I don’t know whether it’s anxiety or overthinking; over-tiredness or over-sleeping; lack of nicotine or lack of alcohol or lack of anything else pleasant or fun, but my GOD I’ve been plagued by vivid dreams, recently.
Brightly coloured, fast paced, and staying with me for hours if not days after I’ve woken up, my nightly adventures have been ridiculously exciting, compared to my waking life, spent carving paths through my day and my diary and my inbox and the drizzle.
The dreams, at least, are a departure.
____________________________
In one memorable pillow-excursion last week, I flew from continent to continent, being chased by Vincent D’Onofrio the whole time. He was trying to kill me, or so I thought. This man’s a psycho, I kept thinking. I’m being stalked by a psycho, I kept telling people.
Actually that bit was quite a good idea - I kept going up to airline desks and hotel receptions and saying “I’m being stalked by a madman - can you upgrade me to first class/the presidential suite, please? He’ll never think to look for me there, you see…” And they did. I may try that.
Anyway, it turned out that I was his agent, and he was trying to catch up with me because we were supposed to have an appointment. The appointment to discuss the fact that I wasn’t sending him up for any roles that weren’t psychos/madmen.
Poor chap, being pigeonholed by his own agent. I woke up feeling terrible.
________________________
A few nights later, I was invited to Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s engagement party - the Manchester leg. Being quite so popular and having lots of friends, they were having a string of soirees with different themes. The theme of the Manchester mash-up was the colour pink, which seemed more “Jolly” than “Jollie”, but we dressed up all the same.
When we got there, we discovered that the happy ouple had laid on a free boutique of shoes and jewellry (all pink). It was at this point I realised I couldn’t try any shoes on, because I’d no tights on. On the way home to get some, waiting at the bus stop outside BBC Manchester on Oxford Road, I discovered someone had left me a Marlboro Light in my coat pocket. I lit it and took two lungfuls, then I couldn’t breathe anymore. I woke up disoriented, and embarrassed.
____________________________
Deep in the darkness of last night, I opened the paper to discover that the three-page profile in the middle of the weekend edition was about me.
I was shocked, and upset. The big picture in the middle of the spread was of me, downloaded from my flickr stream, and underneath, my life was laid out in mini bullet points in a little box. This, of course, was terrible. The whole thing was terrible.
“Why?! Why have they done a profile of me? I haven’t DONE anything. I haven’t done anything of note - I mean, I, I haven’t done ANYTHING, yet. Why have they done this?”
The article, of course, the profile, the type that papers run of the great and the good and the generally famous, said the same thing.
“She’s unremarkable” It ran (I’m precising here, the whole article was much longer and more comprehensive) “She’s got a blog, she’s got a job that she’s alright at, but not great, but she’s nothing special, and most importantly, she hasn’t DONE anything.”
I ran around trying to remove all the copies of the paper I could find before anyone read it, desperately trying to have the story taken down off the internet, wondering if I had any grounds for legal action, since I had no memory of sitting down with the journalist and actually giving an interview - everything seemed to be culled from my stories and my conversations, but… I woke up panicked, and angry, and upset.
__________________________
I need to go to sleep. I don’t particularly want to - it’s a pretty draining business, frankly. But I should. There is busy to be had in the morning.
I’ve just read over all these.
Blimey - I started this post by saying “I don’t know whether it’s anxiety…” and then decribe the three most worrysome dreams you could ever hope not to have.
What kind of fule am I?
Deary me.
_________________
So apologies all round - I may be quiet in the weeks to come, I seem to have taken rather a lot on, and for that I apologise. I may get tired and worrity and navel-gazey, comme ça - for that, I apologise. And frankly, there is nothing, nothing so dull as being forced to listen to other people’s dreams. Apologies all round.
Well…
i woke up crying this morning because in my pillow excursion my boyfriend had turned me in to the police because i had driven over a pedestrian crossing too soon after the pedestrian had crossed it. i didn’t run him over or anything. then i got cramp in my shoulder :/
i’m sure its something to do with the weather/time of year because i’ve had a ton of vivid dreams recently too. the other one i remember was about millions of spiders but i’m trying to forget about that particular dream.
Comment by marycub — 7 March, 2006 11:13 pm
Poor Anna. It sounds a real drag. I only get bad dream,s that I remember vivdly when I’m ill. Hope you’re not ill? Look after yourself. Eat chocolate. Listen to Mozart (or the Beeb’s 15-hour Wagnerthon, yay!) Sleep well.
Comment by Rob — 8 March, 2006 5:21 am
I had a horrible dream last night that I arrived in Egypt to find I was expected to lead a group of total strangers around the sights, and none of them would stay put long enough for me to count them. Eerily like my old job.
Didn’t you have a nice dream about a butterfly quilt the other night?
Comment by rachie — 8 March, 2006 6:10 am
I am insomniac (truly, real and brutally desperate insomnia, not just, could-do-with-a-Horlicks variety, although insomnia of all sorts is crap - if you’re not getting any you’re just not getting any, and delicious chocolatey beverages just won’t cut it. Ahem.) Where was I? Oh. I am an insomniac who is easily led and was led to a dream interpretation group by a friend (I live in California). It was only a couple hours weekly for 4 meetings so I said “spose so”. But the thing i i can’t dream, because IAM A SODDING INSOMNIAC. What was I thinking? I’m getting into trouble weekly for not bringing any homework with me and I only have 1 week left. Can I borrow one of yours, if I promise to give it back. They’re very gentle in their analysis, but if, through that analysis, it appears in any way that you may be a psycho-loony person of imminent murderous intent or anything, I will have to reserve the right to alert the authorities.
Good luck in the following weeks! - sounds like you have a workload.
Comment by Sami — 8 March, 2006 7:18 am
Wow, these dreams are intense and are certainly not dull! I love the newspaper one it’s completely absurd.
