Dreams 309

'Females Rappers in Prison'

Dream date: 15 November 2014

Before this dream, I tried to incubate an intention to dream of the diamonds which scientists have discovered may form and rain down from the skies/atmospheres of one of Jupiter's moons (it turns out that there may in fact be diamonds on both Jupiter and Saturn). The Wikipedia article about the scientific theories can be found here. Below is the dream I had instead:

I was watching a dream scene as a third-party, but not really participating. It seemed like I was watching a movie or TV show. Female rappers Nicki Minaj and Lil Kim were in a women's prison. Nothing very exciting happened - they weren't getting on very well, and this reflects their real life attitudes towards each other. Both were wearing orange prison jumpsuits. Lil Kim has served time in prison in real life. 

I was then in my nan's house in Sheringham, and somehow stuck playing a weird, sinister card game (I think it was with my cousin HM and perhaps some other people), which involved picking two cards, on which there were numbers written in black print. The cards had to be held up to the eyes, so they covered them. If the selected cards read '49' and '20' then something bad would happen to that player's arms (I think the arms would fall off, but I did not see it happen, as we all luckily avoided selecting '49' and '20' at the same time). I did not want to play this game, but something was compelling us to continue. I stopped playing it as soon as I could.

I was aware that I had just got home from high school or sixth form. She was going out and told me that it was my job to cook dinner for 'Nick Cotton' (an antagonist character in Eastenders played by John Altman). I didn't want to do this, but decided that it was best to do what my nan asked of me. It appeared that Nick Cotton was living in my nan's house with her and I. I went down to the local shop, which is a short distance away, but actually closer to my former home on the parallel road to my nan's, whereas there is another corner shop in Sunway Park, which is a shorter walk away. I felt distressed, as there was no meat or vegetables in the shop, only Quorn (meat alternative) and I knew Nick Cotton would not want to eat this. I didn't have a single clue what I could cook from the available produce in the shop. I think my cousin, HM was also with me throughout this dream scene, although I cannot recall many details. Nick Cotton was sat in the corner of the room at all times, but I cannot remember speaking directly to him.

Dream 308

'Academia & Wild Animals'

Dream date: 15 November 2014

I was with my mum and some other (unrecalled) people. My mum and I were looking through a magazine which seemed to be about education and academia. There was a small advert in the central pages of the magazine, which said (words to the effect of): 'AG, AP and SP perform better than 70% of the population. They are the cream of the crop!' I questioned this to my mum, as AP has got a university degree, but AG and SP left school with average qualifications and were not particularly academic or intelligent in my memory. I felt like my own qualifications and intellectual acumen was being undermined, as I went to school (and outperformed) all of these individuals, yet was not named in the advertisement (which was written by a teacher). I flicked to the inside of the front page of the magazine, where there was a small article at the bottom of the page, informing the reader than PS and his sister, TS, were to train as 'pharmaceauticals'. I tried to find the advert about AP, AG and SP again, but I could not see it in the magazine any more, even though I looked at every page. 

I was then standing outside the pub  and corner shop which were at the bottom of one of my childhood homes in Sheringham (where I lived from the age of 12 years until I left to go to university). It was snowy and there was frost on the ground. Tethered to a lampost outside the pub and shop was a giraffe and a tiger. I was on the other side of the road with DL and we began walking, towards part of the town known as Beeston Regis. We passed people walking tigers on leads, like dogs. We stood still for a moment and I said to DL: 'You are in my dream, which means you are dreaming too!' although strangely, I was not lucid at the time. I was saying the words without a conscious awareness that I was actually dreaming. He asked me what he should do. I said: 'You should try to become lucid!' to which he asked 'how?' I replied that he should 'try to stay calm'.

I was then in a sunlit garden, staring at a bungalow-type building which had French windows. My academic supervisor at university, IE, called me in through the French windows (which were the sliding door kind used in conservatories) and told me that he was about to let his dog run out into the garden, but I needed to watch this and make sure the dog was safe. He asked me to hold the lead of the dog, to which I agreed. He opened the French windows/sliding door again and I exited back into the garden. A black shaggy dog then ran out, and joined a line of other dogs, of various breeds, which were sitting in a row across the grass. I thought that IE didn't need me to watch his dog, as it seemed well-behaved and knew what to do without me guiding it. I then saw IE in a dog costume, which was black and shaggy - similar to his dog. He was on one side of a chain link fence (still in the garden) and a female, also wearing a dog costume, was on the other side. They were dancing around and trying to get to one another, but the chain link fence was in the way. I then saw IE - still in the dog costume - running towards a tree in the centre of the garden, on which a target (for shooting/archery) was mounted. There was a circular bench around the base of the tree.

I was then outside PS's home (my former home for several years) in London, lounging on the drive with PS. It looked like PS's house, but also the exterior of my old primary school. We were both reading the same newspaper. PS said that he needed to eat some cornflakes 'to keep up his strength' and disappeared into his house/the primary school to get some.

Dreams 306 & 307

Dream 306

'Cannabis & Videos'

Dream date: 14 November 2014

I was in a room which looked like my nan's living-room in Sheringham, but was a little, different, although I cannot say what had changed. To my left was sat LRB (a rapper from London) and SH (a girl who I went to primary/high school with, but haven't seen in 17 years, nor had cause to think about). To my right, was PS, seated in an armchair. LRB is a friend of PS, but neither of them know SH. We were all sharing a cannabis spliff and there was some conversation, which I cannot recall.

I was then outside, in dreary, but dry weather. Someone was selling videotapes from a cardboard box (I think it was a middle-aged man) and other people were loitering or walking by. I took a closer look at the videos in the box, and noticed that they were stones/pebbles. I had something in my hand - the size of an apple. It looked like a sugared strawberry sweet.

Dream 307

'Class A Hotel'

Dream date: 14 November 2014 (Afternoon Nap)

I was in a hotel bar with my mum, my nan and DL. The hotel bar was very dimly lit and decorated luxuriously. My mum and nan got up from the seats we were sat on (a navy velvet-covered sofa against the wall) and left DL and I. DL started to have sex with me from behind, still on the sofa. I could see this happen in the third-person as well as experiencing it in the first-person. We were still fully clothed and I thought we looked like a T-shape in this position. DL hugged me from behind and pulled the hood of a white hooded top I was wearing up, to partially cover my head. DL then said he wanted to go to the restaurant area of the bar to get a pastry. I followed him out a short while later (this was just around the corner from where we had been sat, and the lights were brighter). When I joined DL, I noticed he was now RF (someone I know from Norwich who has become well-known for hosting a hip hop event). I felt anxious, hoping that DL was not actually RF. There was a stainless steel counter to my side, on which was a small white plate with a pastry on it. The pastry looked old and as if it had been manhandled. I followed DL/RF a short distance and we came to another counter, where better pastries were being served across a glass partition. DL/RF bought a croissant. 

