Dreaming of shredding paper
I know exactly where this dream came from, and so it’s intriguing to note once more how images of fear can stamp themselves onto your subconscious. Actually, I don’t remember much about this dream at all. During my day at work, I’d tried to use a paper shredder. I took a wad of paper and tried to shred it all. Unfortunately the wad was too big and the shredder became jammed. For about a minute I felt an irrational sense of fear because I’d been so dumb and thought I might have broken the machine.
After that minute I thought about what was going on and realised there was no need to get worked up about it; I wasn’t going to get into trouble. I got one of the office girls to help me unjam the shredder and all was well.
In my dream I was using the same shredder but was being careful not to use too much paper. The feeling I had while doing this was one of intense joy (well, as much joy as it’s possible to get from using a paper shredder).
That’s all of them dream I remember, and it seems to be a reflection of a small moment of my day. Something learnt, nothing lost.
A rated-R dream
Sometimes you have dreams that make you wonder how your brain is capable of producing such things. I had one last night. I imagine it came partially from me stumbling across the Wikipedia entry for “bukake” recently, but it must run deeper than that. I won’t beat about the bush: in the dream I was watching a porn film. OK, not we’ve got that out of the way, the couple having sex were Asian, possibly Japanese. When the guy was reaching his climax, all of sudden three or four other guys showed up and, rather violently, they bukaked the girl. I remember feeling disgusted and sickened in my dream. I’m not a fan of even thinking about what bukake is. It makes me want to wretch.
This was, however, no ordinary bukake event, as the girl found herself covered in blood, as opposed to, well, you know. So these guys were covering her in blood, and I just remember feeling increasingly appalled the more I watched.
When I think of the dream, the only things I can relate to the events in it are feelings of disgust. The blood only makes me more curious as to what the dream means. It may be from my squeamish personality, as I often try and suppress images of a bloody nature to the back of my mind. Why my subconscious chose to deal with this suppression with sexual imagery is interesting. When I think of Japanese people having sex (on DVD at least) I think of the girl looking very repressed and almost in pain; I relate suffering to those images.
This dream seems to be about my inability to effectively deal with images of gore. I see such images primarily every day on the cigarettes I smoke and they often get to me, and so the dream could have come about because I desperately want to quit smoking and am currently worried for my health.
I’m going into banking
I was hiding in a kind of hole in the ground, so I was covered by grass and foliage behind a bush. I was dreaming that I was in a field and a French custodial guard of some sort walked over to where I was. I found it difficult to keep my breathing quiet, and the guard drank some water and spat it out close to where I was, but he didn’t see me; I was pretty well hidden. The next thing I knew I was in another field kicking a football around, and there were houses on the edge of the field, one of which was mine (although I’d never seen it before). It looked similar to the house I grew up in, perhaps, although it reminds me more of my friends James Bell’s houses because of the field it backs out onto.
My dad was there, in the garden, and at some point I got really angry and told my Dad that I wanted to “leave this place” and go into banking. He said he knew and that he understood. I then stormed off away from the house.
Not much about this dream made sense.
Dreaming of friends and new sports
I went out with friends last night and most of them turned up in my dreams when I eventually fell asleep. I wasn’t particularly drunk, which is why I can remember the main dream no doubt. I was trekking through the countryside with my friends Will, Jay, and Gabe. I think we were in Australia, although it looked more like England. We walked across a road and a very cute girl appeared. She was short and looked very young, but we all noticed her and felt attracted to her. She was smiling incessantly; she wouldn’t stop smiling, and we were all enchanted by her. She was Australian and had short, mousey hair. We walked into a field and the girl followed us. We all thought she was awesome, and I made a plan that when nobody was looking I’d run over to her and ask for her phone number.
As she left to walk in a different direction across the field, I saw my chance, but at that point Jay ran over to her and got her phone number. I was a bit saddened because the girl was so pretty, but she had been smiling at each of us with the same level of enthusiasm so I think we all fell for her a little bit.
As we left the girl, we shouted to Tom (another Australian friend) who was at the top of the sloping field, quite far away. We were waiting for him, but because he was drunk, he ran off in the wrong direction. We decided to walk up the slope, to the top of the hill to fetch him. It was there that we found another group of people. They were playing this kind of game where they were all wearing back packs and they’d jump off something really high above the ground and land in a sitting down position on the grass. One of the people playing was the famous DJ from the UK Adam Freeland. It was like a new extreme sport, and I wanted to try it, but was worried I’d injure myself.
