Riding Bearback

I've always had a lot of wacky dreams, I don't always remember them, which is pretty disappointing!

Last night was quite spectacular in the world of dreams.
I dreamt I was seated upon my sofa, engrossed in a tv show, when I finally looked up from the tv, I noticed there had been an accident in the road immediately outside my window.
Large crowds had gathered around a lady that had been hit by a car. She was wearing a pleated navy skirt and was surrounded by people trying to help, whilst they waited for an ambulance. There was a girl who was laid on the verge sobbing, with a group of friends talking to her. For some reason I went to ask if she wanted to come inside but her friends shooed me away.

I hate it when dreams don't have an end, they just dissolve away into another dream, I have no idea what happened to the lady in the navy pleated skirt.

But as one dream dissolves away, another one slips in to replace it.

I looked out the window again, an animal had been hit by a car.
But not just any animal.
It seemed like it was a polar bear.
A polar bear was laying in the road.
But wait, it wasn't just a polar bear, there was a man there too, he was curled up like the little spoon to the bear big spoon.
It appeared that the two were unconscious.
The man started to stir, then the bear, and suddenly it wasn't a polar bear, it was a big brown bear. A huge brown bear.
I asked if they were okay and I was far, far too close to such a huge bear.
They awoke fully, the bear clambered from its prone position to being back on all four paws. Suddenly the man, wearing a wild blue puffy suit with gold trim, was seated atop the bear. He bid me farewell and rode atop the bear as it bounded off quickly across the fields.

What the flim-flam were those dreams all about?
Good grief, whatever my subconscious brain was trying to figure out, I hope it managed it.

Motivation

I told myself I was going to set myself a blog challenge and blog every day but I am terrible at motivating myself.
I should really work on that I suppose, although I was the same in school so I am beginning to wonder if all hope is lost, which is leading me to question my decision to do an Open University degree.
I mean I started a night school class in Astronomy and they've only set homework once and I didn't do it. I suck. Hey, at least I know this. Maybe I should do the first course and see how I go. Maybe I'll surprise myself. Stranger things have happened.
Although I'm trying to remember the last time I was surprised and I can't remember when that was.
No wait! I was properly surprised by the dream I had last night.
I dreamt that I was pulling into my Dad's driveway, except that he was living in the house I grew up in, where he never actually lived. Anyway, there were all these random cars in the driveway and I was really confused.
When I got out of the car there were women waiting to hug me, they were women I knew but through other people, friends of friends and friends of family.
They were hugging me and telling me congratulations, but I had no idea why until I suddenly said "Oh wait! Is this a surprise hen night?" They all nodded.
Now this was a definite surprise, what with me being single and all.

Although, a couple of weeks ago I was sitting on a date in a coffee shop and went to order another couple of drinks and was openly chatted up - by a different dude!
That was rather a surprise too.

I need more surprises in my life. Only the good ones though thank you very much.
Feel free to surprise me with bouquets of flowers. Regularly.

More Wild Dreams

The past couple of weeks I've spent a huge amount of time at my friend Harriet's new shop. It opens on Tuesday and we've all been really pulling out all the stops to get it ready in time. It's involved me catching up on all of her paperwork and the like for her and my goodness there was a lot of it. All I've wanted to do is sleep!
I also hurt my foot. Well, rather I hurt my foot way back in June whilst leaping around at a festival. Following that with more leaping about in July at another festival didn't really help matters. Then a couple of weeks ago I went to a ceilidh. I danced a fair bit and by the end of the night I knew my foot was displeased with the galloping around the room.
As it had been nearly three months, I figured it was about time to get some medical advice (well, you don't want to rush these things), I had an x-ray, it's not broken so I have spent all my evenings resting it. And using a lot of ibuprofen gel every day. It's SO rock and roll.
When I went up to the x-ray department the receptionist motioned for me to take a seat, now we all know this is the point you make a vital decision. Who is going to make the least annoying neighbour?
I sat down, leaving the obligatory spare seat between myself and the gentleman to my right. At this point I am reminded how short I am when I realise that, once seated, I can no longer touch the floor, so my legs swing like I'm a toddler. I then realise I can hear the thud, thud, thud of a repetitive bassline. I had not chosen wisely in my neighbour.
He is listening to his thudding through only one earphone, broadcasting to the waiting room through the other. I sit and calmly consider ways of causing him pain or at least making him go away with his thudding. Then he leans towards me, points at my arm and says "that's a really nice tattoo".
Damn it.
Now I feel guilty for being mean about him in my head.
I felt even worse when the nurse came out and said to him (rather too loudly), "come and put on this gown, we'll need you to drop your shorts."