We then went into the lobby where there were three people standing. One of them was a young blonde female, one was a well-known battle rapper and hip hop artist from America (DZ), who has performed at events hosted by RF in real life and the third was a middle-aged man. RF introduced me to DZ, who had travelled to the UK to take part in a battle rap; and the blonde girl who was RF's girlfriend (in the dream). I was not introduced to the middle-aged man, who said nothing.

I was then in a car with RF and we were driving down a road in the sun. On one side (left) was the sea and on the other urban buildings. RF pointed out a large white building and said: 'That's a Class A hotel!'.

Dreams 304 & 305

Dream 304

'Polish Girlfriend'

Dream date: 13 November 2014

I was back in my old home in London, but the bedroom was different - it was now long and narrow and very dimly lit. The bedroom was filled with people (young male adults) who I had known when I lived in on the same council estate in London, but PS wasn't there. However, there was a short, Polish girl with ginger hair cut to shoulder-length. Someone told me that this Polish girl was PS's girlfriend and he has been dating her for 'years' (which could not have been true). I was getting annoyed, because my former friends were acting as if I had never lived there and dated PS - it was as if I had been erased from their memories. The Polish girl was acting as if she was Queen of my former castle, being very loud and dominant. I decided that I would go over to her and put her in her place, informing her that I had been there before her, had lived in this house and dated PS. The Polish girl became really angry and upset at this revelation (truth) and started crying, gaining the sympathy of those around her. Someone (I am not sure who) told me that I was cruel to inform her that I had dated PS during her relationship with him. I tried to protest saying that 3 years ago, I had been in a relationship with him, living in this house and he could not have possibly started his relationship with her during that time, so she was deluded. Everyone was leaving to go to a party, and I decided that I would go, try and find PS and sort this mess out. I felt annoyed that everyone was trying to comfort this girl. treating her as if she was the victim of PS's infidelity with me, when in reality, had there been an overlap in our relationships, it would be me - as his earlier girlfriend, who would be the actual victim. A friend (a Scottish rapper) RBA, was present. He said that he would give me a piggy-back to the party, so I leapt onto his back for a ride. I suddenly realised that I had a long braided rope of hair growing from my butt crack. I tried to pull it out in horror, but it kept coming out without an end to it. 

Dream 305

'Womb Operation'

Dream date: 13 November 2014

I was standing at the main bus stop at university with BG, my housemate. It was daytime and pretty sunny. We weren't waiting for a bus, but rather a group of people (I am not sure who this group of people were). Suddenly, a large group of people all dressed in smart business suits started approaching us at the bus stop, but stopped still a few feet away from us. I said to BG that we had better take photographs of them - this was the group of people we were waiting for, although I did not recognise any of them. It transpired that we were waiting to be taken to the hospital for an operation. We both stood in front of the group and started taking photographs of them on camera phones. 

The scene then changed and I am not sure if we were at the hospital, or whether we had already been and then returned. I was standing in a hallway, looking into an open doorway of what appeared to be a university-style dorm bedroom. The environment looked institutional. My neighbour and colleague, AB (trainee doctor in real life) was standing in the doorway, getting changed into pyjamas. He was wearing a surgeon's mask, which he pulled down to his neck. He said to me: 'You've ruined Shan's relationship'. I knew 'Shan' was AWB (a girl I know of from social networking who I have fallen out with indirectly) and therefore I had no sympathetic feelings towards her. AB would not know ABW in real life. He then said that maybe my health problem (I am not sure what was wrong with me and did not feel unwell) might be 'a paggen in my arm caused by smoking'. I got angry with him and told him that it could not be a 'paggen' because I did not smoke enough for this. I walked through to another room, where my mum and another person (a middle-aged male) who I recognised as knowing from real life, but cannot recall, were sitting on chairs. It seemed like this room was a classroom from my primary school. 

BG was now with me and we went into the centre of the room and sat on the carpet. On a plate beside me was a pile of twisted pretzel-looking items, which I picked up to examine. They were dark brown and in a stretched-out horses-shoe shape. I knew that they were wombs which had been removed from women, and I feared that my womb had been removed. These were the 'paggens'. I then saw that there was a transparent plastic tent (half the normal size) on the floor (the carpet was green) and inside were massive blocks of different cheeses - all varieties of cheddar or other medium-hard types. BG started to eat some of the cheese. I reached into the tent and pulled some of the cheeses out to have a closer inspection. I noticed that all of them went out of date in 2007, so I stopped BG from eating them in case she became ill from food poisoning.

We were then about to make a 'chocolate mirror cake', which I had never heard of in real life, but appears to be a chocolate sponge cake coated with a chocolate mirror glaze. The cake in the dream resembled those I found on Google image search when writing up this dream.

Dream 303 - Worst False Awakening I've Ever Experienced

6 Level False Awakening

Yesterday, I attended my first meeting of the Exploring Lucid Dreaming in Norwich Group and as a result of setting a personal goal of having a lucid dream and using it to ask a dream character something about myself, incubated an intention to experience lucidity in a dream, performing my usual reality checks. I went to bed early (for me).

(1) I woke up and my laptop was on my bed, on my chest/stomach area. It was playing a Kendra Wilkinson sex tape. In the video, Wilkinson was laying on a beach and someone was inserting a bicycle pump into various holes which had been cut into her body, while she was masturbating. I had my own hand down my trousers, touching myself.

* Note in real life, Wilkinson has been confirmed as a contestant on the ITV show, I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here and this week reports re-emerged that many years ago she had made a sex tape which has been leaked. I did not consciously know about the sex tape and had not seen the recent news articles, certainly not yesterday or the say before, when I hadn't used the internet or seen/read any news (I discovered the news about the sex tape by Googling it now).

I realised immediately that I was asleep and this was a false awakening, because (a) I wouldn't have my laptop on me while I was in bed asleep; (b) I wouldn't watch a celebrity sex tape; and (c) I wouldn't touch myself while watching Kendra Wilkinson or any other celebrity making amateur porn, especially not when there is blood/gore and bicycle pumps. I did not need to reality check. I decided to change to Youtube and see what video started playing. I didn't even need to type in the URL, as immediately upon thinking about changing the image on the screen, a movie/TV show started playing. It was a drama about a young man and his girlfriend who ran a bar in America. The woman befriended another young, attractive girl and invited her to the bar to hang out with her and her boyfriend. This backfired on the girlfriend, because the new girl got completely drunk on spirits while at the bar (which was crowded with patrons) and then stripped off and started dancing in her underwear, attracting the attention and admiration of the boyfriend, who decided to cheat on the girlfriend with the new girl. I found this movie/show quite boring, so I moved my laptop and placed in back on my set of drawers at the end of the bed (where it usually sits and where it was in real life at this time). I then felt something alien moving around in my stomach, trying to push its way out through my belly button and I felt scared, and so tried to go to sleep.