I wouldn’t want to say what this dream means without being a little more awake. I’ll get back to it later.
Dreaming of the future with the past
I had this dream during an afternoon nap. The night before I’d had a lot of strange dreams, including one in which I was Homer Wells from The Cider House Rules. My dream this afternoon saw me back in school. I was at “university”, but the university was actually a school. It was the John of Gaunt School in the south of England, which is the secondary school that I was supposed to go to. The John of Gaunt School is a state school, but I ended up going to a private school about ten miles away. With hindsight, this was a move that I benefited from greatly (thanks, Mum) but at the time I was dead set on going to the same place all my friends were going to. When you’re eleven-years-old you don’t have much vision.
Back to the dream, and I walked into my first class to be greeted by a room completely full of students. I think everyone was around my age, but the only seat was one that faced in the opposite direction to the way the others were facing. I sat down and found myself at the same desk as David Blake, whom I went to primary school with. He was a good friend of mine when I was younger, although I haven’t seen him for a very long time.
As it transpired, David was my partner for our first project. We were filling out a form, and on that form you could write down if you would rather have a different partner. I’d left that part of my form blank, but David had written down three or four names of people he wanted to work with instead of me; I was both surprised and offended at this. I started to think of names I could write down. I looked around the classroom and thought there were far too many people there and that I was somehow better than this university. I didn’t think I’d be able to learn much so I stood up and walked over to the lecturer. I handed him my paper and said something like: “I’m walking out of your class because I’m better than this.”
I was then in the hallway and I was free. Yet another dream about school. The John of Gaunt School is a place I associate with low academic standards. As arrogant as it sounds, I think of failure when I think of that school, because if I’d gone there I think maybe my life would have turned out rather differently. That’s just my opinion. I was sitting the wrong way, so I assume that I didn’t belong there. Walking out of the class was a bold move. When I think of David Blake I’m reminded of playing football and not much else. David was a very selfish player, and he rarely passed the ball, although he was much better than almost everyone.
Putting this dream in the context of my life, at the moment I feel like I need to be somewhere I can learn more. I need to make a bold move to go somewhere new and start a new job, which I am in the process of doing. I don’t want to end up a failure and not achieve everything I can. I’ve recently quit my job and may be leaving Bangkok in the near future.
The War of the Worlds
Who wouldn’t want to be Tom Cruise?! Well, in one my dreams last night I almost was. I was in a situation not dissimilar to the remake of The War of the Worlds. I’d been outside when an alien invasion had occurred and I’d run home. It wasn’t a home I’d ever been to; I think I was actually dreaming that I was in America. My brother was there, and I think my mum too. I wasn’t especially frightened; more excited.
I shouted at them to look out of the window. “I’m not kidding! I’m not kidding!” They opened the blinds and sure enough there were upturned cars everywhere and people running around and lasers shooting everything. It was carnage outside, but I wasn’t worried.
What I was most concerned about was what the aliens looked like. I was curious to see them, and I imagined they’d look like they did in the original movie.
I wasn’t particularly impressed with the movie (remake) when I saw it and I don’t even remember whom I saw it with. My excitement in the destruction of the world seems odd, especially with my family being present. At first I thought maybe this was another dream about trying to protect my brother, and it may be so, but why would I be so happy about the end of civlisation? Perhaps I am happy when the world around me is chaotic for everyone else and I just don’t care. That rings true, actually. My brother and mum may represent that I long for some peace in their lives. I did, after all, want them to join me in watching the world outside our house (which was unscathed) fall apart.
What dreams may come!
Sometimes my dream recall is pretty good, other times it’s non-existent, but what I’ve noticed is that when it’s there, and when I can do it well, it feels like a whole new world opens up before my eyes. Subconscious thoughts become conscious musings and reflections. So long as you can always differentiate between what is “real” and what is “thought”, I think the ability to really look into your own dreams can only be a positive thing. It helps you to know yourself better, if such a thing is ever possible, but what other doors might it open?
It could hold the key to questions you had never thought of asking, or else it may give you the chance to mull decisions and life in another dimension. Once lucid dreaming becomes a reality, well, the possibilities are endless, and the world of sleep might well become favourable to the world of the awake! What a thought that is.
