Odd dreams

[stevensfo]

I went to see King Kong (1976) with my dad, I must've been in my early 40's when I finally stopped seeing the occasional dream where a big gorilla would chase me through a jungle or some city streets.

Glad I'm not the only one. Between the age of approx 6-8 my parents' friends had a girl about a year older than me and I often stayed the night. They had two wolf heads ( stuffed?) that used to scare me to death but they only realised after a few visits and promptly hid them whenever I came. But I knew they were around...somewhere. For decades, I had a nightmare every six months that wolves were somewhere in the room.

Twenty years ago I worked in a huge research lab with a horrible boss who used to 'pretend' to smile at people even though his eyes couldn't mask his true feelings. He was incredibly intelligent but wasn't a good communicator and I ended up spending about three months not really knowing what I should be doing, so carried on doing stuff that probably wasn't necessary, trying to look busy and praying that he wouldn't ask too many questions. I still have nightmares about it now.

Steve

[Gaggsy]

I think dreams are often related to recent events in real life - or worries in real life.
AC's dream could be about a recent narrow escape: not from a building but perhaps an investment.

My earliest memory of a dream is when I was about 4 or 5 years old, maybe younger. I was playing cowboys and my pal took my cap gun off me. It was the type that hinges open so you could put in the roll of paper caps. He told me to put my thumb in the opened cap gun. I duly obliged, at which point he then snapped it shut! I woke up to find I'd bitten my thumb. I daresay that was the day I stopped sucking my thumb in my sleep!

Funny I can still remember that more than 50 years later.

[gryffron]

It means you should stay away from Reading. No really, stay away from Reading. Actually, that's pretty good advice for everyone, regardless of what they dream about.

Gryff

[bungeejumper]

It means you should stay away from Reading. No really, stay away from Reading. Actually, that's pretty good advice for everyone, regardless of what they dream about.

Reading is easily explained. But what about the dodgy dreams I've been getting about Cheddar, Sandwich and Beer?

BJ

[gryffron]

It means you should stay away from Reading. No really, stay away from Reading. Actually, that's pretty good advice for everyone, regardless of what they dream about.

Reading is easily explained. But what about the dodgy dreams I've been getting about Cheddar, Sandwich and Beer?

They mean stay away from Reading too. And Slough. Especially Slough.

Wow! This oracle stuff is easy. I could make a fortune

Gryff

[bungeejumper]

They mean stay away from Reading too. And Slough. Especially Slough.

I grew up with the smell of the Slough gasworks. These days I'm told you can fix it with a prescription from the doctor.

But I'll tell you this much. I'm not going near Cockermouth, Sandy Balls, Nether Stowey and Watchet ever again.

BJ

[AleisterCrowley]

Let us not mention Lord Hereford's Knob, immortalised in a Half Man Half Biscuit tune..

And tonight he’ll be sitting on top of Lord Hereford’s Knob
Tonight he’ll be sitting on top of Lord Hereford’s Knob
On touching the trig point, I found my thrill
To the east Brokeback Mountain, to the west, Benny Hill
I’ll give you the grid ref, you might like to go
SO224350
Could this be heaven, could that be the Severn
Twmpa, Twmpa, you’re gonna need a jumper
It gets a bit chilly on top of Lord Hereford’s Knob
Tonight he’ll be sitting on top of Lord Hereford’s Knob
etc etc
http://halfmanhalfbiscuit.uk/csi-ambles ... ords-knob/

[JMN2]

They mean stay away from Reading too. And Slough. Especially Slough.

I grew up with the smell of the Slough gasworks. These days I'm told you can fix it with a prescription from the doctor.

But I'll tell you this much. I'm not going near Cockermouth, Sandy Balls, Nether Stowey and Watchet ever again.

BJ

"
Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough
It isn't fit for humans now,
There isn't grass to graze a cow
Swarm over, Death!
...
Mess up a mess they call a town -
A house for ninety-seven down
And once a week a half-a-crown
For twenty years,
...
It's not their fault they do not know
The Birdsong from the radio,
It's not their fault they often go
To Maidenhead
---
Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough
To get it ready for the plough.
The cabbages are coming now;
The earth exhales.
"

[AleisterCrowley]

Crowley's Second Law states that whenever Slough is mentioned in a discussion , Betjeman's poem will get mentioned within ten posts.

As a resident of North Eton/Slough Borders I feel I have to stick up for the place a bit, although it is a godforsaken dump these days

[Watis]

Crowley's Second Law states that whenever Slough is mentioned in a discussion , Betjeman's poem will get mentioned within ten posts.

As a resident of North Eton/Slough Borders I feel I have to stick up for the place a bit, although it is a godforsaken dump these days

If that is sticking up for a place, I hate to think what you'd write about somewhere you didn't like!

Watis

[Slarti]

As a resident of North Eton/Slough Borders I feel I have to stick up for the place a bit, although it is a godforsaken dump these days

It has improved then?


Slarti

[LadyGagarin]

If it is true that dreams are our subconscious's way of processing things we have repressed during the day - sometimes with good reason - then what it's doing with them is anybody's guess.

I get a recurring 'mare where I am in the shower having decided to shave my underarms but then I slip over and as I fall, the razor meets my face and I end up severing both eyelids - admittedly I'm very accident-prone but that scenario seems a bit far-fetched!