Comment by LadyJo — 8 March, 2006 10:12 am
Try listening to “Today in Parliament” on BBC R4, there is no better cure for consciousness.
Comment by chillicheese — 8 March, 2006 10:28 am
I’ll assume you’re talking to Sami there, Chilli - because consciousness isn’t the problem. I sleep like the dead.
My problem is that I dream like the opiated.
Sami - I don’t know if anyone has ever asked to borrow a dream from me before. And a dream interpretation group?? My heavens, you DO live in california, don’t you?
Yes, of course you can, though I would avoid the Jolie/Pitt one, as it’s a little location specific. Otherwise, go ahead - and be prepared for your fellow group members to inform you you’re in a state of general anxiety and have low self-esteem.
Comment by anna — 8 March, 2006 10:37 am
I wouldn’t like to be chased by Vincent D’Onofrio, that’s for sure. The man is a maniac.
Comment by Wyndham — 8 March, 2006 11:10 am
Damn straight.
Try telling people that. You get upgraded.
Comment by anna — 8 March, 2006 11:27 am
Recently I had a really vivid dream where I was back at my old school, way back when, but I was the age I am now… but all my friends were there from school and college. Anyway, some other country was invading Britain (I think it was Iraq), and we were all using my old school as some kind of resistance base. And we were all running round and killing people with large knives, and running and hiding. It was dead scary.
But, at the same time, I really enjoyed it. I hadn’t seen some of these people for years, it was good to catch up.
Comment by fooyork — 8 March, 2006 12:53 pm
Which photo did they use in the three page spread? Was it one of the bear photos? The media can be so cruel. They’ll be accusing you of faking the moon landing next!.
Comment by Damian — 8 March, 2006 2:21 pm
There are many things duller than listening to other people’s dreams - particlarly when they’re interesting ones like yours.
Comment by Clare — 8 March, 2006 4:12 pm
I had a very disturbing dream recently…
I had broken in to some offices when the police arrived. As part of the dream they had been after me for some time, and suffered greatly in the press because of their failure to capture me. I smiled a ‘you got me’ smile, and put my hands up.
But it wasn’t enough. One of the policemen raised his machine gun and started spraying me with bullets. In slow motion I felt each bullet hitting me, slamming into my body. I felt myself die.
So yes, dreams do seem a little vivid at the moment. The one I had about Tony Blair being red-faced and spittingly angry because we wouldn’t get out of the way of the car he was driving I turned into a poem and put on my blog. But that last one - try that one out at a dream therapy session!
Comment by paul t — 8 March, 2006 4:23 pm
i’ve realised my recent batch of vivid dreams are due to the fact i have a rather bad dose of flu… so bring on wishy washy vague dreams anyday!
Comment by marycub — 9 March, 2006 7:35 am
My dreams mostly involve killing or being killed, or abducted by, aliens.
I need to get out less.
Comment by TC — 9 March, 2006 9:21 am
Are you on nicotine patches? ‘Cos they’ll do that y’know.
Comment by ping — 9 March, 2006 11:06 am
The weirdest dream I ever had was when a scarecrow-man was following me and my friend home. And then my friend just LEFT me and the scarecrow started throwing exploding tongues at me, so I panicked and ran, which was stupid. And he blew the sports-teacher whistle he had round his neck, and suddenly people just came flooding out of every house and road around me. And there was a background noise of laughing, like in a playgournd or something. And all these people, the rollerskating kids and the dog-walking elderly and many more besides, began milling about and I knew that I had to get through the crowd without being touched by any of them, so I ran faster than I’ve ever run before, because I was terrified. But this young girl with freckles and pigtails broke out of the crowd and chased me, and when I had my hand on my front door and I was alomst safe, she grabbed my arm and the laughing got louder and louder and everything started spinning and went black.
Analyse that!! I’m actually quite sane. I don’t know where that came from, but it’s resulted in a phobia of a children’s TV program called the Boohbahs *shudder* evil things…
Comment by Anna F — 9 March, 2006 12:40 pm
I’ve had some dreadful ones recently too, but we’ve heard a lot of that. -on a lighter note- Some time ago I dreamt I was met at the checkout counter of a department store, maybe Yonkers, by a pre-uberskank-image Brittny Spears. We chat, we flirt a bit, and suddenly we’re on floor pillows, tickling and tittering and watching reruns on Fox.
Ironically, my beloved wife often dreams of me leaving her. Once, she was comforted by a staircase-scene-from-Titanic Leonardo D’whatever as I squeeled off in a 4×4 with a gun rack in the back window.
Serves me right I guess.
Comment by jimmyconcarne — 9 March, 2006 5:11 pm
But your dreams weren’t dull. They were very entertaining. I especially like the pink theme, since it seems the most unlikely. D’Onofrio as a stalker is absolutely believable.
Comment by asta — 10 March, 2006 12:22 am
right now i can’t seem to sleep long enough to get to the dreaming stage, because i’m wheezing my way through bedtime
someone email me grapes
Comment by marycub — 10 March, 2006 9:47 am
Dreams are great - mine often seem to have elaborate plots and sometimes I think that the old saying that everyone has a book in them is true cos if my dreams are anything to go by then I have several, all fighting to get out! And fooyork’s thing is really true - i often enjoy seeing people in dreams that I haven’t for years in real life.
Keep on dreaming anna - it makes life more interesting!
Comment by The B — 11 March, 2006 10:38 pm
Wow - I’m impressed. Just FYI, my vivid, technicolor, very memorable dream stage began with the onset of…(drum roll please) menopause. Hope that’s not the case with you, cuz next will be night sweats (and not because some psycho is chasing you) and hot flashes.
Comment by kario — 12 March, 2006 3:58 pm