April 17, 2004
The Rescue
I am on some kind of military exercise or a wargame on what looks like an old abandoned factory. We are assaulting the base of some neo nazis who are holding a lot of prisoners. My team goes in and we start shooting to take out the guards. All the prisoners are wearing long black coats. As we get them out more Nazis arrive, along with a little fat Adolf Hitler who starts barking orders and getting us pinned down. We sneak around and surprise the baddies and the Hitler keeps telling me "Zere are no prisoners" in a terrible accent. I notice that he and the officers have an 'E4' logo tattooed on their heads. I attack the Hitler dude try to knock him out, but he keeps laughing.
I leave him when my captain calls me back to the truck - I help the last of the prisoners onto the truck and leap onto the side as the truck pulls away. Behind the Nazis laugh. On the way out I see the factory pass by, and see huge machines inside pumping.
We get into town and see the lake - it is a little choppy and one of the soldiers says that it is better than it was last week (a reference to a previous dream - see analysis below) when it was stormy as hell. we head to the base and back up into a room where we are greeted with a welcome back party. As I get off the truck with the prisoners behind me I am hugged by Yasmin, a girl who I used to work with years ago who had come back to see me. I am whisked away with the prisoners for debriefing.
I have a feeling this was part of a TV show for E4 (hence the tattoos) but who knows. The asualt was quite realistic feeling, but still felt like something out of Call Of Duty. The Nazis came from somewhere, but where I don't know. The fat little Hitler was a cutie, even when I was punching him in his ample gut!
The pumping machines are interesting, but again, I have no idea where they came from.
Why Yasmin turned up I don't know - I haven't thought of her in years - and she looked like dshe did back then - I have a feeling her grandfather was somewhere in the room too (I went to fix her computer and her grandfather was very happy and smily about me... odd!)
I know where the lake came from though. Last week I had a dream where again I was a soldier, but the base beside the lake was being smashed apart by a storm. The lake was smashing up onto the shore and buildings were being dashed apart.
Posted by Badgers at 06:33 PM | Comments (1)
The Concert
Nick and I are out at a concert in the town centre - some generic club somwhere, I suppose. The music is modern folk-type stuff, and sounds really good. Part way through I nip out of the concert to go to Oddies (a local bakers) to buy some pies. It is 11.00pm as I hear the town hall clock toll as I come out of Oddies with a bag of pies. I eat one of them while watching the late night revellers milling about having fun. I return to the concert and we eat some more of the pies (which are now small beef patties, though I may have only bought one pie and the rest as patties - who knows!). The concert continues and then winds to a close. Afterwards we leave and wander round town eating the rest of the pies before heading to the car park where the car is parked. Nick goes to the bank to get more money while I wonder if Oddies is still open for more pies. I actually go into Game to look at the new games coming out (it is still open past midnight!). I head back to the car and find Nick leaning over the side of the multi story car park waiting for me.
Who ate all the pies? I guess that is the first thing to come to mind. Oddly I can find many oif the influences for this dream quite easily, though some may seem a little odd!
The concert thing no doubt came out of the fact that we were going to watch Complete Madness (a tribute band to some band or other) at Lava on Good Friday, but I wasn't well, and Nick called up the next day to ask when it was on. I told him last night. The music at the concert probably came from the music I have been listening to recently while my Jpop has been stuck on a hard drive in an external firewire case that hasn't been working. It did sound pretty good, though probably a mix of James Taylor, Capercaillie, Mary and Frances Black.
The pies are odd, but I guess they came from watching the entire run (up to date) of Weeble and Bob flash animations - Weeble and Bob (two eggs) love pie. 20-30 of those can mess with your mind! Mmmmm Pie! That and the fact I did pop into Oddies to buy a couple of pies.
I want to go out for another night out soon, and the milling crowds were a cleaned up version of the ones we see when leaving Lava/Ignite at 2.00am - no mystery there. Why Game should be open so late is odd though, unless they were wanting to catch the late night Oddies crowd. Hmmm.
One thing does puzzle me, and that is why Nick keeps turning up in my dreams - is he hustling in on my action? I can think of a few people I'd rather have in my dreams (one turns up in one of this batch), so why him? And when he does, why don't I punch him in the head? It's probably because we go out on nights out more than with the other idiot (Andrew not included as his promises to join us have come to zip all so far) so it made sense for him to be there, though I don't know why he'd like folk - unless the girl singing was pretty... or old !(!) I didn't really notice the band, to be honest.
And yes, it looks like I did eat all the pies, but as the rest seemed to be patties, maybe there was only one pie?
Posted by Badgers at 05:31 PM | Comments (1)
March 28, 2004
The Interview
I am in Tokyo to do an interview with Ayumi Hamasaki for the site... I hunt round and eventually find the address (Japanese addresses are notoriously hard to work out) and knock. I am let in and I'm led upstairs into a dingy flat. I sit on a messy bed and wait. I watch an old woman cooking something in the kitchen, and after some waiting, during which I look out the window over the backstreets of Tokyo (somehow I expected it to be the Akihabara area, but it is as dingy as the flat! A man comes in and in heavily accented english he asks me some questions. I realise that this is a security check - there was no way that I would interview her here! After a short while he is satisfied that I am who I am, and takes me downstairs to a car and we drive off...
Bugger - I don't know if I got the damn interview!!! Again, this is what happens when you watch an Ayumi concert before going to bed! I'm not sure where most of this comes from, to be honest, but lots of it seemed really authentic at the time (as dreams do) but even afterwards, the araea the flat was in was 'right' for a dingy area of Tokyo - probably silimar to the village in Shenmue only for real.
And of course, I would never get an interview with the great woman herself!
Posted by Badgers at 09:30 AM | Comments (0)
Japanese Cybots
I am in Tokyo and it starts after I have just taken out some cyborgs in black suits - kinda like Agent Smith in The Matrix, but japanese and they have small miniguns coming out of their arms. I don't really know how I did it, but I keep getting flashbacks to the fight where I grab them and kick them and jam the guns.... I seem to be one myself, but I don't know how or why. After the battle we go to a small bar and they buy drinks which I gladly accept! I go off to the loo, and I hear them talking, and they are talking about me possibly being the one... or The One...