(2) I woke up again. Something felt odd, so I performed a reality check and found that my right hand was the back of an old school 1990s Nintendo Gameboy. I realised I was in another false awakening. I saw lots of very small red demons floating in the air, in a diagonal line, above my bed. I reached out to try and swipe them away with my hand, but my hand went through them as if they were holograms. I felt a little bit anxious and tried to wake up properly, but instead just went back to sleep.

(3) I woke up again and saw that a coat hanger with a white T-shirt was floating in the room, near my desk/chair. It was being shaken. I felt even more scared because the third false awakening in a row. I tried to wake up, and felt a little bit relieved that on no occasion did I have sleep paralysis which would have made the experience worse.

(4) I woke up again, this time, seeing that the white T-shirt was in fact a white carrier bag from my university shop, which was upright on the desk (in real-life, the only white thing on or near my desk is a white bath towel which is draped over the back of my desk chair). I heard someone moving around downstairs and just knew it couldn't be my housemate, BG. I then heard someone whispering my name in a voice which was neither distinguishably male or female. I desperately wanted to wake up and so started screaming: 'Help, help, help!' hoping that my housemate would hear me in my sleep and come and bang on my door to see what was wrong so I would wake up. Nothing happened and I knew that I wasn't making any actual noise, it was just in my dream. I tried even harder to scream at the top of my lungs (it seemed very loud to me) and even hoped that my neighbours, SC and DB might hear me through the walls. Nothing happened again. I started jumping up and down on my bed, hoping this might wake me up and I felt paranoid that I was stuck in this series of false awakenings. 

(5) I then 'fell back' onto my bed, and woke up with a start - in my fifth false awakening. It was if I 'landed' in my own bed and the jolt of landing 'woke' me, but I knew I was still asleep, because the strange voice was still repeatedly whispering my name and now I could hear heavy footsteps on the stairs (which run parallel to the wall beside my bed). I then heard a noise which sounded exactly like someone using a broom to sweep the carpet behind my bed (I sleep at the foot of my bed so I can face my drawers and watch my laptop in bed, so the 'top' (head end) of my bed is a foot away from my bedroom door, facing away from it. I turned around and I could see nothing which would be making this noise, but blue mist was rising from the floor. I felt so panicked that I thought I might hyperventilate and was so confused as to why I was experiencing so many false awakenings, one after the other, with no escape. I pushed myself out of the bed and fell on the floor, landing hard.

(6) I woke up with a jolt in my bed again - in the sixth false awakening. I could still hear the sound of a broom sweeping the carpet behind me. I actually thought I would be trapped in this false awakening situation forever at this point, because I was so out of control of the experience. I didn't dare get out of bed to investigate because I didn't want to 'meet' the thing/person who had come into my house and walked up the stairs, as I was sure it/they were lurking outside my bedroom door, waiting for me to do this. I had no belief in my power to control the experience, as so far every attempt to end the terror had failed. I tried to go back to sleep.

I woke up and I was really awake. I did a reality check to confirm this and saw my laptop was on the screen which had been open when I fell asleep in real life and that the white towel was on the back of the chair. There was nothing odd, but I decided to check my mobile to see the time - it was 6:23 am - so I had been asleep for roughly 5 hours. I then wanted to distract myself, so I logged onto Facebook to shake away the fear which I was left with. The fear came from the fact I was lucid and consciously aware that I was in a false awakening state throughout, but could not leave or control the experience.

Dream 302

'Crystals & Raw Eggs'

I was in a big warehouse with a high ceiling. The only things in the warehouse, which was quite non-descript, were long lines of big boxes or crates, which were filled with crystals of various colours, textures and sizes. The warehouse was some kind of crystal shop. I was with others - I am not sure who - and we were looking through the crates, trying to find the best crystals. It appeared that the crystals were mainly shaped like animals. I picked up a big crystal, which was pale pink in colour and extremely shiny. It was about the size of a standard iPad, and irregular shaped, but I interpreted it as being in the shape of a cat. I selected this crystal as my favourite.

I was then in a second-hand book shop, which was very narrow and crowded, with a bright light. There were others in the shop with me - I think the shopkeeper (just a dream character) and my mum were there, but they were standing behind me, so I couldn't see them and I cannot quite recall the conversation we were having. I saw a huge, hardback Marilyn Monroe photograph book in the window of the shop (the window was back-to-front, so the display was behind the glass if you were inside the shop). The window display was messy and all the books were placed in a jumbled, crowded way. The only reason I could clearly see the Marilyn Monroe book was because it was large, shiny and white and the only book positioned neatly and upright. In real life I collect Marilyn Monroe books. I really wanted this book, but I could not reach it because of the other books and the glass which acted as a barrier. I said words to the effect of: 'I really want this book' and the shopkeeper (still unseen behind me) told me what I needed to do to get it (I cannot remember what he said). I started spinning around on the spot, hoping that this would earn me the right to get the book.

The scene changed and I was no longer part of the dream narrative, but merely an observer. I was watching a Come Dine With Me dinner party. Come Dine With Me is a British Channel 4 TV show, where 4 or 5 contestants from a certain area of the country compete at holding the best dinner party in their homes for the other guests (strangers who they meet for the first time when filming the show) for a cash prize at the end of the week. The dinner party was made up of at least two women (middle-aged) and one man, but I cannot recall all of the guests. They were seated in a very normal looking dining-room around the dinner table. I was aware that one of the women was a relative of both late former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and celebrity chef Marco Pierre White. The host (neither of the middle-aged women I could see, who were seated at one side of the table, next to each other) served the main course, which was a raw egg floating in a bowl of boiling water. The bowl was a white and blue Chinese porcelain bowl (as pictured) - similar to some china my nan (who used to live in China and loves Chinese culture) used to own when I was a child. The eggs had just been cracked into the water, but were not cooked in any way. The woman who was related to Margaret Thatcher and Marco Pierre White was moaning about the dish, saying it was disgusting and inedible. The other woman seated next to her now had a small blonde female child (approximately 5 - 6 years old) sitting on her lap. She said: 'It's my daughter's birthday and this is her favourite food!' The little girl, whilst being hugged by her mother, was eating her mother's raw egg with a spoon. 

* Note that shortly prior to me going to sleep I had been discussing bithstones - and the 'crystal' in my dream may not have actually been a crystal at all, but another gem stone which I mistakenly thought was a crystal. Also, a few days before this dream, I had watched an episode of Masterchef Australia (another TV culinary competition) in which one of the amateur chefs competing tried to make baked eggs (cracking them into a tomato-based sauce and finishing them in the oven), but accidentally served them raw and was put into an elimination round as a result. I had been watching the UK Masterchef the Professionals (the version of the competition for professional chefs) as I was falling asleep.