Anyway, on to the title of this post. I've mentioned regularly that I have some superbly weird dreams, but I think I might have excelled myself this time.

Some of the details have become a little blurry so forgive my jumping all over.
I'm at this house, I don't know who owns the house, but there's some sort of get together. The parents of my friend Harriet are there and suddenly a young woman collapses. Harriet's Mum decides that she needs to use those paddles you use to restart a heart - the name of which is really frustratingly evading me. Anyway, these aren't in evidence so her Mum decides to fashion some out of a pair of barbecue spatula things. (See, I said my dreams were nuts.) For some reason only one end could be a spatula and she sharpened the other to a point. Also, instead of needing a voltage, they needed heat, so she put them in a fire until they were incredibly hot. When she applied them it got a little gory - which is weird as I never watch horror - the flesh sort of burned off and I could see the heart.
I have no memory of whether the girl recovered or not!
But, it was somehow discovered that she'd collapsed because Harriet's parents were secretly evil geniuses and had been giving people this drink which made them split in two, whilst also remaining whole so that they were identical twins, but with only one heart between them.
Seriously, I would love a dream expert to tell me what the hell that means.
But wait, there's more...
In one of those dream jumps that you do to a totally different time, I was inside the house and watching a movie, even though it wasn't my house, when I realised something was going on outside. I snuck out and hid behind a bush whilst I watched Brad Pitt (!) and some friends standing on the lawn trying to come up with a plan to beat Harriet's parents!
At this point my friend Pete rode up on his motorbike and I went into a major panic because I wasn't supposed to be in his house and was really worried he'd be cross.
What in the hell?!
He doesn't even have a house! He's emigrating to New Zealand in a matter of a couple of weeks.
I never found out if Brad Pitt managed to overcome Harriet's parents, but I anticipate a Hollywood happy ending would have come along if my alarm hadn't prevented it.

Tonight I should like to dream about cuddly bunnies. And daisies. Or maybe cuddly bunnies eating daisies...

Craic

So here's what's been going on:

I had a weird dream. A really weird dream. Actually I had two, but the second one faded to nothing and I'm really cross I forgot it.
However the first one was superbly surreal.
I dreamt that I had a baby. It was a little boy, I don't remember naming him but a short while later I'd misplaced the baby. Careless and anywhere other than a dreamworld, a really terrible thing! Anyway, I had another baby, this time it was a girl. It was only a little while later and I seem to remember that mid birthing process I decided I'd have a sleep and finish off in the morning. Very realistic obviously. So in the morning I had a baby girl. I was really stressed out because I couldn't decide on a name for her. Then I found the baby boy and both babies turned into cats. Weirdly the baby boy turned into Mifford - especially as Mifford is a female cat. I was really worried that the baby boy/Mifford wouldn't like the baby girl/other cat, especially as I hadn't named her, but then Mifford starting licking the face of the other cat and I was ecstatically happy.
That's weird right?

My choice for a belated Song of The Week is coming up, damn this is a seriously sexy song, there was one video that had some superb photography but I went with this one instead.

Jace Everett - Bad Things:


I've been out in the garden quite a lot, eating almost exclusively every evening from what I've picked fresh from the vegetable patch. Salad is one of my favourite things in the world! Also I've had to put in new sowings of various things. I want my allotment!
Speaking of which.... I took a wander round the village to post back one of my lovefilm dvd's and as I passed the village noticeboard I paused to see what was posted there. I found myself reading, thoroughly, the minutes of the recent Parish Council meeting. I read the whole thing and what worries me most is that I found it quite interesting.
I got to read a bit about what is happening as regards the allotments and it's good to know I might still be in the running for a wee plot of land. Fingers crossed.