In the toilet I wonder about this when a monster rises from the toilet (a western toilet, oddly) and I think how the barman would like it on the wall... fade to the mosnters head on the wal with a toilet seat as a frame. Like a tacky movie..
A cheap Japanese Matrix ripoff? Surely not! This (and the next dream) are no doubt inspired by me watching an Ayumi Hamasaki concert before I went to bed... The monster in the toilet is possibly a reference to James' last dream entry (!)
Posted by Badgers at 09:16 AM | Comments (0)
March 11, 2004
A Job Not Done
I am at work, though I am not in the job I do now. It looks like I might be in admin. A social worker comes up and angrily asks about the transport for some old dear who has, apparently, been in hospital for a few months waiting. They cannot get her home without the transport. And it is all my fault.
I apologise and quickly fill in the forms to get the transport. The social worker strides off saying he wants it in writing in triplicate. Somehow I think this is an Anchor job... but is it really mine?
The funny thing about this dream is that I woke up sweating and thought that my job really was this admin/transport thing, and that I had in fact forgotten to do it. It took a few moments to shake this off and come round, which was scary. It's probably due to the fact that I'm supposed to be off work next week (though I am working 2 1/2 days instead and not getting paid for the days leave I can't take) and am rushing to get stuff done before I go home on Friday night (at 6.30).
Another thing is that I never apologise - I pass the buck! (Joke!)
The 'anchor' thing was odd as today I went to see an old dear (who had been waiting for a while for her appointment as it wasn't sent on to me to do) at a sheltered housing complex owned by Anchor.
This is not the only dream that I thought was real lately - every so often I have one of those dreams where you live in a house similar but quite different to the one you are in now, or one you lived in in the past. I have these every so often, but one recently really confused me as it was the old house - and it was so real it hurt to wake up from it. Another one I had recently (last week in fact, though the details went quickly as I have been waking up with a bang recently and that, as we know, tends to wipe the dreams out of your mind) had me walking up and going to work at a totaly different job to the one that is messing me up at the moment. Whatever that job was, I want it. Now. I seemed to like it!
Posted by Badgers at 06:04 AM | Comments (0)
All It Needed Was Sarah Beeny
So, I'm taking my friends to see the house I have just bought. They are excited and wondering if there will be enough room for them to set up their PCs on Sundays. I tell them there will be. I open the door and shove them in as they are blindfolded. They take them off and gasp.
I have bought an old church.
The camera pans round the hallway first, then out into the church proper. It has been stripped of all the pews and stuff long ago, so it is a big open room (very big!) with a tiled floor. I start telling them about my plans for the space, and how I will have it on two levels (the church is kinda tall enough!). They are amazed, then they go through into the vestry, etc and gasp again - so much room! And me living in an old church. I am very happy, and show them the plans and stuff.
This is the sort of dream I like. And the sort of dream I want to come true. I'd love to live in an old church (preferably in the belfry where I could drop things on passers by). No doubt this was in my head as yesterday I spent ages up and down and passed a few churches that were now converted into flats. Of course, I had to go one better in the dream, and buy a whole church. That and reading a certain classic Father Brown story.
The plans were quite cool if I remember correctly - I may well use them in some future project. If only that project was the church in real life! I wonder where I got the money though? It'd cost a bomb to buy a church (heck - I can't even afford to go halves on a hole in the ground for a few more years)...?
Sarah Beeny, host of Channel 4's Property Ladder was sadly conspicuous by her abscence.
Posted by Badgers at 05:49 AM | Comments (2)
March 10, 2004
Sitcom
If ever there was a sitcom doomed to fail, it would be this one. But still, BBC Breakfast are bigging it up and I am sat behind a chair near the TV watching the promo for the show. The presenters waffle on, but I don't know what they said. There are some clips from the show, which is a co-production by the BBC and NBC in the US - it is in fact two sitcoms - one set in the US with a bunch of stupid college jocks, and one set in Manchester with two complete pricks.
The pilot (from which the clips are taken) involves the pricks meeting the jocks as some sort of exchange programme - there were clips of various 'funny' moments and then the clip of them going their separate ways, into their own sitcoms, apparently specially made to appeal to viewers on both sides of the Atlantic. Yeah, right.
While I'm watching the screen I'm also messing with my cat - I don't know where it comes from, but I suddenly have a ginger cat and I'm playing with a ball and it is playing too. From the other side of the chair mum says that the sitcom looks funny. The cat and I roll our eyes and shrug.
Where the heck did the sitcom come from? All I know is that it can bugger off nack there - luckily I don't remember much about it, but it was bad. Middle-period Friends bad. Still, the BBC were giving it the big push, it just didn't happen to be over Beachy Head.
The cat was cute. The cat is no doubt one I saw the day before, except that ginger tom wasn't in quite the same shape on the side of the road, if you catch my drift. I guess I was just giving it some fun.
Why was I behind a chair? No idea - but considering how horrid the show was, I think I should have been at the other side!!!
Posted by Badgers at 06:34 AM | Comments (0)
February 12, 2004
Jeremy Clarkson and the Chocolate Factory
As part of his Inventions That Changed the World series, Clarkson is looking at chocolate. And I of all people, the one person who can't eat chocolate or else I projectile vomit, am his cameraman. I'm following him (he is in one of his supercars, I'm in Camille, my 206), and he loses me. I manage to catch up though as I know where he is going! I arrive and drive into and around the factory - no-one is surprised (except me). I get out and manage to park outside. I go in again on foot with the camera on my shoulder, and find Clarkson chatting with some rather nice ladies, who are looking after a bunch of screaming kids. I think they were teachers, but they might have been guides at the factory, especially considering the last part of the dream.
Anyway, once I finally extract him from the girls clutches, we start filming. we are walking along the roof while Clarkson talks about chocolate. I crawl backwards through a skylight followed by Clarkson who replaces the skylight and o it is a glass globe - he explains that the original Mr Cadbury (not that the factory was anythign like Cadbury's real factory in Bournville) could look into the lobe ands see the whole sight, and anything that was going on. I zome in to look and yeas, a distorted, but recognisable view of the whole site can be seen. I mention that I could see my car. He asks if I can see his Aston as he can't remember where he parked.