New Youtube Videos from Tallulah La Ghash

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If you have any suggestions or ideas for new videos you would like me to make (or articles you would like me to write) on a dream topic of your choice, let me know and I will do my best to satisfy!

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#scanners - The cinematic experience which allows the viewer's subconscious to project their dreams onto the screen

One of the most frustrating aspects of dream exploration is the brevity of dream memories - often, after waking from a vivid dream we can recall it for a short period before the memories quickly fade and we lose the intricate detail. One answer to this problem would be a device which enables us to record our dreams. While it may be a few years before this technology becomes available to the consumer market, researchers have announced that developments are under way, following the invention of a system which utilises a bio-sensor headset which enables the editing and manipulation of moving images shown on a screen, which responds to the wearer's brain activity. The individualised film is created is a visual record of the wearer's subconscious mind, enabling a glimpse into their 'dream world'. Manchester-based animator, Richard Ramchurn came up with the idea for the #scanners cinema experience which allows each person to see the same film differently from other viewers, in a unique, personalised way. 

Using Kickstarter to fund the project, Ramchurn wrote: 'Narratives and layers can be built that are all governed by the user's concentration and meditation levels. Edit points can be created by monitoring the users blinking...The audience can project their feelings onto the film that they are seeing, the film that they watch will have a series of overlapping structures that they can interact with and/or disregard. 

He states that the aim of the project is to enable individuals to physically see and hear their dreams. The device was tested at Manchester University last year and many of the test subjects compared the experience to lucid dreaming. 

The technique relies on MindWave Mobile headsets, developed by technology company, NeuroSky, and available at a cost of £100 ($159). In the Manchester University trials, subjects were asked to wear the headset whilst watching a short film. The rhythms of the editing and how the movie jumps from scene to scene depends on the mind state of the viewer. Much like a dream, it is impossible to completely control what happens on the screen, but the brain chooses the particular sights and sounds the viewer experiences. Below is the MindWave Mobile headset and a still image taken from the test screening of the #scanners cinematic experience:

Ramchurn was inspired to develop his idea after reading Walter Murch's book, The Blink of an Eye, which compares dreams to movies. While it is easy to remember a film, because you are consciously aware when you watch it, dreams are problematic, because they occur in a subconscious mind and therefore are difficult to recall once conscious. The headset is perfect for exploring dreams as it brings the subconscious mind to the forefront and allows the wearer to experience their unconscious thoughts and emotions, projected onto a screen, whilst in a conscious state. Ramchurn predicts that technological advancement in this area will enable scientists to make detailed dream recording possible in the near future, perhaps even within the next 10 - 15 years. 

Here is a preview of the #scanners innovation from Youtube:

Dream 301

'Parties, Penises & Broken TVs'

I was in a house - it was not familiar and it appeared to be very crowded with people who I am not sure if I recognised or not because the dream started off very vague and then became increasingly vivid and memorable. The house seemed normal, if a little small for the amount of people gathered in it, and the furniture seemed to be past its best, sort of old-fashioned and worn. I was in the kitchen, where the majority of people were present - all doing their own thing. I was aware that someone was launching some kind of product of service (I cannot recall what) aimed as transgender people, but I thought the product/service was wrong and would exploit or misunderstand the transgender consumers. I felt that the transgender community deserved something better. I was sitting at the kitchen table, thinking about this. I saw that AP - a girl from my high school - was cooking something in a frying pan on an old stove. When I looked closer, it seemed that the 'food' was in fact just pebbles and stones. She was wearing pale pink trousers and a pink top, which did not match. I then saw SC - my neighbour - standing across a road, with some green bushes behind him. He was waiting for AP and I to join him, along with the others. He indicated that we had to dress in black tie and I was happy to note that I was wearing a ball gown (I just knew I was, I didn't actually see what the gown looked like). I felt sorry for AP who was dressed casually, but she was defiant and was not prepared to change her clothes.

I was then in my house in Norwich. FV - another neighbour - was in my hallway, by the front door. He was wearing tight black jeans. I tried to give him a hug, but he said 'don't touch me!' and I was aware that he had something delicate and breakable in his jacket pocket and I was crushing it. I am not sure what it was. 

I steppe through into the lounge/kitchen area, where my mum was making corned beef sandwiches and other buffet food. This area of my house looked reasonably the same as it should in real-life, but it was much, much bigger and there were walls which partially separated the space, instead of it being one big open-plan room. There were literally hindreds of people in the house, many of them running riot, partying. Some of them I knew, and others were unfamiliar. There were several children just running around, creating havoc, throwing streamers and balloons. I was slightly annoyed that my house had been invaded in this way. My housemate BG was present - in the kitchen area with my mum, helping her to make the sandwiches. My aunt, VF was also there, eating corned beef sandwiches as they were being made. I noticed that there was a male sitting on the kitchen counter. It seemed to be a composite between a boy I went to school with - JCW (who I have not seen in about 16 years nor had cause to think about) and someone else. This male was naked from the waist down, had an erect penis and was masturbating. His penis looked extremely white, but normal size, and bits of hair clippings were flying from the hole at the end as he wanked himself off. I was REALLY annoyed, not just because he was acting obscene in my house, but because he was doing this act in the kitchen, where food was being prepared. I noticed that he had orgasmed and his 'come' (semen) was lots of pairs of scissors which piled up around the microwave. No-one else seemed prepared to tell him to stop. I said to those gathered in the immediate vicinity: 'He's doing this in the kitchen, it's not right!' Although I could see my mum and BG were not pleased with him, they did nothing, leaving it to me to handle the situation. I said: 'F*ck off you dirty c*nt!' to him, and he jumped off the counter, but on his way out of the house, he touched my hand with the tip of his penis, which made me feel violated and repulsed. I mentioned this fact to my mum, BG and VF. I then saw a group of male children running past me, and I tried to stop them and tell them to calm down, but they dodged me. 

DL was then with me and could tell that I was angry that my house had been invaded. People were leaving the house now, but VF was still eating corned beef sandwiches at the kitchen counter. I knew she had to leave to go back to her own house soon and I was aware that the party had been in her honour, although I am not sure what was being celebrated. I saw a computer screen with Facebook open on it. There was a comments thread under someone's status (not someone I knew, either in real-life or the dream). I started to read the comments and was aware that some of the replies were missing, which meant that the conversation did not make sense. I realised that the missing replies must be from someone who blocked me. I did not know any of the people involved in the thread, but I could see that one person had written: 'She said she doesn't even know you, so you have to leave her alone'. I was aware that this comment was in relation to me and that the missing person who was commenting on the thread was a person I know in real-life (only through Facebook) who is called Kelly and a male, who lives somewhere in Africa. In real-life I had added Kelly after he sent me a friend request a couple of years ago, and we did at that stage have a mutual friend, RBA, who has since unfriended Kelly. I had to block Kelly because he kept harassing me, telling me he loved me and not listening to him when I told him he didn't know me at all (we have never met, never had a full conversation, he doesn't know the first thing about me other than what I post on my Facebook and he had even started leaving antagonistic comments on my statuses in response to my actual friends and family members). The final straw came when I noticed (from my news feed) that Kelly was writing messages about me on his own Facebook, sometimes in his own language, which meant I would just see my name in English, but not be able to read the rest of his status to see what he had written. He would bombard me with personal messages about living me and how much it hurt him that I didn't like him, even when I informed him it was harassment. I finally blocked him about a month ago when I could no longer take his behaviour. In this dream, Kelly had started writing about me on his Facebook again, and it was clear that his friends were telling him that he was stupid and inappropriate to chase me when I didn't want to know him and had no feelings for him. 

