Open square

The conference was in full swing at a place not too disimilar from an Oxford college. There was a lunch break in the proceedings and many people decided to help themselves to a buffet theat had been laid on for us. I helped myself to a huge slice of cheesecake. G was there, and so were some people from work including JM. As I was tucking into some of the cake I got talking to JM about the project we were both involved with. I was concious that G was there, but knew nothing about the project, and felt we should change the subject so that she could join in. As we got talking, Mahler's 8th Symphony was being played across the quad for all conference participants. JM asked me why I wasn't in the project board meeting that was meeting at that moment, and I replied that I had not been invited. I helped myself to another huge slice of cake. Everyone laughed at the sight of it, so I thought better and just took half of that slice!

I was with M on a camping trip. When we arrived M suggested I join up the three dome tents, and use the one with windows for our breakfast parlour. However I had only brought along one dome tent. I went inside it, and when I looked around it was not a dome tent at all - but a large spacious 'house' tent. It even had two floors! The main room (which I thought could be for breakfast) was lovely and light - magnolia coloured canvas walls, with big windows to light up the room.

Sometime the next day M told me that she had great fun camping with me as she could hear me talking in my sleep. in particular she mentioned me talking about going to Thailand. And on another occasion she heard me talking about chocolate underpants. I was embarrassed about that! But then I started to remember the dream I had where that had come up.

I dreamt I was watching a gameshow presented by two drag queens, or two middle aged women dressed over the top. On their show were three middle aged women who were showing off their figures in sparkly outfits. One of the drag queen presenters commented that one of the ladies was wearing chocolate underpants to the amusement of the audience...

I am staying at a hotel and D, my boyfriend, is with me. We are getting back together and so taking it easy. Tomorrow there is an event and we are both involved in it and my family will be attending.

We spend the night in the hotel together but in separate rooms. The next morning I get changed into my suit - a light grey/green colour, pale yellow shirt and golden tie. I wander over to D's room where he is still getting ready and is in the shower. I talk to him as I walk around his room and then go into the bathroom. He is shaving while in the shower and has shaving cream all over his face. I grab him in the shower and he grabs me and I stand in the shower getting my suit wet from him and the splashes from the shower head. As a joke he runs his shaving foam all over my head and we kiss each other as he takes off my jacket.

Sometime later, D and I are separately involved in the event. My family turn up and we have to walk to get to the right location. M, E, D, D and J are there. We are walking around the town which is both an old and new town, and we all know it well. We chat about which parts of the town we like as we walk through modern run down bits into a quirky narrow street, rather like the Shambles in York. J refers to M as RH. This puzzles M at first, but doesn't mind as it makes her feel a personal connection with J.

I was staying with my father's side of the family in a building that was a cross between J&I's house and a hotel. A handsome stranger was staying with the family and staying in a separate wing of the building that was unfamiliar to me (it was his suite).

One afternoon we were alone together. He was doing some work in his room, moving things around, whilst I was siting down on a sofa chatting to him. He came over to me and sat on the sofa next to mine so we were close to each other, paused his conversation and looked at me as if he were trying to say something. And then he said:

" You know, since I've been staying here I've often been restless at night. Sometimes I need to go to the toilet, so I have been coming up to the bathroom near your room. I was initially attracted because I always heard some noise in this part of the buidling. What I've noticed, and probably no one has told you before, is that whilst you sleep you shout out at the top of your voice. And you say the most horrible, violent, crazy and evil things that I have ever heard someone say. This has gone on ever since I have arrived here, and nobody dares mention it. I think you should go and get some help."

I felt awful about this because nobody had dared mention a word of it to me before. I also felt like his intentions weren't entirely pure of heart, i.e. he wasn't saying this to me entirely for my personal good and well being. It was as if he was playing a game in which he was dominant and wanted to both seduce me and make me upset.

I remember later that he was leaving the building. I couldn't get what he had said out of my head. I felt powerless under him and a part of me wanted to give in to his dominance over me. But a part of me resisted. I went over to his suite, where he was packing things into a trunk, and went into his room with a wish that he would stay and something would happen between us...

I had spent a week away from work on holiday. I had divided up my time equally between seeing family and friends. I have the feeling I saw my family abroad and that I saw my friends in London in an appartment.

I can't remember an awful lot except me standing in the appartment where my neighbour in real life was staying in the same room as me (in real life he disturbs my sleep with loud noise from his flat). I was watching TV - an irrelevant program with someone's face zoomed in close up on the screen. I was on the phone to someone looking out of the large windows over London. I was telling them how busy the week had been but that I had felt like I had got away from work completely. Looking out of the window I could see the Thames. By one of the docks stood Birmingham University campus, with its red brick buildings and huge domes. It never occurred to me in the dream that the University of Birmingham could not be in London.
...