Boom! goes the Hummer
I can only really remember one significant part of this dream, but it was so vivid that I think it must hold some significance. The scene was very clear. I was in the lower car park of my secondary school, and it was exactly as it was when I was there (and not how it is now). There were lots of cars in the car park, and then I noticed my old friend Katie Ridewood (whom I went to primary school with). She was all grown up (I’ve not seen her for more than ten years) and she had a match in her hand. She took of one of the petrol caps from one of the cars, and she threatened to drop the lighted match inside. I begged her not to, and she listened to me.
I was relieved, but then the next thing I new she had lit another match and walked over to a yellow Hummer. She dropped the match in through the hole where she had removed the petrol cap and BOOM! The thing exploded. It was a massive explosion. The Hummer and Katie disappeared, and all that was left was a huge circle of thick, black power that covered everything within range. I was covered in it too, and I started to cough.
I remember there was some sort of investigation after the explosion by a group of teachers, but the rest of the dream is fairly vague. I’ve not got time to try and analyse this now, but I will at some point because this dream was quite interesting.
Trying to help my brother out
Dreams about family members are always rather curious. This one didn’t raise anything particularly new, but it’s interesting that I can trace its meaning without too much difficulty. I was with my brother and we were running through empty streets. There were people coming, marching along the road, and if those people would find us, they’d kill us. I had to protect my brother. I was frightened. We couldn’t find anywhere indoors to hide, and everyone else had deserted the streets, so I dragged my brother to a park bench atop a small hill and we crouched down and hid behind it.
The marching people came, and they sent a lookout to have a nose around. I was hiding with my brother behind the bench, desperately willing the lookout not to see us. A dog ran up to my brother with a ball in its mouth, and it dropped the ball. The lookout saw the dog and then saw us. I recognized the lookout even before he’d seen me: it was Laurie Osbourne, another Bangkok blogger and all round nice guy. He saw both me and my brother, and while he should have reported this back to the others, he pretended like he hadn’t seen us and I was thankful. The marching people carried on and we were left alone.
Some time later, on another day I think, I returned to the same bench, looking for something, although I wasn’t sure what. I was looking for something I had left there. There was a large television screen set up behind the bench, and it was showing the marching people as they passed the spot where we had been hiding. I was afraid my brother and I would be caught on camera, but for some reason we weren’t there.
I think this dream has to do with my brother and his life. At the moment, he is in a lot of debt. I was thinking before I went to sleep that if I wanted to, I could pay off his debts, although this would leave me without much money at all. My mother said that he needs to learn from his mistakes, and I think this is true, but I can’t help but feel like he does need protecting. Laurie is someone I’d associate with kindness and openness. I was protecting my brother in the dream; it wasn’t about saving myself. Laurie’s kindness in not having us killed could represent a sort of kindness that I feel my brother could use right now, but that ultimately would be an easy way out for him. I sometimes feel like people are out to get my brother; he’s had a hard time over the years.
Returning to the same spot (without my brother) and not seeing myself on the TV screen might be because I don’t feel like I have actually helped him at all in recent years. Maybe I was looking for some evidence of my helping him, but I couldn’t find it.
Reminding me of home
A short dream this time, and another one shrouded in darkness. I dreamt that I was in the kitchen of the house I lived in as a child. The room was very small, and I was holding some sort of sleepover with my friends, although nobody was asleep. There were a few people in the room, just sitting around on sofas and the floor, and all the lights were turned off. People were passing around a remote control for a television set, but no matter how much I wanted it, the remote never came to me. I was annoyed by this.
The next thing I remember from the dream is that everyone was asleep, and I noticed that one of the people sitting on a sofa was Tom Bronwrigg, a guy I went to secondary school with. He wasn’t a close friend, just someone I knew really. Some sort of ball, like a balloon, floated down to him and landed on his head, and he hit it up in the air to someone else in a kind of game.
The kitchen makes me think of happy times as a child. The remote control reminds me of British television, which I miss dearly and don’t get to see much of in Bangkok. The fact that I couldn’t get the remote may symbolise that I miss home and feel that home is somehow out of my reach. England does feel very distant, and I would love to go back there to see the place again, but not to stay. I don’t know what I associate with Tom Bronwrigg.
I’d say that there are things about home that I miss, but that I don’t really think I can get back. The times we had sleepovers are some of my fondest memories, but they are not times that could be recreated. Do I miss being a child? I’d certainly relate the game of keeping a ball in the air to something children do.