I then noticed that the lounge area had extended and now had a large table by the window (instead of the coffee table which is there in real-life), on which was a TV (not particularly modern) on a black matte plastic stand. DL, AK and a few other people I know from university were present - the rest of the people having left by this time. I said I would use the TV to show my friends who Kelly was and the type of harassment I had suffered. I think I was planning to log onto my Facebook profile via the TV. AK joined me at the desk. I could see that it was daylight and the walls were decorated differently (although I cannot recall how). There was also a door in the corner, adjacent to the window, when in reality this is just a wall separating my house from SC, my neighbour's house. It felt like we were in the 1980s, but not the glitzy, yuppie-type 1980s, more like the dreary, poverty-stricken suburban experience of the UK during the recession. I am not sure how this feeling was conveyed to me, but I just got this notion that everything was more retro than normal and the environment somehow felt similar to one I might have experienced in my childhood. I guess the best description for this experience was that of 'déjà vu'. As I went to switch on the TV, it fell off the stand. It looked like the stand had broken, and partly melted. I felt anxious as I realised that this was not my TV, but I was actually in my mum's house (although it looked more like my own house in Norwich still). AK would not help me to lift the TV up, so I struggled to do so myself, and eventually managed to get it back on the stand and secured. The door by the window opened and I saw my stepdad standing in the doorway. 

Dream Telepathy - Can we share the same dream with someone else?

I have never experienced the phenomenon of dream telepathy - telepathic communication with another person through a shared dream. Telepathy (mind-to-mind communication is a form of extra-sensory perception - a form of experience which is beyond the normal sensory capacity to perceive. ESP also includes the heavily-disputed and non-proven phenomena of clairvoyance (visual perception of remote events or objects) and precognition (knowledge of a future event). These phenomena are categorised as a form of parapsychology and have been dismissed by many as pseudo-science.

I am very sceptical as to the veracity of reported dream telepathy experiences, as well as the 'evidence' on which other forms of parapsychology or ESP are based. Many people on social networking or in my personal life have questioned my belief in dream telepathy, and my answer is always the same - I cannot vouch for anything that I have not witnessed or found solid empirical evidence in support of. The same people also tend to ask my views on out-of-body experiences (OBEs). This is a topic I am even more clear on - I cannot believe in OBES or near-death experiences because I am of the opinion that our brain is responsible for our consciousness and mind, and as an atheist, hold the belief that we do not have a soul. Therefore it is impossible for me to support the notion that our consciousness can be separated from our physical body. I think that the difference between a lucid dream/false awakening and an OBE is the fact that lucid dreamers are aware they are dreaming and those thinking they are having an OBE are in fact experiencing a form of false awakening, but believe that they are awake. From what I have read, near-death experiences occur as a result of the brain reacting to anaesthetic during surgery. I do not approach my dream research with any concept of spirituality, faith or religious belief and assert that supernatural or paranormal phenomena can be explained by alterations on consciousness created in the brain. I hope to post further articles on these topics at a later stage

However, since a recent conversation turned my mind to the subject of dream telepathy, I thought it might be useful to conduct some research into the idea that we can share a mutual dream with other people and see what I could find out about this controversial subject.

However, despite the (lack of) empirical data on dream telepathy, there have been numerous reports of shared or group dreaming. The concept was popularised in the film Inception (2010) in which a group of 'extractors' seeking to commit corporate espionage, are able to use experimental military technology (PASIV) to infiltrate the subconscious of a target and extract information while experiencing a shared dream.  Other films have explored the phenomenon of telepathic/shared dreams - for example, Dreamscape (1984) and the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise series.

Some advocates suggest that the best mechanism for testing the existence of shared dreaming is the lucid dream. Although it is possible to incubate certain dream themes, it is very difficult for inexperienced or non-lucid dreamers to plan their dreams in advance, and impossible to alter the course of a dream in progress without becoming lucid. 

Lucid dreamers are able to manipulate and influence their dreams, suggesting that the lucid dreaming experience is the most fertile ground for experimentation and research into shared dreaming. There are various forms of shared dreaming reported. 

The most commonly reported type of telepathic dream are meshing dreams which is where Dreamer A shares certain parts or elements of his dream with Dreamer B. This phenomenon can be explained by the fact that often the hypothetical Dreamers A and B will have a close or intimate relationship - certainly their relationship is intimate enough for them to have a waking conversation about their dream experiences. Therefore, the shared dream may be a coincidence as a result of shared waking experiences and events. 

Another frequently reported form of mutual dream are meeting dreams - these are the 'true form' of telepathic/shared dreams, in which Dreamer A and Dreamer B meet in the dream world and are able to communicate with one another. Stephen LaBerge of the Lucidity Institute believes that mutual/shared dream experiments in the sleep laboratory can test the objective reality of shared dream worlds - i.e, test whether the dream world is a genuine alternative reality. In Lucid Dreams (1968), Celia Green describes the experience of Oliver Fox who was able to 'meet' his friends in planned locations within a dream, by setting an intention to do so. Fox was able to counter allegations that he experienced a successful 'meeting dream' because he had simply incubated the dream and the intention to meet his friends, Elkington and Slade, by claiming that Slade (who had later disclosed that he had not had a dream that night), failed to turn up in the set location. Both Fox and Elkington, had met in the dream as planned, and expected to also see the absent Slade, with both reporting afterwards that he was not present. Fox argued that if this was simply a case of dream incubation - because both he and Elkington expected to see Slade - it made no sense that both (separately) experienced him as missing during their respective dreams.

The first person to document the phenomenon of dream telepathy in the modern age was Sigmund Freud, who produced a model which expressed his ideas. In Dreams and Telepathy (1922) which is reproduced in Psychoanalysis and the Occult (1953), Freud considered that a connection between dreams and telepathy could neither be proven nor disproven. Like myself, he was deeply suspicious about the notion and stated that he had never experienced a telepathic dream himself, nor in the accounts of any of his patients. Two dreams which would fit within the definition of a telepathic dream (the death of a son and a sister-in-law) were labelled as 'purely subjective anticipations'. His ideas on telepathic dreaming were not widely accepted at the time, yet he continued to communicate them. 