LadyG

[bungeejumper]

I get a recurring 'mare where I am in the shower having decided to shave my underarms but then I slip over and as I fall, the razor meets my face and I end up severing both eyelids - admittedly I'm very accident-prone but that scenario seems a bit far-fetched!

It's a bit Cocteau - he made a surrealist film with an (extremely short) moonlight sequence involving a razor and an eyeball. It still chills the blood today. Even if you know the sequence is coming up (and it's supposed to take you by surprise)

I'm married to a psychotherapist, so this sort of stuff is par for the course in our household. But worrying about knives/razors and eyes has probably been around for as long as there've been knives. Regardless of whether or not we take dreams seriously (and some dream interpretations are well beyond silly), they do seem to go right to the heart of our normally-well-hidden fears - and losing our eyes is a pretty profound fear, I'd say.

On a much blander scale, I once had a recurring dream about riding a bicycle twenty feet high, and being aware in my dream that there was no way of getting off it except by crashing painfully to the ground. I must have been feeling insecure at the time - I'd like to tell you how it ended, but I invariably woke up.

BJ

[JMN2]

...
It's a bit Cocteau - he made a surrealist film with an (extremely short) moonlight sequence involving a razor and an eyeball. It still chills the blood today. Even if you know the sequence is coming up (and it's supposed to take you by surprise)

...

BJ

Bunuel and Dali?

[bungeejumper]

Bunuel and Dali?

My bad, it was indeed. I stand corrected. Thanks very much!

BJ

[AleisterCrowley]

Eyeball -I remember that one. Thanks for reminding me (not...)

My nightmares are the normal boring selection;

Stuck on rail tracks, unable to move (lead boots, or glued to track) - multiple trains in the distance sounding horns (which are, for some reason, American style)
Falling off things (radio masts, cliffs, tall buildings, ladders..)

An odd one I get occasionally, more a 'frustration dream' , is going to a music festival and not being able to find the entrance. Going round and round trying to find the gate. Sometimes I get in and everything's finished, and I try and find a bar but they have all run out of beer, or they're shutting.

Perhaps I should be sectioned for my own safety? I deserve my own chapter in DSM-IV

[JMN2]

...

An odd one I get occasionally, more a 'frustration dream' , is going to a music festival and not being able to find the entrance. Going round and round trying to find the gate. Sometimes I get in and everything's finished, and I try and find a bar but they have all run out of beer, or they're shutting.

...

I get similar ones, often on a holliday abroad, or trying to leave, I then realise I've wasted 6 days already with travel problems and the following day I'm supposed to return. Or arriving but not being able to find any beer or bar, the following day I'm supposed to return. I might get to a bar and order but my wallet is stuck or my hands don't work, unable to pay or lift the glass. And all the time my frustration and dread is building up.

[bungeejumper]

I get similar ones, often on a holliday abroad, or trying to leave, I then realise I've wasted 6 days already with travel problems and the following day I'm supposed to return. Or arriving but not being able to find any beer or bar, the following day I'm supposed to return. I might get to a bar and order but my wallet is stuck or my hands don't work, unable to pay or lift the glass. And all the time my frustration and dread is building up.

Frustration dreams are probably the commonest of all - I get similar, where I'm trying to drive to a familiar spot in Switzerland (say), but can't ever get there because of the ferries or my passport (left at home), or some other hindrance that stops me getting anywhere. Or maybe I lose something and then I meet somebody who's got a question that sidetracks me so that (continued on page 94...) In short, if it isn't one thing, it's another.

I take all that as a sign that I'm trying to do too many things at once and need to back off a bit. If I were a social media person (which I'm very much not), I expect I'd also be fretting that somebody had gone off the radar unaccountably, or that the kids had trashed the house in my absence and were sending me the evidence on Facebook.

(And anyway, what kids? Mine left home 25 years ago. Doesn't seem to matter in dreams, does it? )

Or that some old flame had posted up a nude photo of me. Well, good luck with that one, it's been 35 years since I had an old flame, and I daresay the pic will be most flatteringly out of date.

BJ

[AleisterCrowley]

Not just me then....
I get the 'holiday' ones a fair bit. I'm normally travelling back home for a long holiday to see my mum and friends - I get there (usually) but all of a sudden it's time to travel back to work and I've not managed to do anything/see anyone/go out. Frustrating

I guess it's because I have trouble in real life 'doing stuff' and tend to be stuck in the old sleep-work-sleep cycle. I'm also increasingly aware, at 52, that the road behind is a lot longer than the road ahead...

[bungeejumper]

The weirdest dreams, though, are the ones where I can only walk v-e-r-y---s-l-o-w-l-y, and have to resort to "rowing myself along" with my arms if I'm to get anywhere. Or worse still, not being able to move at all!

I gather that these have a physiological cause - something to do with the way that your brain switches off your muscle movements while you're in very deep sleep. (As apes, that ability would have helped to stop us from falling out of the trees every time we dreamed we were reaching for a banana.)

But still a tad sobering, because you're not really supposed to be trying to signal to your muscles while you're deep asleep, and apparently I am! I also used to sleepwalk when I was a small kid. I haven't tried sleep-driving a car yet, like that woman in Canada.

QED, then. Now, where the hell did I put my car keys?

BJ