A dream about flying and levitating
This dream happened in so many parts that I can’t remember it in sequence. It was a really long dream. At first, I was flying, but it was in a kind of musical. The song was vivid at the time, but I don’t remember it now. I was flying in all directions, totally wild, and really enjoying it.
Next thing I knew, I was at my old school in the gym. There were two girls fighting over a laptop, and I had to save them for some reason. I grabbed one of them to stop them fighting, and pulled her away with all my strength.
Then I was at the school field and I walked over to my old friends James, Ben and Katie. They were hostile toward me and refused to talk to me. I have dreams like this quite often. In the dreams, I always see people I haven’t met for a while and they don’t like me. I asked them if they were going anywhere, and they mocked me and ran off to play together.
Finally, I was in the living room of my own house, kind of levitating, as I often do in my dreams. My old friend Jason was in the room, and I was levitating to show off to him, but it was kind of a trick, because nobody else knew that I could do it except him. When somebody else came into the room, I stopped floating so that they wouldn’t see.
Such a strange dream.
Starting a new job
I haven’t added to this blog for some time. There is one dream, though, that I wanted to write about. It was set in my old primary school in the south of England. I saw a girl whom I recognised and I called out her name, “Rebecca!” Rebecca was my first real crush as a young boy, and she was my girlfriend for about two or three weeks I think.
Rebecca was wearing a suit and looked very tidy, I on the other hand was wearing a pair of old jeans and a hoodie and felt a little inferior. She didn’t hear me at first, but eventually she turned round and said, “Are you Byron’s brother?” This would be a strange thing for her to say because she didn’t really know my brother. At this point I noticed she was with another man, also wearing a suit, who stood behind her watching. I assumed this man to be her boyfriend and I felt insanely jealous of him. He didn’t speak; he just watched.
I felt shabby in my old clothes. We were in a field and for some reason I did a couple of backward rolls (like kids do in gym class). Rebecca promised she’d be back in a few minutes, and then I woke up.
Rebecca is not representing herself here. When I think of Rebecca I think of desire and dreams. She is wearing a suit which may symbolize work, and as I have just started a new job this seems to fit. At the moment I feel a little inferior to my job and the other people at work. The man watching over Rebecca perhaps symbolises the reality that although I have this job, everything is not as secure as I have convinced myself. Doing a couple of backward rolls could be a way of distancing myself from reality.
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.
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.
Too big for my boots
This was another dream about being in school. I was in a small classroom and was being taught by my old primary school teacher, Mrs. Jones. She looked exactly as I last remember her more than fifteen years ago. There were around ten or fifteen people in the class and I was older than all of them. They were all being really disruptive, making noise and wreaking havoc, as children do sometimes. I was feeling frustrated that they wouldn’t settle down. The girl in front of me was incessantly tapping a market pen on her desk.
Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap. It was making me angry, and so I took the marker pen I had in my hand and made a clear, small red cross on her white shirt where here right shoulder blade was and made a stabbing motion with my pen towards the cross. She didn’t react, and I thought that she had noticed me but just refused to say anything about it.
She was Melony, from The Cider House Rules by John Irving, which is the book I am presently reading. I couldn’t see her face, and I think her presence may be to do with my curiosity regarding what she would look like in real life. While reading the novel I’ve been trying to imagine her appearance. I think she is one of the most interesting characters in the book, primarily because she is portrayed as being ugly, and she makes no attempt to hide this, yet she still has this sexual prowess. She doesn’t give a damn about anyone or anything, except Homer Wells.
Back to my dream, and the class began to settle down once the teacher gave everyone a mathematical problem to do on the white board. I didn’t involve myself in the problem solving, but I was annoyed that between all of them, they couldn’t solve it. I watched them wrestling with the numbers until they eventually came up with the answer ‘0%’. How could that be right? I thought to myself.
I got up from my chair as they all turned to me, and working the sum out in my head while walking towards them, I took my pen and wrote ‘10%’ on the board, which was, of course, correct.
There are so many elements in this dream that it’s difficult to know where to begin. Firstly, Melony’s presence may come from a kind of admiration I have for her, although she isn’t someone I would want to be friends with. I’d probably be scared of her. I can’t think what my marking her can mean, or why I would want to stab her. It could be that I don’t want her to find Homer Wells (I haven’t finished the book yet). I imagine that Homer doesn’t want to be found by Melony either.
The equation on the board was the only thing that calmed everyone down, and only I could solve it, but it was so easy for me. In my life at the moment, I have been thinking a lot that my work is not testing me, and that it’s becoming a little too easy. I have a lot of freelance work, and while it pays quite well, it’s not difficult. Could that be the connection? That I feel like I am too old for the class that symbolises my current situation? And what of Melony tapping her pen? I have a feeling she represents a friend of mine, but I won’t go into that here. And 10%? I’ll have to give that some more thought.