In the 1940s, the subject was tackled by Jule Eisenbud, Geraldine Pederson-King and Nandor Fodor, who described alleged cases of dream telepathy. Albert Ellis regarded their evidence to have been based on flimsy, insubstantial evidence which could be better explained by bias, coincidence and unconscious cues and accused them of emotional involvement in their research, resulting in observations and judgements being clouded by a desire to prove that dream telepathy existed (see A Ellis, 'Telepathy and Psychoanalysis: A Critique of Recent Findings' (1947) Psychiatric Quarterly 21 and 'Re-analysis of an Alleged Telepathic Dream' (1949) Psychiatric Quarterly 23).

There have been many experiments conducted to test the theory of dream telepathy and its effectiveness, but with significant issues of blinding. Many of the test subjects found ways to communicate with their peers to make it appear that they were telepathic and attempts to cut off communication between the agent, sender and receiver of information failed because subjects were able to get around blindfolds, despite best attempts to make the empirical studies rigorous and reliable (see P McBroom, 'Dreams, Art and Mental Telepathy' (1967) Science News 92). In studies commenced in 1962, which took place at Maimonides Medical Centre in Brooklyn, New York, and led by researchers Montague Ullman and Stanley Krippner, subjects were monitored and awakened after a period of REM sleep and separated to study the claimed ability to communicate telepathically. The results, published in 'Dream Telepathy: Experimental and Clinical Findings' in N Totten, Psychoanalysis and the Paranormal: Lands of Darkness (2003), suggested that there was some evidence of dream telepathy. Krippner and Cheryl Stanley also analysed the phenomenon in studies published in 'Dreams, Telepathy and Various States of Consciousness' (2011) NeuroQuantology 9(1). 

During the Maimonides experiments, Ullman stated that one of his subjects recalled a dream in which he had given a chromium soap dish to someone who was building a house. Unbeknown to the subject, Ullman had recently been mistakenly given a chromium soap dish while he was building his own house, and had retained the dish as an act of belligerent dishonesty due to his annoyance at the rising building costs. Ullman thought that the 'dream telepathy' of the subject was a symbol of his distrust for therapists. 

A further 'example' of a successful dream telepathy experiment between a telepathic sender and telepathic receiver, involved a target painting, Dance Class (sometimes referred to as School of Dance) (1871) by Edgar Degas. The receiver recalled a dream in which 'I was in a class made up of maybe half a dozen people, it felt like a school...there was one little girl who was trying to dance with me.' The problem with the interpretation of this dream telepathy dream as successful lies in the fact that the definition of a target match between the sender and receiver is very broad and subjective in nature - indeed, the dream recalled by the receiver does not match particularly accurately with the actual image in the Degas painting, and is very vague on specific details, such as the presence of young female ballerinas wearing tutus (and one facing the wall, crying); the mirror and green watering-can; or the old man seated at a piano playing the violin. Even on the face of it, the description given by the receiver and the actual Degas painting does not appear to be a positive match. 

In another of Ullman and Krippner's Maimonides experiments, reported in the 1970s, a local artist gave a projector show at a rock concert, turning the whole audience into a group of telepathic senders. Firstly, they watched a short colour film about eagles and their nesting habits, then about birds from all around the world an mythical birds, such as the phoenix. Throughout the screening of the film footage, the Holy Modal Rounder's played their song, If You Want to be a Bird (1968) Located in a 100 mile radius of the rock concert, 5 telepathic receivers were told about the event and asked to record their dreams at midnight, around the time of the 'exposure'. The following dreams were reported:

Receiver 1: '...something mythological, like a griffin or a phoenix'

Receiver 2: 'a snake'

Receiver 3: 'grapes'

Receiver 4: 'an embryo in flames'

Receiver 5: did not sleep, but visualised 'a number of seagulls flying over water'

While 2 out of 5 receivers dreaming (or visualising) birds seems like an excellent result, one must beware cherry-picking results which leads to flaws in the test. The target material of birds is very broad  and unspecific - it wasn't a solitary species of bird, which would have made a correct answer more impressive, but all types of birds, which could render the correct answers of 'phoenix' and 'seagulls' as nothing more than mere coincidence. A more specific and measurable target transmission is required in order to produce more reliable results. Further, it may be that the receivers were aware of the likelihood that the Holy Modal Rounders would play one of their most successful recently released songs. If You Want to be a Bird (or 'Birdsong' as it is otherwise known) because it featured prominently in the incredibly popular film, Easy Rider (1969). This knowledge may have influenced the receivers dreaming/visualising birds after being made aware that the band would be performing at a rock concert during which the target transmission would be made.

The experiments by Krippner and Ullman (which were known as 'picture target tests') were criticised by CEM Hansel in 'The Search for a Demonstration of ESP' in P Kuntz, A Skeptics Handbook of Parapsychology (1985) who argued that there was a weakness in the design, in the way in which the agent become aware of the target pictures. The agent should have been the only person who should have known the target until all judging of the targets had been completed, however an experimenter was with the agent when the target envelope was opened. As the experimenter was able to communicate with the subjects of the test, Hansel concluded that there were poor controls in place. An attempt to replicate the experiments was conducted by David Foulkes and Edward Belvedere, who found that neither the subject nor the judges matched the targets with the dreams above chance level (see E Belvedere & D Foulkes, 'Telepathy and Dreams: A Failure to Replicate' (1971) Perceptual & Motor Skills 33). Other results from Foulkes and Belvedere were negative (see CEM Hansel, The Search for Psychic Power, ESP and Parapsychology Revisited (1989) for criticism and analysis of these studies). In S Sherwood & C Roe, 'A Review of Dream ESP Studies Conducted Since the Maimonides Dream ESP Programme' (2003) Journal of Consciousness Studies 10, the authors reviewed the literature on dream telepathy and claimed that there was some evidence for its existence. However in J Alcock, 'Give the Null Hypothesis a Chance: Reasons to Remain Doubtful About the Existence of Psi' (2003) Journal of Consciousness Studies 10, it was argued that Sherwood and Roes' review was based on an 'extreme messiness' of data, the experiments at Maimonides had failed to prove the existence of dream telepathy and 'lack of replication is rampant'. 

Robert Waggoner (see Lucid Dreaming: Gateway to the Inner Self (2008)), the author - an expert in lucid dreaming points to the recurrence of the phenomenon within psychiatric therapy sessions where patients refer to 'psychic glimpses' of their psychiatrist which were communicated to them from within a dream. However, Waggoner's secondary source material cites the Maimonides experiments and Ullman's anecdotal evidence (referred to above) as support for the phenomenon and therefore is an unreliable source in itself. Waggoner also recounts a personal experience of dream teleaphy. He states that a simple, yet unpredictable action which took place in his own lucid dream was implanted into the subconscious of a friend. His dream was recalled as follows:

'I'm inside [a restaurant/bar], enjoying a feeling of lucid euphoria, when I see my friend Moe come inside...Trying to make some impact on her, I get the idea to make a peace sign with my fingers. I say: 'Look Moe, do you see this peace sign? Every time you see it, it can make you become lucid - you'll know you're dreaming'. Again, I put the peace sign in front of her face.'