The filming over, we go out and meet the ladies again, along with the kids. Clarkson becomes a little infatuated with one, and we leave together (no kids). At some point Clarkson lurks behind, and ends up catching up by driving a lorry. He tells me he rather likes one of the girls, and we go into their house to meet the family. I end up shaking hands (one way or another) with their grandfather... oddly as I do so, my leg starts to give out.
Surprisingly, despite the chocolate (which to be honest, I never see), this isn't a vomiting dream. Imagine my relief! I can even guess where some of this comes from.
First, the obvious - I went to bed last night remembering to set the video to watch Inventions... as I would be watching Jake 2.0 tonight (and also hoping that 24 isn't as bad this year as it has been said to be). I bought Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory at the weekend on DVD in Manchester. The globe is oddly Wonka-ish, but not from the film, unless I forgot about it.
The ladies were all nice, probably mid twenties, and all very helpful - they didn't cuff the kids once. Noone I knew again (I seem to be very good at conjouring up good looking women in dreams (say a single thing James and I'll punch you up the conker mate!) - I assume they are people I have spotted while out and about - certainly not anyone I recognised though).
Why the grandfather? Why is Clarkson so smitten (apart from the obvious)? Why the heck was I the cameraman? And if the programme was about chocolate, why didn't I get to take any footage? Why am I bothering to analyse it anyway?
Posted by Badgers at 06:48 PM | Comments (1)
Goodfellas Pizzas
Imagine an advert for Extra Deep and Crispy Pizzas from Goodfellas - there may even be one like this dream...
The camera goes down a street and everyone has extra-wide (and extra cheesy) grins. The anouncer asks what is going on, and the person talking turns, easting a pizza (though oddly, a very thin one, rather than a deep-pan pizza). He tries to speak but can't, mumbling something and shrugging his shoulders. The announcer says "There you have it!" and the Pizza box appears on screen.
Literally an advert, this is no doubt inspired by the many posters advertising the Goodfellas pizzas - showing people with extra wide grins (and more teeth than the Osmand family, to quote Red Dwarf). It was like a real advert - except it made no sense. Then again...
Posted by Badgers at 06:29 PM | Comments (0)
Without A Paddle
I'm on a river in a long canoe, and yes, I have no paddle. This is not a problem as I am using my hands to paddle and to guide the canoe through the cold running water. It feels exiting and fun. This goes on for a while, then suddenly the boat jumps forward - there is now a motor at the back, though it isn't working properly, and Nick is driving! Every time he tries to put his foot down the canoe leaps forward but stalls, and the seats fly back, usually nearly landing on top of me. Yeah, I know canoes don't have seats, but work with me here - it was a dream! Anyway - we go under a bridge and I tell Nick to stop 'cos he's just buggering up the outboard motor. I look back and see Andrew waving to us while he is fishing.
Okay, this came from nowhere... and I have no idea what any of it means (if anything) or where my brain trawled it up from. Canoes? Rivers? Nick (trying) to drive a speedboat?
Nope - nothing.
Posted by Badgers at 06:24 PM | Comments (0)
January 24, 2004
Snow and Hills
This is in fact a dream from yesterday night, but I had the sense to write it down before I forgot it...
I am walking down Colne Road towards Queensgate, but while the shops and houses are still on my left, to the right things are different. The old petrol station (now Burnley Tyre & Battery) was still there, and beyond, apart from a few houses, was hills and the moors, rising in a spectacular way - like something from Scotland ot or the Lake District. Or round here, for that matter! The hills were closer to town than they usually were, though. The ground was icy and it was hard to walk, let alone run (which I began to for some reason), and it felt cold.
I saw a friend from work who said "hi" before pointing to the hills and saying "Look - it's going to snow! And it's coming this way!". I look where she points, and see a lot of cloud forming and pouring through a small gap in the hills - I also see the ground below becoming white as snow fell. I then see a flash in the sky and spot a silver prop-plane flying low over the hill around the cloud, and realise that it is taking readings of the weather. Somehow this all seems important.
As it is a day-old dream, I can analyse it now while I burn a DVD! The interesting thing to me is that yesterday the Met Office declared that next week will be a winter snap with bitter wintery weather expected... Not that this dream is evidence of precognitive ability (I don't mention the dream about going to Manchester and finding it shut for some reason, then finding that the bomb that lead to the improvement of the City centre had gone off at the time I would have been there that morning if I hadn't overslept if I can help it!), but I do like it when dreams fit with real life like this. Except the ones whjere I find myself at work and then the working day that follows is very similar - I hate those! And the working day too!
Not sure where all the elements come from, but it recalls an older dream I used to have where I am walking back to Burnley from brierfield along Colne Road (again) and the view to Pendle Hill is uninterupted by houses, mills, etc.
Nothing much to add, sorry!
Posted by Badgers at 06:45 AM | Comments (1)
January 13, 2004
The Girl With Long, Curly Black Hair
Not much to this, though it seemed to be a serial dream or lots of little ones through the night (before the catapult one turned up).
Basically, all though the dreams, I kept catching sight of a pretty young woman with the hair mentioned above. Shopping meant she worked at the shop, at work, she was there, and finally I came home, and found the on the settee (!) playing wih Folly, one of our (many) dogs. She looks up, says "Hi" and goes back to being bitten by Folly. I hear mum say that she would be housesitting while they are away, and I remember thinking ""Whoa! Where am I going to be?" before this final dream ended.
Analysis
Not often I have dreams like this (not wierd enough for me, though James has them all the time), and it made sense. Kinda. No idea who the girl was (the only raven-haired beauty I'm hot on at the moment apart from Sophie Ellis-Bextor in the video for Won't Change You certainly wasn't the lady in question) Mayvbe she's someone who I've spotted while working, who knows?
I know I could fall for many nice girls who work in shops, etc (some especially!), but the odd thing is that she wasn't my 'ideal', though far from being someone I wouldn't, erm, jump at the chance of.
Still, goes to show I can dream like normal guys!
Posted by Badgers at 07:29 AM | Comments (4)
Catapults
Not often this happens, but I just awoke from a dream and it's staying with me! And it was a an odd one...