Someone ran into my Sky dish. I have a caravan as my prime suspect. What was really a pain was that it was going to take almost a full week to get it repaired. Again. It's sited in a ridiculous place and is frequently getting bash by high vehicles. Anyway, the delightful engineer arrived early on Saturday morning and moved the dish to a location that will require incredible ingenuity to be hit with anything at all. Oh how I missed my TV!

But, on the plus side, it did mean that I found time to sit and watch the entire box set of My So-Called Life. I am obviously deeply in love with Jordan Catalano again. What's rather disturbing is that, as this came out originally in 1994, I am now closer in age to the parents in the series than the kids. Crap. Back then, they were twice my age, now they're just 5 years older. Crap.

Oh, the other week I went to see the Battlefield Band! My last gig for a while, but on the upside I do have Cambridge Folk Festival in just over a week! Must be getting near the time where I have to start choosing my outfits! The weather forecast is not looking pretty so I suspect a lot of my outfits will be revolving around wellies. What looks good with wellies? Hmm? Anyone?
Yeah, nothing.
Can you even dance in wellies? This remains to be seen. Although to be fair, I'm not so sure that I dance so much as flail wildly and jump around. I'm not sure about my ability to dance a ceilidh in wellies though... what a shame there will be no video of my attempts.

I'm attempting to slowly take down my hateful conifer hedge. I don't strictly have permission to do so, so am attempting a very definite trim of the hedge in the hope it won't survive. If you feel like lopping off a few branches, please don't hesitate to pop over, for I shall not hesitate in handing to you the loppers! I'm wildly generous that way.
Mum is coming to stay for a while so I'll offer to let her cut some hedge too. See, my generosity knows no bounds.

Oh and finally, I have not sustained any new injuries! Remember that incident with the hand blender and my finger? The fingernail dropped off. Nice eh? Not in a gross way though - which is what I was really worried about. The slashed nail grew until finally it was too weak to carry on. It was a bit misshapen for a while but I think it's actually going to be ok, I'm sure that's a massive relief for everyone. I will have normal (ish) fingernails. Well, until the next time I do myself an injury that is....

My Dreamworld

I've blogged more than once about the weirdness of my dreams, but last night I had just the most awesome dream.

When I woke I'd forgotten it, I had my breakfast, took a shower and as I wandered back into my bedroom and there sat an emery board on my dresser which suddenly brought back the brilliance of my dream.

My friend Harriet has a business selling vintage clothes & bridalwear online and in a shop in the real world.

That's the scene set.

So in my dream she's looking for a new member of staff and who should apply but Barbra Streisand.

THE Barbra Streisand. She's left film and music for a career in vintage clothing it seems.
Except there's a problem, (in my dream of course) she has really bad nails. They're really ragged and with terrible hangnails.
There's no way she can work with vintage clothing - she might damage the delicate fabrics with those nails, so she is refused employment.
It's not every day you can say you refused Barbra Streisand.

I love my dreamworld!

Songs Of The Week XXXXI & XXXXII

This past week has been manic. If I were a fly, my arse would be blue, to completely ruin an old saying.

On Friday I went to see The Levellers and my goodness did I dance. I am very sore. Very, very sore. Dancing is bad for your muscles.
Anyway, enough of my ridiculous injuries, the support acts were excellent and I'm choosing them for some overdue songs of the week.

This song is about his friend dying of breast cancer and it just really touched me.

Frank Turner - Long Live The Queen:


After Frank Turner were Divokej Bill, a Czech band, so whilst we couldn't understand what they were singing it was really excellent music!

Divokej Bill - Lasko

Notice the guy at about 47 seconds in, as they were playing, Gary nudged me and yelled into my ear that he was the most beautiful man he'd ever seen!

I'm absolutely knackered at the moment, last week I had plans for every night of the week and I'm just not used to it! Usually being a solitary creature, suddenly being in demand was a shock to the system!

