Friday 5 February 2010

In bed, no one can hear you scream.

I like to wake up gently in the morning. Anything less than gentle is rude - a rude awakening. I've had a few of these lately.

I woke myself up screaming once. What was all that about? I'd been in the midst of a colossally complicated dream. I have since forgotten most of the gory details. Towards the end of it, though, I do recall being inside a complicated house with lots of floors, lots of rooms and cubbyholes. It looked very familiar because this labyrinthine palace had appeared in my dreams before, ages and ages ago. I remember clearly the route to what I identified as my part of the house: I have to walk to the front room, climb through a trapdoor in the ceiling, hoist myself backwards into another passage, go down some steps and along a short landing, then up some more steps and into a narrow corridor. Home sweet home is along the passageway on the left (hope that's clear?).

Except on this occasion, my home was less than homely. I had been invaded by lots of people who, while seemingly harmless enough, were not welcome all the same. I had no clue what their business was. Why were they in my house, touching my stuff? Invading my space? The bloody nerve! I was not best pleased, and when I finally made it to the door of my room my eyes fell on a most disturbing scene. Somebody had (gasp!) tidied the place up and put the Hoover around, and a packet of tobacco had been left on the bedside table (I don't smoke). Harmless, relatively, but this is a dream and if I want to over-react I will. So I screamed. Nothing came out of my mouth, so I screamed harder. "Wah! Wah! WAAAH!" I wailed, until I literally woke myself up - still screaming silently.

Follow that? OK. A few days later I woke myself up laughing. I'd been trying to show two Italian girls how to catapult a huge heart-shaped projectile into the air with a massive rubber band. That has to be super-symbolic, eh? Anyway. The ladies couldn't grasp the technique and kept getting it wrong, so when a huge wooden speedboat-galleon type vessel cruised past at a rate of some knots, they ran off. The boat circled on the horizon and sailed back into view. As it banked on the waves, it tipped enough for me to see Stewie Griffin from Family Guy on the upper deck. He was dressed as the Pope with a mitre, a sinister grin and an arm around each girl. "Victory is mine!" he proclaimed. I laughed and laughed and laughed, and continued to laugh after my nocturnal chortling had woken me up. That was a good one - and if you're reading, Seth McFarlane, you can have it. It's on me.

The last one was not so good. I had been anaesthetised by a dentist and was barely conscious. But as I felt him fiddle with my teeth, it sort of dawned on me that I shouldn't be unconscious at all. I shouldn't even be at the dentist. So I tried to bring myself back into the waking world to make it stop. But it was too difficult to focus - I was too groggy. I had to force myself awake, both from the unnerving situation in my dream and from sleep itself. It was an unpleasant experience which led to even more macabre thoughts throughout the day. Not happy.

And on that bombshell. G'nite all.