Y'see. there's this company offering the new thrill as far as scary but fun experiences go - kinda the next step up from bungie jumping. Thats right - being fired from a catapult! I watch as a demo firing takes place - a bundle is launched quite a long way into the night - it is caught by netting or something in the distance.
I get prepared to be fired by putting on a safety suit, and lie down on the catapult. It is a large siege-type 'pult, maybe even a trebuchet (thats a word for 7.15 in the morning!). There is someone else there, but his face is wrapped in a bag and has rope loosely wrapped round it - and the person with me (not sure who, possibly mum, possibly someone from work) becomes obsessed with the idea that it is Denis Norden (presenter of It'll Be Alright On The Night - interesting considering it was night and I was hoping it bloody would be!)
I manage to see under the face mask and lo and behold - it does look like him. The man from the company is starting to get worried though - they think that the paperwork allowing them to fire humans may be about to be overturned...
The man beside gets up, and takes off his mask and oddly enough, it isn't Dennis Norden - it is a grey-haired, egyptian-looking man - and obviously rich. The person with me is worried that I had only been with them a day while this guy had been with his company for years and made millions... ( he said £95.6, million, and he only works 2 days a week!) they didn't want to lose me - odd logic or what?
While this is going on, a mobile phone rings, and the man form the company says that it is too late anyway - the paperwork is overturned - they can't do it anymore. It is a shame, but suddenly the catapult starts to move - a woman screams - but I just slowly go upright as the catapult had suddenly shrunk from the big one to having an arm just my height. Odd.
Analysis
Hmm - some of these elements I can work out, but why it came together like this, who knows... and why Dennis Norden?!? Or the Egyptian chap?
The idea of a catapult comes no doubt from watching the demo of Medieval: Total War, as it shows them in full flight, and someone being thrown by one popped up in The Scorpion King, which I saw a few weeks ago.
I think this has something to do with my current need to get out of my job... well, I say 'need', but actually I need to keep it - let's say my desire to get out of it! It explains a little about the bit at the end where they want to keep me (I think I felt like doing it anyeway - to heck with the risks! And I'm sure that the Egyptian business man (not the owner of Harrods, by the way - too young, if grey) would pay my bills (especially the hospital bills after missing the net!)
Out of nowhere, the odd ones come...
Posted by Badgers at 07:23 AM | Comments (1)
October 01, 2003
Gaming
A short one this, but interesting. The idiots are up here playing games, but in different rooms. James is in my bedroom shooting on some unnamable FPS, Andrew is in the bathroom doing another FPS, while downstairs, Nick is playing yet another first person shooter. They are not linked on a network, but playing alone. I'm just wandering between them watching what they are doing.
Note that I'm not playing games - do I feel left out? Oh, and everyone is playing FPS... is there any other genre of game nowadays?!?
Judging by the last three dreams (all from the same night!), I feel left out, trapped and unable to get what I want. I'm on a downhill slope, folks...
Posted by Badgers at 06:48 AM | Comments (3)
Melon
A large, modern shopping centre has been built - it is huge, like the Trafford Centre. It is like a mirrored glass box, but with rounded edges and some round bits stuck on. Very modern. As I ride the escalator up to the first floor entrance, I look round at large signs with a strange badly drawn dog on them (obviously the centre's mascot/logo) I and think "I could have done it better than that!".
Inside there are large shops around the edge of the building, but the middle bit is taken up with market stalls, ranging from tidy professional ones to the sort you'd find on the flea market. A little way off you can see down into the floor below through the railings.
I see a stall selling fruit, melos, etc. I see a dish with sliced pink melon on it, and I think - I'll get that, but as I approach a lady asks to try some of it, likes it, and buys it herself. Of course, this is the only melon she has on the stall (it is a dream, after all!) and I look in vain around the stall for something else I might like but it has chocolate and stuff that I just can't eat without being violently ill.
Nick, James and Andrew turn up, I tell them about the melon, but somehow it doesn't really grab them as a problem, so we go off to explore the market. Nick and James find some old porn, I find a stall selling old toys and model kits. Of course, I don't have any money... Not sure what Andrew does as he has buggered off by then.
Well, Burnley is getting a large new Tesco store, but it isn't going to be much like the centre in the dream! Really modern and spectacular... and large. The market on the inside was good (allsorts on sale, including that one plate of melon) and worth building into a real one...
The melon was odd. Why dream of a plate of pink melon? Why did she get it before I did? Another sign in a dream that I'm unfulfilled, and feel people are getting things I want before me? Have I missed something recently that I really wanted? Not especially.
The idiots turning up was fun and almost leads into the next dream... I love how I found the toys and kits and stuff that I couldn't afford, and they found porn... kinda like real life, lately! And I have no idea where Andrew went - there one minute, gone the next.
Oh, and the dog/logo thing - really, I could draw better than that... maybe my id is telling me to get on with Butterfly, Ish and I.T.!!
Seriously odd dreams this time round.
Posted by Badgers at 06:45 AM | Comments (3)
The Enemy
I am at a seaside resort (it seems) and staying in what seems to be a half decent hotel. But something isn't right. The man 'running' it is a kind of spy - he is played by Peter Miles (best known for various roles in Doctor Who, such as Nyder, Davros' second-in-command in Genesis of the Daleks), and it is his job to use information to keep the war going and get people to kill each other.
This feelas wrong, but I am obviously under his influence, until a woman arrives and takes me out onto the beach outside - it is cold. She is a large,woman in her early 40's, and she apparently does the same job as the man. She tells me what is going on, and I join her in her fight as we are attacked from Browhead Court (a local sheltered housing complex) by general in a green waterproof jacket/kagool thing and his men. They come out shooting, but we are not hit, but keep knocking them over with a kind of high-powered water rifle. I'm not sure how, but the general gets covered in nasty, oily black goo (I comment that he needs a bath) and leaps into a large green metal pram (armoured?) and we keep firing at until it fills with water - he is thrashing about in the pram, but at least he is cleaner... then Peter Miles character arrives, inspects the very unhappy general and comes over to us. He says he is very disappointed.
He takes us both back to the hotel and talks to the woman while I am escorted back to my drab room. She tells him that she does the same job as him, and he is shocked. I get out of my room and go to the kitchen - I feel sick and throw up the same black goo that the general was covered in - I rush into the kitchen and start getting rid of the freshly boiled vegetables while the cook is out, as they are poisoned...