Four months later, Waggoner was travelling for business and met Moe for lunch. As he stood outside the restaurant, he saw her approach with a curious look in her eyes and suddenly, she reached up and made a peace sign in front of his face. Waggoner asked why she had done this, to which Moe replied: 'I don't know, just felt like it'. This may be a simple coincidence - one would need to ask whether the peace sign was a common gesture or greeting amongst the local population which had been adopted by Moe/anyone with whom she had recent contact in her waking reality. If using the peace sign was prevalent in the time and place during which this experience took place (for example, a two-finger peace sign was popular during the 1960s and is also a common gesture in Oriental youth cultures today), this may have inadvertently influenced Waggoner's decision to make the peace sign in his lucid dream, quite coincidental to Moe's use of the gesture in his waking reality. The peace sign is a very common gesture after all, particularly following Winston Churchill's iconic usage and also, celebrities such as Paul McCartney, often being pictured making it. Therefore, this anecdotal evidence cannot be taken as evidence that Waggoner used his lucid dream to telepathically implant the impulse in Moe, particularly as in waking reality, she made no mention of lucidity nor confirmed anything else said/done by Waggoner in his lucid dream. 

We should be cautious before reaching conclusions which sound attractive, but are only supported by anecdotal 'evidence' which comes from those with a vested interest in, or desire, to prove the phenomenon exists, and has failed to be proven by empirical studies, subject to peer-review and equally unsuccessful attempts to replicate. Indeed, no para-psychological experimentations into dream telepathy have produced replicable results. 

If you are interested in the phenomenon of telepathic/shared dreaming, you may wish to take part in the ongoing global experiment led by Dr Rory Mac Sweeney (@TheMutualDream on Twitter) of 'Wake Up in Your Dreams' website. In the study, which is known as the 'Mutual Dream Experiment', dreamers are asked to conduct a monthly global dream share attempt, using an integrated online password system. Dreamers are asked to record a secret password online, and on the last Saturday of each month, attempt to exchange the password with another dreamer, using an anonymous email to verify the results. If you would like to take participate, click on the link above to be directed to Dr Sweeney's website and the homepage for the experiment. 

Dream 300

'Arguments & Exercise Machines'

I was having an argument with BG, my housemate, but I cannot recall why. Our location was the landing on the exterior walkway of a block of flats. It seemed like a typical council towerblock. We were a number of stories up from ground level It was daylight and I could see the balcony edge on one side and the front doors to the flats on my left side. BG was standing several metres away from me, shouting. She was bent over to emphasise how angry she was, and was wearing a white vest and blue jeans.

I then found myself on a concrete and grass area in the sunshine. It appeared to be a location which was a composite of both my university (the area across the road from the main bus stop) and my hometown, Sheringham. I was using an exercise machine (a cross-trainer) while several people watched me workout.

I then found myself in an office which was not dissimilar to the one I worked in as a legal secretary a few years ago. In fact, I was working as a legal secretary in this firm, but the other employees were all unfamiliar, except two - one of whom had worked with me in the real-life firm (SW) and another who was a girl I knew in high school, JW. In real-life JW was from quite a well-off family, but liked to hang around with the 'hard-nuts' (this is the most diplomatic term I could use to describe this group of girls!) and exhibited seriously changeable and attention-seeking behaviour, was quite unlikeable and a liar. I was struggling to use a printer, which was more like a photocopier, since you did not need to use a computer to send items to print. I could not work out how to feed in the company headed paper (which had a reddish-orange letterhead and footer) so that the machine printed onto the right side and the correct way up. I kept printing on the wrong side or upside down, no matter how I inserted the paper into the machine. I was getting frustrated and SW was standing behind me, helping me in a half-hearted way, but not really assisting me as she seemed distracted by something. Soon, all the paper got stuck in the machine and chewed up. I could not pull the crumpled paper free. Someone from behind me (I am not sure who) mentioned that I was wasting paper and company resources and I got angry. I noticed that JW, who was sitting at the desk to my left side was laughing and making fun of me and this angered me even more, because I realised that she was in a senior position at the firm, despite me being qualified and her not having any qualifications or experience. I went over to her. She looked quite similar to how she was at school, except she had a very deep fake tan - orangey-brown and almost as dark as her brown hair. Instead of having brown eyes, her eyes were huge - much bigger than would be natural and emerald green. They appeared to be glazed over and I could not see her pupils. I leaned over the desk until our faces were very close. I felt disconcerted by her strange eyes and said: 'Shut up or I'll kill you!'

Dream 299

'Fake Money, Music Videos & Prison Visits'
I was in an empty environment, which was a heavenly blue colour and quite hazy. The only objects around were white blocks. I was seated on the central one. Surrounding me were pregnant women, wearing lingerie and angel wings - like Victoria's Secret supermodels. Nothing was said and this scene lasted for a very short period of time. 

I found myself in a new environment, which was brightly-lit office-type of room, which appeared to be set up like a call centre, with a series of desks, all facing in towards the middle of the room. My family members - including my mum and my nan - were seated as desks, and I was sat at a desk in the middle, I kept turning around to chat to various family members, but I cannot recall the topic of our conversations, other than I informed them all that I was trying to arrange prison visits. I am not sure who I was supposedly going to visit in prison, but I think it was a professional legal visit, rather than a personal one.

I was then outside a fish and chip shop at night. I could see two male dream characters - both young adults, one slim and white and the other larger and black. The white male had a portion of fish and chips in his hand. He asked if I wanted to eat it, but he was touching the food with his hands. I said: 'No, because you've touched it with dirty hands now!' The black male took the portion of fish and chips and ate the fried, battered cod in a single mouthful.

I was considering naming something. I am not sure what. It was a vague, disconnected thought. I thought that I had better give this thing the name 'Ghashghaei-Pour' [my real last name] because I am the only person in my family (on both my mum and my late dad's side, since he only has surviving married sisters) who has this name, and therefore I will be the last in the line of 'Ghashghaei-Pours' if I don't maintain my family name.

