entrance, and all the way to a hospital – unaided.
I was still muttering under my breath, incensed by the fact that not one person had offered to assist me, when I arrived on an upper ward of a fictional hospital. Only to be met with an angry and impatient male doctor, who told me I was on the wrong ward, furthermore I wouldn’t be treated here, and I would have to hop back down several floors and to a different wing of the hospital in order to get my knee looked at. By this point I was really pissed off.
Then I woke up.
Weird huh.
lethalkitty 