We had the Lincoln Christmas Market this weekend too which makes Lincoln absolutely manic. The sudden influx of around 150,000 people causes havoc with the traffic, but I love it, I'm so incredibly proud of where I live, it just feels so beautiful to me that I like showing it off!
I ventured up there on Saturday and by Jove it was chilly. It reminded me how close we are to Christmas, not as I've mentioned before, one of my favourite times of year!

Also this week, I had a really random conversation with a police officer. Possibly one of my strangest conversations as we discussed music and he said he'd have gone to more gigs if he hadn't spent so long procreating. The rest of the conversation went on in that sort of vein, you need not know more!

I also embedded some chipboard in a fingertip which made typing really quite painful.
I've also got an impressive bruise on my right leg, I'm not sure if that's from the gig or not, I never bruise, I just like to show them off as proof my pain is valid.

I do believe that is the extent of my misadventures, I'm hoping to be back properly this coming week as my social calendar is back to calm normality.

On a final note, I have a bottle of Cream Soda on my desk. I love it, I almost never drink anything but water at home, but damn that stuff is good. All it needs is a spoon of ice cream for perfection to be achieved.

I lied, this is my final note, I dreamt I ran over a puppy whilst driving in reverse. In my dream the puppy was largely fine apart from a bone sticking out at the base of its tail. I took the puppy to the vet and was told the puppy would be fine, even though it screamed every time you touched the exposed bone. That's messed up right?
It's no wonder I'm tired when my sleeping imagination is throwing this shit at me.

More Dreaming

I dreamt last night that I was watching a creature.
For some reason it was hiding underneath a table...
There were other people there and all were talking to each other about the Echidna hiding under the table.
I remember getting really upset because it was quite plainly a Pangolin.

Although at one point it also got really upset, turned round, lifted its tail and unpleasantly sprayed some of the people. And I'm not sure that a pangolin does that. I'm not even sure if an Echidna does either.
Whatever, it was clearly upset at the mis-identification.

I only get weirder.

Acid

I'm wondering what would happen if someone ever slipped me some acid.
My world is so surreal without assistance that I can only be vaguely terrified at the very idea.

Last night I dreamt I was teaching these llama-esque creatures how to avoid a lion attack, using an old stocking and a tennis ball.
Seriously.
I wish I could have seen my own face when I woke up from that dream. The look of confusion must have been priceless.

The creatures were really cute though.
They had llama heads but no necks, with thick llama coats and they were really dark brown. I'm not entirely sure how they were able to understand me. Or even if they could as I appeared to be repeating myself a lot.

I've just realised this is about my fourth dream featuring an attack by a big cat - although, as a bonus, I was no longer the target. Cute llama thing was.

I'm weird right?

Flood

I had a dream. A strange one. Funny that.
I was sitting in my lounge, or rather I was sprawled on my floor. I have no idea why!
I spotted, from the corner of my eye a slow drip near the door frame. I watched it for a moment and pointed it out to the friends who materialised on my sofa. Then I looked up and noticed, from the low wooden beams in my ceiling, water was running onto the floor. (They are low too! My ceilings are so low I can touch them and I'm 5'1!) I ran up my stairs and into my bathroom. Somehow the room had flooded because the bath had been left running, but instead of flooding out the door and down the stairs it was standing in the room about a foot high.
For some reason, my bed was also in the bathroom. (I have a big bathroom but my big bed definitely wouldn't fit!)
I then dropped to my knees, sat in the water and cried. A moment later a friend came up the stairs and gave me a hug.

What the hell?

Actually I think a friend relating a story of electrocuting himself refitting a light after a burst pipe might have affected my dream world, but why was my bed in the bathroom? I love my bed where it is. In my bedroom!

A World Of Dreams

I have no idea what kind of chemical craziness goes on inside my brain once I close my eyes and finally hit that REM state. All I know is that I wake up regularly going "What the hell?"