I was then in an amusement arcade, at the penny pusher machine. This is a machine in which you insert pennies which are pushed off a ledge into a pile of pennies. You have to time to penny drop so that as many are dropped off the first ledge onto the second one. From the second ledge, pennies can be pushed down and out of the machine. I was inserting pennies. There were other dream characters in the amusement arcades, but I wasn't paying much attention to them. It was clear that I was in a seaside environment. Suddenly, I won a huge pile of pennies, which fell out of the machine.I was really pleased and even more so when I discovered that there was a £20 note included in my winnings. I took the stack of pennies to the counter where there was young man working. I asked him to change my money and pushed it through the partition. He picked up the £20 note and told me that it was a fake one. I asked him to swap it for a real one. He said he didn't have a real one. I saw there were several crumpled (and real-looking) £20 notes on his side of the counter. I managed to reach under the partition and grab them, but on closer inspection I noticed they were all fake because they had the word 'colour' written in the top left-hand corner. I said to the male behind the counter: 'I'll take it anyway because the shopkeepers won't notice they are fake'. 

I was then back in my nan's house in Sheringham. It was the evening and I think my nan was sitting in her usual place on the sofa. Against the wall, where the dining-table is usually positioned was a sofa and some armchairs. Seated in these chairs was a group of young men in urban hip hop-style clothing, including a London rapper named 'Ruthless'. Also in this group (of about 8 people) were the two males I had met outside the fish and chip shop (that scene having taken place earlier in the same evening). I was still thinking about how the black male dream character has swallowed the piece of fish whole, and I was about to ask him whether it hurt his throat, when Ruthless told me that I had to shoot my music video soon. It appeared that I had recorded a hip hop track and these guys had come to my nan's house to help me make a video to accompany it. I stood up and started pacing back and forth in front of the guys, thinking that I wasn't ready to shoot a video.

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Dream 298

'Making Bags'
Dream date: 6 November 2014

I was with my mum, sitting on the floor in a large spacious area, which might have been in a well-lit room or outside - I could not really see beyond our immediate vicinity. We were using transfer images (the kind which are on a piece of paper and can be ironed onto material) of a postcard-type landscape photograph to decorate white linen shopping bags, which were scattered around us. We started having a screaming argument, but I cannot recall what it was about. My mum's face looked very pink/red with anger.

We were then in a park - it was full of greenery and people enjoying the sunshine. My cousin, JC1 was there, as was his father (my maternal uncle). However, my uncle was actually the father of two boys, ET1 and ET2 (who are older, but have a similar age difference to my own male cousins, JC1 and JC2). I do not know ET1 and ET2's father at all - other than knowing he lives in my home town and having seen him in passing many many years ago when I was at school with his sons. I know my mum knows this man, but he is not in her circle of friends. I have had no reason to ever think about him, and would not even know his first name or what he looks like, although he must be a similar age to my mum and my uncle. My cousin, JC1 - who was as he is in real-life - was standing over a girl sat on a park bench, leaning forward, his legs open around hers, hands resting on the back of the bench. His father - Mr ET - was watching him proudly, while my mum and I sat on a nearby bench watching the scene, in conversation with one another. I cannot recall anything else about this dream.

Dream 297

'Searching'

I was with PS at some kind of party or festival. We were trying to find a drug dealer and wandering around asking people if they knew anyone who sold cannabis in large quantities. This part of the dream went on for what seemed like ages (the whole dream seemed very long), but I can recall very little of it, which is unfortunate, as it turned out to be a very significant dream, for reasons given below.

At one point, we were in what appeared to be a man's toilet block, which was entirely tiled in white tiles. PS was standing, leaning against the wall adjacent to the entrance. I saw ED1, standing at either the wash basin, a hand dryer or a urinal. I approached him and asked if he knew any drug dealers, but he did not.

PS and I continued searching.

The scene changed and I was sitting at a long dressing table, between AP and RR (two girls from my hometown and high school). We were applying eyes shadow. I had a palette of eye shadow, which opened up with many layers, like pages of a book. There were about 6 pans of different coloured eyeshadow per layer. I decided to wear each shade on a different eye, not realising the absurdity of this decision, given that I only have two eyes and I had around 30 different eye shadows! I noticed that in AP's makeup bag she had a Sleek palette and the shades (of which there was about 8) were much better than the ones I had (although I had more shades) - her's were vivid and interesting colours, whereas mine were more muted, even the glittery ones. There was some further conversation, which I do not recall. 

I then sat behind the girls. There was further conversation. I read a news article online about Jennifer Ellison having a baby with a drug addict, catching HIV and being on benefits (none of this is true, although she did recently have a third child with her husband and I probably read this story in the news quite recently). The computer which I had been using to access the news was then closer to RR, who began to pour a cup of coffee/tea over the keyboard, laughing. I told her not to do this as it would destroy the computer, and she said she could fix it and then did so. There was more conversation, which I cannot recall

What is significant about this dream is the fact that I had some anxiety about why a friend of mine, close to PS, had recently deleted me from Facebook, for no apparent reason that I could think of. The thought had played on my mind and troubled me, but I wasn't in a position to ask this person why they had done so. When I woke up, very suddenly from this dream, I had the answer in my mind - my dream had led me to a conclusion I would never have even thought of when awake. The person had deleted me because I had written a Facebook status which seemed insensitive to an event in their personal life. The status wasn't in any way about them, but it mentioned a current affairs topic which was tangentially linked to a similar experience they had themselves many years ago, but which they did not know I was aware of and I would never have thought of/remembered at the time I made the comments because it wasn't at the forefront of my mind. The event happened long before I met my friend, was communicated to me about 3 years ago by a third-party and has never been discussed between my friend and I, hence why I forgot all about it. I would certainly never made a link between my opinion as expressed on social networking (some months ago), based on a contemporary news article and this friend's personal life. I then realised that this person had not fallen out with me as such - they were just not wanting to be reminded of something and did not like the way I expressed myself on social networking, so deleted me from their friends list, which is fine. As they didn't know I had once been made aware of their previous experience, they wouldn't have assumed I was being cruel to them or insensitive to their situation - they just didn't want to read my views on a similar event because they didn't agree with what I was saying. They also didn't realise that I myself have personal experience of the same thing, as I hadn't told them, which might have put my comments into some form of perspective and made them aware that I was empathetic and considerate towards them, I just had not had an opportunity to show this. This dream was significant, because it was a perfect illustration of Freud's 'Wish Fulfilment Theory' (i.e. my desire to know why my friend had deleted me from their social network and wanting to know I wasn't to blame) and comparable with his own 'Irma's Injection' dream. Click on the links to read my previous articles on these topics, which provide a fascinating insight into Freudian dream interpretation. 

After I woke from the dream (which was obviously presenting me with a symbolic 'search' for something) I felt elated. This was not because I felt absolved (because I had appeared somewhat insensitive, even if inadvertently, in the expression of a legitimate point of view, shared by many, especially those who have the same academic and professional background as myself and therefore evaluate the topic in question in a non-emotive and more rational way than a layman might) but rather because I was stunned by the power of my subconscious mind in trying to find an answer which was inaccessible to my waking conscious. It also clarified and cemented the notion that dreams perform a vital psychological function, compressing and organising memories and resolving subconscious conflicts or waking anxieties.