Hmm. Peter Miles I can place - I read an interview with him in Doctor Who Magazine. The rest on the other hand... Is it a sign that I feel trapped? That squirting high-powered water rifles at people is the only way to freedom? That I ate too much cheese before going to bed? The being sick bit at the end was disturbing... especially when I woke up and had to cough up phlegm for real...
Perhaps the rest of the night's dreams will reveal something?
Posted by Badgers at 06:36 AM | Comments (3)
July 18, 2003
The School Bus...
Ever had a dream you really didn't want to wake up from? Even though you know everything is wrong?
I'm getting ready for school, despite being the age I am now... James knocks at the front door, I go down, and we get onto the school bus outside. We get on board and sit with a tall young guy and a nice blonde woman. For some reason, all four of us are going back to school - school uniforms and all. The school is Towneley, though we are wearing red jumpers with a yellow lion on them. We chat about allsorts while the bus wanders through Burnley (at one point the tall guy asks if I'm 'in colour', as I look really tired and washed out (why is everyone such a good writer of dialogue in dreams?), and later once we swap seats (I get a numb bum in the corner) about getting better jumpers becaise he'll grow out of this one in a few weeks...)
As th bus goes round we all chat, the girl (whose face I know from somewhere) sits on James' knee, but when we swap seats she sits next to me and we chat. By now the bus is heading along St Andrews Street past my old house, (how it got there don't know) and goes down Ryland Street.... only to do a u-turn and come back up (narrowly missing a metal staircase). We look at our watches at the bus stops on Briercliffe Road and we get off (after noting that if we stay on, and the bus ever gets to school, we can at least say the bus was late!). I realise I have only my slippers on my feet - I dash back with the others waiting for me (though the direction we are going is Barden, not Towneley) and go through the door - the house is being done up a workmen are downstairs with mum planning stuff, and the floor is bare on the landing. I go into my bedroom and slip my shoes on, and I think 'why are we all so good at writing in dreams' (see above)... then the sky starts going dark, and a light comes towards the house drom the distance... it quickly becomes a badly superimposed old series Enterprise. By this time I have realised I am in a dream, and fight (literally) not to wake up - this seems like such a better, if weirder, world... I crouch by the window wishing it would stay... but then I woke up for real to this place.
Bugger.
Hmm. I don't recognise anyone in the dream personally (apart from James, natch, and the fact that the girl was familiar), but this one was odd. The school uniforms (red jumper with lion on it - from Harry Potter - maybe the Gryffindor prefects jumpers? That might make the tall guy an older Ron, and The girl am oldr Hermione even though they looked totally wrong) were interesting... but this was not the usual 'school' type dream. No corridors, no nothing, just a double decker school bus.
I wonder if any of it stems from what James was talking about on the night out... (I didn't put it in there as Marie might have read it and clouted him!), but he wondered what all the girls at school looked like now, 15 (!) years on... Now there's a thought to conjour with... I think half the girls and women who see me and come over to chat while I walk round town are from school, which is probably why they know so much about me, and I know zip all about them. But then, Jamius is a perv, so that explains his interest!
Ahem.
I can get where the workmen come from - first, yesterday morning I woke up to find a workman had come round to fit a hanging basket bracket as part of a community thingy (lots of hanging baskets to get rid of the drug dealers!), and the fact that I'm spending much of this weekend (and the week!) doing my bedroom. The Enterprise is in my head as James had mentioned that the old ship was in the mod he was trying in Freelancer. The slippers were possibly from the same source that drops you in all your naked glory in the middle of the supermarket frozen food aisle...
What really got me is that when I realised it had to be a dream, I actually fought to stay there! Shows how messed up real life is!
By the way - you wouldn't believe how many spelling mistakes I managed to put in this entry this morning... spoonerisms and total dyslexia abound - between that and my grasp of numbers (if I see more than two numbers together in a phone number, say, 0162 7564446, my brain hurts - there really MUST be something wrong up there...)
Posted by Badgers at 07:41 AM | Comments (2)
June 27, 2003
Scrubs, and....
Lots of dreams in one here - should make up for not making an entry for a while!
First, it begins as an episode of Scrubs - JD et al are dealing with patients as per usual (but no Doctor Cox or the Janitor). The two main patients are a drunk and a man who is eating cheese strings and has 80's music coming from his mouth... the latter we later find is nibbling the cheese strings and then eating them. We later find that he is punching holes in the cheese things so that he can use them like punch cards or the things that fairground steam organs use... all thorugh the 'episode' we keep coming back to him and hearing different tunes... The drunk is fine, though he harrasses the doctors, including Doctor Kelsoe. Later, we find him in the car park, threatening to jump to his death because the doctors won't help him. Kelso tells him to sort himself out, whereupon he jumps. On the floor. Kelso then tells him to go get drunk, play pool, and find a woman... and proceeds to take him to a bar, get him drunk, play pool and finds him a woman...
Somewhere during all this, a rag doll goes missing, and Elliott nearly strangles Fozzie Bear in a cupboard (he is okay as another muppet comes over to him... the camera pans up to where a frightened Gonzo watches, saying that that is nothing compared to what she did to him..)
Now things change, and the hunt for the rag doll is on - and we go animated. In different styles, like for different series. In one a strange set of toys go hunting for the doll (who we see running away). Oddly, the animation style shows the ground coming up to meet their feet as the walk/run, and things on the floor look to be under a tablecloth until picked up... I say this as one character stops by a lump on the floor and then the narrator says not to pick up that cool minty tic-tac on the floor... he does, pops it in his mouth and it melts quickly, leaving the character drooling and saying - "Mmmm cool!". Then we hear the Power Rangers theme and see a hybrid Transformers/Beast Wars intro...
The camera swoops down into a city populated by large robots and humans. Everything is CGI - very bright and colourful lke in Futurama. We then go inside a globe as we find a cyborg saying they must destroy the autocons before they crash an asteroid into the planet - a human on a screen says it is no good as it is too late - the cyborg says to take him to the far side of the planet - the globe puts up shields and then drift over the horizon to stop over he ocean. the asteroid hits and a wave starst to swoop round the planet... At this point I realise this is like an IMAX movie in an huge auditorium - I and others are standing there asping at the cool CG when the wave sweeps forward and spashes everyone... we all agree that we didn't expect such a cool effect( we really get wet by the spray)... then the wave sweeping from the other side smashes through the first wave and soaks us again... And the rag doll is still missing...