For instance, a few nights ago I dreamt that I had travelled to a friends house, in which he no longer resides. For some reason I was able to let myself in as he wasn't home. Once I'd done so, I panicked that I shouldn't have done. So instead of leaving I went and took a nap. As you do. Then later, he arrived home and introduced his housemate. Who was a gnome.
What the hell?
A gnome? Where did that come from? Seriously, what is going on with my REM cycle? It's like an acid trip in my sleep.
And, by the way, in the dream my friend had unnaturally small ears. Which he doesn't have in the real world, they're perfectly nice, normal ears!

Then last night I dreamt that I was in the desert and four crocodiles were chasing me. I clearly remember thinking that they said on Mythbusters that they wouldn't chase you and that I would write and complain. And I was thinking this while four crocodiles were trying to bite me. I multitask well I guess.
The next thing I knew I was inside my house and there was a single crocodile chasing me up my stairs. He was better on the stairs than I imagined. I shut my bedroom door and it sat outside, then when I opened it a crack to see if it was still there but instead there's a small dog which jumps up and attaches itself to my hand and hangs there, biting me.
For some reason there's a sort of doorstep and Mifford is curled up fast asleep as all this is going on. So I pull her into the bedroom and shake off the dog.
Then I see bite marks in a small book and establish from this that Mifford has been bitten by a snake as she was previously living inside the book.
Yeah.
What the hell?

My reality is a weird enough place to exist, but my dream world, it beggars belief.

Bad Dreams

I don't recall ever having one of those Hollywood bad dreams where you wake up drenched in sweat, sitting up in bed whilst screaming into the night, but this morning I came pretty damn close.
I know I woke up really quickly, eyes flying open to confirm my surroundings were safe. I could feel my heart racing, almost like it had grown to twice its normal size, beating hard against my chest.
I'd always imagined nightmares to be of the variety where big scary monsters tried to eat you.
But I can honestly say I had a nightmare last night.
I still have a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach and a dull ache in my chest the way your muscles ache after a workout.

I do have very strange dreams at times. I've had three recently about being attacked by big cats, I need my very own dream interpreter.
I also need a very big hug, as much as I love Mifford, her ability with bear hugs is somewhat limited.

Beyond The Surreal

I don't know if it's just the sheer volume of things that I'm thinking/worrying about at the moment but my dreams are moving into a world beyond the surreal.
The dream about the tiger was bizarre enough, but the one of last night was so incredibly bizarre.
My real world is a strange enough place that it doesn't feel possible that things can get weirder in my dream world.
And then I have a dream about peeing in public without a hint of embarrassment and being chatted up at the same time. And as for the part where my doctors appointment was broadcast via speakerphone? Really, try to find that in a dream dictionary. I dare you! No! I double dare you.
And if you do happen to be able to tell me what it all means, that'd be just great.

Dreams

I don't usually remember my dreams these days but last nights has stuck with me.

So, although I'm at a house I've never been in before I know it's home.
I'm in the front garden behind a bush (what I was doing there I have no idea) but suddenly a full grown tiger strolls into the garden. He sniffs around the lawn and then saunters out again. I emerge from behind the shrubbery and make a dash for the front door, which is one of those that is almost entirely glass and as I turn to shut it and lock it, the tiger has reappeared.
In a very human manner he's got a paw in the door to stop me shutting it. Then suddenly his nose is in the gap of the door and I'm punching him in the nose!
(Because that would happen!)
He pulls back and I shut the door but whichever way I turn the key it won't lock and I have to keep pushing on the door to keep the tiger out.

And this is where it gets weirder, for some reason the tiger is suddenly sitting on a newspaper, not a broadsheet, just a little tabloid affair. The tiger shrinks and goes to sleep. I open the door, roll up the tiger in the newspaper, run down the street and throw it away.

I run back to my house, but the tiger has woken up by being thrown away (funny that) and is chasing me again - and is back to full size! His paw is in the door again as I slam it shut but this time I manage to remove the paw and lock the door.

Then I woke up.

What the hell is that about?
Now I know your dreams are supposed to work through what happened that day, but I was not in contact with a single tiger all day! Honest!