I went with G (in real life deceased) and the rest of the family to visit an art/museum exhibition. We were visiting it primarily on G’s recommendation, and because she had helped paint some of the pictures on show. We drove over to the site, which was outdoors and parked the car. From afar the site looked like the mitten rock formations in the States. I mentioned to G that I had seen something like this before at Mount Collins in Australia. A little closer up one could see that there were 3 or 4 large mounds with a circular panorama on top of each one.

G wanted to check how much the parking was as I think she wanted to use this spot next time when she went shopping. I felt to myself however that we were a long way from the shops for her to walk there. Maybe she was reconsidering coming back to visit again?

We went into the first panorama and it was divided into two. The first half was about the desert and cowboys. There were rich red and yellow colours painted across the entire circular wall. M was there already and was looking at the other half of the panorama wall which was about rain. The wall was a series of electronic displays, displaying water, ripples, rain, rain drops etc in mosaic pattern. It was very beautiful and mesmerising. After a while it seemed to slow down and M was disappointed – then the cycle of pictures commenced again and M was happy once more.

After a while it seemed as if the whole exhibition site was now indoors (it had somehow changed from being somewhere in Devon to a big museum. I remember finishing up and waiting around some doors in between the circular panoramas. I met HH and her daughter and son. As we were leaving we spoke some Chinese. The daughter did not feel very confident about speaking it, but when I offered my few phrases, it turned out she was very fluent. The son noticed from the top of the museum another Chinese girl was looking down at him, probably to catch his eye. I said she was very pretty and he thought so too. Except that her facial structure indicated she was of a different race and so he could not go out with her.

Everyone walked back to the car park to go home….

...on a college campus with a group of friends. We had done something wrong as a foolish prank and decided to hide in the hall where I was staying. It was dark and at night. One of the college's wardens had been following us and was banging on the door. Eventually my friends got caught and I got away with it. However, I did not feel right about this, so the next day I owned up and took the punishment that had been put on the others...

...drinking in a pub on my own when A&B turn up and for some reason and they invite me to drink with them. I make my excuses and say I have to go home. Instead I go on to a different venue for a quick coke on my own. After a short while other friends turn up who persuade me to stay and have some lunch. A&B then turn up and join the group wondering why I had not gone home and why I had wanted to stay with them....

I was in Glasgow over the Christmas period with the rest of my family. We were all staying in different locations throughout the city.

We all went out one night into the city for a meal together. We strolled amongst the bars finding somewhere late for a drink - D suggested going for a beer or an ice cream.

Earlier that day we came across a competition of people making human towers by standing on each others' shoulders. I took part - everyone in the team was wearing a deep blue navy top and white trousers. I was standing one row down from the very top and so was quite high. The first tower we made was very succesful. The second tower was not. On this second attempt I found it easy to get up to the top level by being passed up by others and once reaching the top level counterbalancing with the woman facing me. It felt very high up, and I remember not wanting to look down in case I lost my balance. Once or twice I wobbled quite a bit, but was brought back in line. Despite us holding the tower together up at the top, something was happening on the lower levels which I knew was going to make the tower fall down. A few moments later the tower began to fall, but not freely. It was as if the rate of falling had slowed down because it was being cushioned by the people below us.

Sometime later that day I was in a prize giving competition for having choreographed some 'ice dances' earlier in the year. There were different categories. I managed to win my category and there were three or four other winners. There was also an overall prize that was awarded to the few winners, but I did not receive it.

We watched back the different dances. My dance was first and it was like nothing I had seen in real life. There were 5 or 6 skaters. One skater was the lead and wore red. The other followed the leader attached by a white chord and wore white. The white dancers made all sorts of patterns with the white ropes as they followed the leader - it was stunning. And behind the white dancers there was a peculiar lighting effect which made the whole space fill with patterns replicating the patterns of the ropes. The winning dance was more on foot and consisted of a group of 12 or so girls in very complex choreography but producing amazing patterns shaped by the human body. The final scene of their dance was them yelling "bah, ....Bah...bah" like a gurgling pipe before they all fell to the ground. It was a great dance.