Okay... as usual, this is one on my odd TV-based dreams - no titles at the beginning though, which makes a change... Why Scrubs, I wonder? Well, it's on Channel 4 tonight, but that doesn't explain much... the story was actually quite funny (especilly Kelso and the drunk in the bar... though I think he was softening him up for something), but the cheesestrings guy was wierd (the 80's songs are simply because of Vice City and the 80's Pop Culture Box CDs...). Somehow the punchcard thing made sense at the time.
The rag doll is odd, though, especially how it all goes animated (in that wierd style and then CG) from then on. The Muppets are an interesting cameo, too... I think the ending with the CG waves was cool, but WTF?!? The Transforers bit was almost like a robo-Dinotopia - what is it whith that show? It keeps popping up!!!
Hmm - after reading through a few bits of a book about interpreting dreams (here we go) the doll means somethinganbut feeling like a child (nope), the need to learn things we learn as a child again (not getting that vibe) or the soul of a particular person that might need help. That might fit, if I stretch it a bit and ignore the meaning. The film bit is about viewing things differently, or creating a new reality (!) or even the Past. Now you know why I don't read these books before hunting down where stuff comes from (though this dream is totally odd as I would have expected none of this to come up... )
Still it makes a change from reruns of old dreams, or the serial dream I wake up from without remembering anything but the fact I've just had one...
Posted by Badgers at 05:21 AM | Comments (1)
June 06, 2003
The Beauty Contest
Yeah, I know I'll get stick for this, but what the hey...
For some reason, in this dream (another of the updated ones I've been having lately - must be the summer reruns!) I'm entering a beauty contest. Don't ask me why, as I have no idea! Of course, I go in and a little (!) work has to be done... (cue an odd clip of Michael Jackson - the Off The Wall/Thriller era one, not the Universal Studios Creature from the Black Lagoon he is becoming - moonwalking in his white suit, shaking his hair so it gets long and ending up looking like his sister) I get the dress ready in my cubicle (a slinky dark purple number that I promise you, wouldn't suit me at all), and while I'm waiting I slip into jeans and a pink jumper (angora?!?), but - bugger - where is the shaver? (Not just for the legs, I fear!) So, I go looking for it... I go outside and it's teeming with rain... and then I awoke, thankfully!
Why all these old dreams are popping up, I'm not sure, but it must be due to this diary being on my mind - soon I'll be reliving the dream where I'm being chased by a creature similar to the Alien, going round and round in an old abandoned factory until I trip it and it falls to its death - an early example of my ability to lucid dream, I think- or the dream where my Mum & Dad leave me in the darkness, and I know a horrible monster is coming to get me (a few dreams later I actually forced myself to turn round, and the monster, while pretty horrible, was friendly - go figure).
Back to this one. No, I'm not gay, and that can sooooo be discounted! The original dream I remember ended about the same place, but not after looking for a shaver - that part probably came from me hunting down my beard trimmer earlier this week (guess what? the bastard thing was where I'd been looking for it!) Why the beauty contest? That has always puzzled me. I mean, I go into the changing rooms as a man, and should come out looking like a woman I suppose... I don't see much of the women though - they are there, and probably undressed, but it certainly isn't that kind of dream. I guess thats the female side of my brain coming out in that as I am trying to be a woman in the dream, I don't see the women in that way (which means I'm not gay in that direction either!!! Male lesbians are just too wierd!) - they are just there, as am I. The reason for the rain is easy to spot - as I awoke from the dream I opened my eyes to see that it was hissing it down outside at 4.30 this morning... so I went straight to sleep again.
Curious how this dream has stayed with me all day, even though I haven't thought about it since I came to write this, and yet the second of the last entry's three dreams buggered off as soon as I woke, leaving the others clear as anything.
Posted by Badgers at 07:15 PM | Comments (0)
June 05, 2003
Manned Missions & I'm a VG Chara, Get Me Out Of Here!
Three dreams in one from last night...
First, a cinematic zoom into a comet, and on its surface we see three British scientists, in jumpsuits but no breathing gear, etc. This is the first manned mission to a comet - they are taking samples from the icy surface - a few more cinematic views of the surface show it to be icy in a blue way, and very unearthly. The samples are taken back to the pod they landed in and everyone chats about how cool the mission is, and how we beat the US there...
The next dream has sadly buggered off while I was making the notes, but is seemed interesting at the time - if it comes back, I'll add it to the entry...
The final dream is a weird mix of Dinotopia, Yellow Submarine and video games... in a jungle, nice cute dinosaurs live with various Nintendo video game characters (Kirby, the mushrooms from Super Mario, etc). But here are bad dinos - and somehow someone has built a mecha T-Rex with spiky spider-like legs, and the ability to turn invisible. And you won't believe how much this looked like dodgy CGI at times! It rampages through the forest, chasing the dinos and charas (and eating some). At the beginning it is invisible (leading to some interesting shots such as a very poor CG fox impaled on a leg, and carried off), but it turns visible when the carnage starts to cling to the bodywork. in one chase (from my point of view) it chases me up to a huge fence, and gets stuck for a while - it is then distracted by Kirby's flying on umbrellas and I manage to get to a huge animated submarine that is surfacing through the trees - once everyone has got on board, the sub sets off through the trees, leaving the mecha-Rex stuck on the fence, roaring... The sub stops at a clearing where a large tower (also animated) rises from a shallow water hole...
The first dream was interesting, and a little odd. The comet FX were stunning though - unlike the mecha in the jungle dream, it looked real, and not like cartoon CGI. The scientists were fairly non-descript (balding one with glasses, nice enough woman scientist with brunette hair, heroic looking guy (not me!) with big jaw, generic people), so they were stock characters. The idea of the UK mission obviously popped up from the Beagle mission on it's way to Mars as we speak. The bit where they got the ice core loked a little like a set, complete with fake snow, but the view of the comet at the beginning was good, and the landscape was stunning - you couldn't see a long way before the horizon cut you off, but the colours in the ice were pretty as all get out... not sure about the atmosphere though (one of the scientists even commented on that...)