The following day I remember leaving D&J's place to go to see E&D. I was there for a bit and then mentioned I had to go into the city centre for a bit. While I was there I decided to get on a train into the Highlands. I met the person I was going out with D2 there and we rode on the train out of the city. he pointed out bits of the city that were familiar to him. We were soon in the Highlands, although I felt it was far too soon to be there from my previous experiences. The landscape too was much more dramatic than I had rememberd - very sheer cliffs on mountains dropping into beautiful lakes. The train rolled on up north...

I moved into a house where there were ten other people also moving into. I knew most of them before as good current friends from real life. The house was lovely - very spacious, with a feeling of privacy. But also big areas like the kitchen and living room for everyone to mingle. I must have arrived there at night time and unpacked. We all just hung out at the house that night, I remember chatting to CB, and I remember going to bed at 11 or so. Some people stayed up talking quite late.

The next morning I went down to investigate the house a little more. Everyone else was getting up too. I met PW in the kitchen who showed me a hidden cellar from the kitchen that I did not know existed when I had previously walked around the house. It led down some stairs and twisted round in a very small tight fitting passage way that led to a small toilet with a tiny door - only about 60/70cm high. I noticed in the wooden panelling were lots of subcompartments as if the walls were part of an encompassing wardrobe. Some of these compartments were hidden and had secret/concealed parts to them. I found my self so tightly wedged into this corridor that the only way of getting out to the kitchen again was to walk backwards and retrace my steps out of the cellar.

I met some others in the lounge area. GB was there in his pyjamas in an armchair. Another person was there chatting. I sat down and wrapped a duvet around me. Gareth looked like he wanted the duvet and I offered it to him but he declined. Some people were talking about the fact that various people had stayed up until 3am. PW had done this, but also a blonde haired person called Steve (who I don't know in real life) had "been a real help" listening to a girl who I also didn't know.

After a short while I walked around the kitchen, and had failed to notice previously that it was full of plants. These plants had been brought to the house by someone I had not met before. The plants were looking full and had fruit (but not ripe) on them: chilli peppers, capiscums, tomatoes and lettuce. I was prompted to think of the vegetables I was growing in real life and offered to bring them over to the house.

I took a small bit of lettuce and ate it - it was not as fresh as it looked and was very delicate. DB was there as well.

I dreamt I was in Bristol doing some work, carrying out survey of some kind. I was drawing to a close and walking back to my car to travel onwards where I was going to stay the night. I bumped into JK who I normally see at work. She was with two other friends, one of whom I had not met before. JK introduced us to each other and then I said I would see her at work and walked on to the car. It was dark.

I had parked the car outside some conference centre. The place suddenly became the place where I was going to. but I had to leave it first to get there. So I found the car and saw that i had left the doors open and that someone had been rummaging around the contents of my car - somebody had been stealing things from me.

Anyhow the car was working, and lots of people seemed to be mulling around. I started the car, but it started to roll backwards. So I slammed the breaks on very hard, but they didn't work at all. I ended up sliding into a ditch - with the rear wheels stuck neatly in the ditch. I eventually managed to get out of the ditch, navigate my way out of the conference area and circulated to eventually reach Manchester - which had taken the place of Bristol.

I parked my car in the same conference centre because I was meeting someone on the other side of it. A rock concert was just finishing and so lots of people were leaving. However lots of people were queuing up for the next one. I went off in search of my friend and didn't know where he was because the centre was so large. I walked around the perimeter, and could hear the rock music starting, and thought it sounded rather good. There were fairground rides working in the main arena where people could watch the stage, they were odd however as they were moving, but they didn't have any lights on - all I could see were silhouttes of the machines with people sitting in them.

I eventually found my friend on the opposite side of the conference centre. (Egg from This Life) We had been in touch before and it had transpired that we had found out that we had feelings for each other and wanted to start seeing each other. I think he had been seeing a girl before that. The plan was to stay at his house which was about 45 minutes away - a short walk through town, and across the second bridge over the river. However he said that he really wanted to go and see the concert. I didn't because I had been working and driving all day. (It was 11pm at this time). So we agreed that we would go back to his house, he would go to the concert and I would pick him up later in the car (although I left the car at the conference centre). This would mean I would have to walk back, find the car and pick him up.

We walked back alone together. As we chatted we tentatively held hands, touched eachother, putting our arms round each other - not knowing if this was right or whether we should do this or not. I felt like I was falling in love.

As we crossed over the bridge and walked down some narrow alleys we were suddenly surrounded by a gang who wanted to mug us. We ran away and my friend told me the way to his house. We both ran this way, but the gang caught us up. However, it turned out that these people were his friends. So he invited them into his house where we sat around chatting - and he forgot to go to the concert....