The second dream has annoyed me by going away so quickly... the third though, was a doozy!
Impressive jungle, brooding menace as we see normal T-Rexs, before the rampage begins... Trees smashing out of the way, and an invisible thing... the suspense was good as the hull of the mecha became more visible (as I say, the fox bit looked far too dodgy though). But where did this come from? Okay, I watched Dinotopia on Sunday, but apart from Sophie Ward, little else grabs me about it (apart from the far cheaper CG of course). The VG charas probably come from watching too many sprite animated Flash, and the animated sub... not sure where that has risen from, though the look was very like the sub in Yellow Submarine, except it was big, grey and blue with red bits, and on land. I can at least spot where the legs of the mecha came from - the flash animation Tomorrow's Nobodies 4 on Newgrounds, as I watched it last night.
Y'know, I'd love to find a dream book that explains all of that!!!
Posted by Badgers at 07:39 AM | Comments (1)
Manned Missions & I'm a VG Chara, Get Me Out Of Here!
Three dreams in one from last night...
First, a cinematic zoom into a comet, and on its surface we see three British scientists, in jumpsuits but no breathing gear, etc. This is the first manned mission to a comet - they are taking samples from the icy surface - a few more cinematic views of the surface show it to be icy in a blue way, and very unearthly. The samples are taken back to the pod they landed in and everyone chats about how cool the mission is, and how we beat the US there...
The next dream has sadly buggered off while I was making the notes, but is seemed interesting at the time - if it comes back, I'll add it to the entry...
The final dream is a weird mix of Dinotopia, Yellow Submarine and video games... in a jungle, nice cute dinosaurs live with various Nintendo video game characters (Kirby, the mushrooms from Super Mario, etc). But here are bad dinos - and somehow someone has built a mecha T-Rex with spiky spider-like legs, and the ability to turn invisible. And you won't believe how much this looked like dodgy CGI at times! It rampages through the forest, chasing the dinos and charas (and eating some). At the beginning it is invisible (leading to some interesting shots such as a very poor CG fox impaled on a leg, and carried off), but it turns visible when the carnage starts to cling to the bodywork. in one chase (from my point of view) it chases me up to a huge fence, and gets stuck for a while - it is then distracted by Kirby's flying on umbrellas and I manage to get to a huge animated submarine that is surfacing through the trees - once everyone has got on board, the sub sets off through the trees, leaving the mecha-Rex stuck on the fence, roaring... The sub stops at a clearing where a large tower (also animated) rises from a shallow water hole...
The first dream was interesting, and a little odd. The comet FX were stunning though - unlike the mecha in the jungle dream, it looked real, and not like cartoon CGI. The scientists were fairly non-descript (balding one with glasses, nice enough woman scientist with brunette hair, heroic looking guy (not me!) with big jaw, generic people), so they were stock characters. The idea of the UK mission obviously popped up from the Beagle mission on it's way to Mars as we speak. The bit where they got the ice core loked a little like a set, complete with fake snow, but the view of the comet at the beginning was good, and the landscape was stunning - you couldn't see a long way before the horizon cut you off, but the colours in the ice were pretty as all get out... not sure about the atmosphere though (one of the scientists even commented on that...)
The second dream has annoyed me by going away so quickly... the third though, was a doozy!
Impressive jungle, brooding menace as we see normal T-Rexs, before the rampage begins... Trees smashing out of the way, and an invisible thing... the suspense was good as the hull of the mecha became more visible (as I say, the fox bit looked far too dodgy though). But where did this come from? Okay, I watched Dinotopia on Sunday, but apart from Sophie Ward, little else grabs me about it (apart from the far cheaper CG of course). The VG charas probably come from watching too many sprite animated Flash, and the animated sub... not sure where that has risen from, though the look was very like the sub in Yellow Submarine, except it was big, grey and blue with red bits, and on land. I can at least spot where the legs of the mecha came from - the flash animation Tomorrow's Nobodies 4 on Newgrounds, as I watched it last night.
Y'know, I'd love to find a dream book that explains all of that!!!
Posted by Badgers at 07:39 AM | Comments (1)
May 26, 2003
Open All Hours goes all Top Gun on me
Remember how I mentioned getting these things down quickly - here's one I just woke up from - it will give you an idea of how my dreams work. It 's also an updated version of a dream I used to have years ago...
It starts off like Open All Hours (the classic Ronnie Barker sitcom) and quickly develops into something else as Arkright realises that something is wrong in the town, and only h-h-h-he can s-s-s-top it. So he gets in a fighter with others and sets of to destroy the evil... here things go a little dream-like (!) but this was a little different to the older dream - then it was real planes, but here it was a mish-mash of planes in computer games, from well-rendered fighters (like you'd expect today) to wobbly graphics which, while good, seem to be made of voxels like those seen in Commanche 1-2 first two Delta Force PC games from Novalogic (technical, my dreams are!)
Anyway, they set off and fly round destroying barrels in a complex and then the desert (the desert is where it goes all blocky and sprite-y). Then comes the f-f-final mission, as they roar down the main street of the town, but the other pilots are being confused as they can see and hear people (friends and fellow sitcom stars!) singing a nice sing-song, um, song... This bit is a little different as it used to be a little longer - Arkright used to succomb before Granville shakes him out of his reverie - here though Granville (played by me) just keeps saying -"Dont listen! Don't listen!". The plane is now firing snowballs as it is a cold winter's day, and they hit the people Arkright can see, stopping the singing - he goes high, then destroys the last barrel at the end of the street with a flurry of snowballs! Then its the end sequence - again a little different to the original dream - a much older Ronnie Barker plays Arkright, and is walking down the street beside me. Ahead are the people he could see singing - they are all Ronnie as different characters he had played - Fletcher (Porridge), Clarence (from, um, Clarence), a few assorted characters from The Two Ronnies... He was saying goodbye to them, and me... and I had a goodbye to say too (and this is odd, but while it was not actually in this dream, it was another old dream I used to have)... a lamb I had been looking after and almost made a pet out of was growing into a sheep as I watched... it ran down the street happily with the characters and I ran with it, patting it until it became a fully grown sheep and then ran into the distance. I was happy for it, and Ronnie, but crying... and that's how I just woke up!
I don't usually wake up crying, though I did recently after a dream where Akumi (my tarantula) had stopped moving, and I was holding the spider willing her to wake up - then mum came in, took it off me and tried rescucitating it, squeezing her to make her breathe, and crushing her just as she started to move again - that dream I woke up crying and angry from...
Now some analysis of this dream... I'll just check the news first though... good - I had a feeling it meant that Ronnie had died... nothing I can spot though, thankfully.
So, where did all that come from, then? Well, I did play PC games yesterday with Nick (but no planes apart from the jets I was jumping over in Vice City), and certainly no voxel-based stuff! I haven't seen any Ronnie Barker for a week or two (I caught an Open All Hours the Saturday before last on UK Gold). Seen lots of lambs frolicking though, but this isn't really something that's on my mind (though other friends may have differing feelings in that direction!) as its too late in the year to have the full 'ahhh!' factor. Perhaps its the fact that I'm transporting mum and a chair to the Great Harwood Show today? And my mind is thinking it's like the Great Lancashire Show with sheep and other farm animals? More interesting to me is the rerun/remake of the first dream - why pop into my head? Am I worried about something being remade? A classic movie? The fact that the new Dragnet is coming to ITV1 this week? It looked odd to see it now, especially in it's updated form...
Ah well - dreams don't have to make sense! Thats the good thing about them!
Hmm. Sometimes working out where things come from isn't as easy as you might think...
Posted by Badgers at 06:23 AM | Comments (0)
Open All Hours goes all Top Gun on me
Remember how I mentioned getting these things down quickly - here's one I just woke up from - it will give you an idea of how my dreams work. It 's also an updated version of a dream I used to have years ago...
It starts off like Open All Hours (the classic Ronnie Barker sitcom) and quickly develops into something else as Arkright realises that something is wrong in the town, and only h-h-h-he can s-s-s-top it. So he gets in a fighter with others and sets of to destroy the evil... here things go a little dream-like (!) but this was a little different to the older dream - then it was real planes, but here it was a mish-mash of planes in computer games, from well-rendered fighters (like you'd expect today) to wobbly graphics which, while good, seem to be made of voxels like those seen in Commanche 1-2 first two Delta Force PC games from Novalogic (technical, my dreams are!)
Anyway, they set off and fly round destroying barrels in a complex and then the desert (the desert is where it goes all blocky and sprite-y). Then comes the f-f-final mission, as they roar down the main street of the town, but the other pilots are being confused as they can see and hear people (friends and fellow sitcom stars!) singing a nice sing-song, um, song... This bit is a little different as it used to be a little longer - Arkright used to succomb before Granville shakes him out of his reverie - here though Granville (played by me) just keeps saying -"Dont listen! Don't listen!". The plane is now firing snowballs as it is a cold winter's day, and they hit the people Arkright can see, stopping the singing - he goes high, then destroys the last barrel at the end of the street with a flurry of snowballs! Then its the end sequence - again a little different to the original dream - a much older Ronnie Barker plays Arkright, and is walking down the street beside me. Ahead are the people he could see singing - they are all Ronnie as different characters he had played - Fletcher (Porridge), Clarence (from, um, Clarence), a few assorted characters from The Two Ronnies... He was saying goodbye to them, and me... and I had a goodbye to say too (and this is odd, but while it was not actually in this dream, it was another old dream I used to have)... a lamb I had been looking after and almost made a pet out of was growing into a sheep as I watched... it ran down the street happily with the characters and I ran with it, patting it until it became a fully grown sheep and then ran into the distance. I was happy for it, and Ronnie, but crying... and that's how I just woke up!
I don't usually wake up crying, though I did recently after a dream where Akumi (my tarantula) had stopped moving, and I was holding the spider willing her to wake up - then mum came in, took it off me and tried rescucitating it, squeezing her to make her breathe, and crushing her just as she started to move again - that dream I woke up crying and angry from...
Now some analysis of this dream... I'll just check the news first though... good - I had a feeling it meant that Ronnie had died... nothing I can spot though, thankfully.
So, where did all that come from, then? Well, I did play PC games yesterday with Nick (but no planes apart from the jets I was jumping over in Vice City), and certainly no voxel-based stuff! I haven't seen any Ronnie Barker for a week or two (I caught an Open All Hours the Saturday before last on UK Gold). Seen lots of lambs frolicking though, but this isn't really something that's on my mind (though other friends may have differing feelings in that direction!) as its too late in the year to have the full 'ahhh!' factor. Perhaps its the fact that I'm transporting mum and a chair to the Great Harwood Show today? And my mind is thinking it's like the Great Lancashire Show with sheep and other farm animals? More interesting to me is the rerun/remake of the first dream - why pop into my head? Am I worried about something being remade? A classic movie? The fact that the new Dragnet is coming to ITV1 this week? It looked odd to see it now, especially in it's updated form...
Ah well - dreams don't have to make sense! Thats the good thing about them!
Hmm. Sometimes working out where things come from isn't as easy as you might think...
Posted by Badgers at 06:23 AM | Comments (0)
May 24, 2003
Not a dream...
...I think this part of Badgers will more likely become a nightmare!
I'm sure people probably won't believe that I can dream with full opening and closing titles, and dreams that go on over a series of nights like a, well, tv series, but it happens. As do those that are basically the day I am about to wake up to (and often a little too accurate!). As a recent 'blog entry mentioned, I often use dreams for ideas - some I.T. stories have come from that, and the dream mentioned in that entry (the one with the reflection in the window) is going to appear in the summer as a short story.
I like analysing where the elements that form the dreams come from, so I'll probably try to get the dream online ASAP, and follow it up later in the expanded entry bit with a look at what I thing was actually going on. I believe that dreams are simply your brain pulling things together, often the stuff that you have seen or have been thinkng about (possibly without thinking), but not in a metaphysical way. It means that it might get rather Jungian round here, though, but it's a risk I'm willing to take...
If you have any dreams that seem interesting, post them to the Dream Forum at the message boards and share them with others!
Posted by Badgers at 04:48 PM | Comments (0)