Dream 77

This dream happened during my WBTB (Wake Back to Bed) technique. I woke up from my full sleep, remembering no dreams. I then purposefully tried to fall asleep as quickly as possible so that I could have a dream. I wasn't much tried - as I had just had around 5 - 6 hours sleep - and found it really hard to stay asleep - I felt as if I was constantly waking up and then drifting back off to sleep. I don't remember much at all about the dream I had - in terms of context, conversation and specific details - but the visual imagery/content was quite vivid - as well as some of the thoughts I had whilst in the dream. It was as if the entire dream was a hazy blur, but at certain points I was able to really focus and become involved in the dream. This could have been a perfect opportunity to have a lucid dream (as I was so close to consciousness), but unfortunately, as a very amateur oneironaut (dream explorer) I find it so hard to attain lucidity.

I was in a room which I do not recognise from real-life. It had wooden panelled walls, with a white padding on the lower half – the kind of padding you see in depictions of padded cells in mental institutions, sometimes. There was a long wooden table in the room, pushed back quite close to the walls. There were lots of potted plants and a bright light overhead. My best friend DJ was seated at the bench. Even though the bench was quite high, I could somehow see that he had his legs stretched out (I do not understand how I could have seen this angle, as I was standing in front of the table). I was moaning at him about something, I cannot recall what. He was acting all nonchalant and it was annoying me further. He was wearing a loose-fitting white T-shirt (he used to wear 6XL in real-life, so this was normal). Other than the section of the room I described above, which was directly in my field of vision, I cannot recall much more about this scene as my recollection is hazy.

The dream scene changed and DJ and I were standing in a queue at the side of a building. The building looked run down and shabby, with grey bricks on the exterior walls. We were lining up next to industrial waste dumpsters and there was litter all over the floor. It was daylight, but the sky was pale and grey-blue, although I think it was warm weather.  The line was quite disorderly, with people standing at the sides, talking, rather than in a straight row. It was really busy, as if we were all waiting to enter the building. DJ was still dressed the same – in the baggy white T-shirt and grey tracksuit bottoms. Suddenly, the line of people momentarily parted, and a person (I could not see who this was yet) walked slowly through, with a dog on a lead. The dog looked like a bull terrier breed and was orange-brown, like my dog. I thought: ‘Is that N?’ But as I looked closer I saw the dog was very, very old. It’s hair fur was greying and falling out in patches and it walked with a limp. It seemed close to death. I felt very sad and kneeled down to stroke the dog. DJ remained standing up. I saw the litter clearly at my feet – newspapers and empty bottles and cans. The dog owner’s face loomed down into mine. I saw that it was Mrs S, the school dinner lady from my primary school in Sheringam. If she was still alive, she would be at least 80 – 90 years old now. She looked very much older in the dream than in my memory of her – but her hair was still the same colour brown as before. I wondered if my mum had told me that she had died recently (in real-life; but it was a ‘memory’ of a real-life incident I was questioning within the dream – i.e. my dream self questioned whether I had been told in real-life that Mrs S was dead, or whether my dream ‘self’ made up the memory mistakenly and attributed it to a real-life event, which did not happen. I still haven’t found out whether my mum did in fact tell me in real-life. However this dream would indicate I had access to my real-life memories – and doubts as to whether it was a real or fabricated memory – whilst in a dream-state. This fact alone means I have developed my conscious awareness whilst dreaming, as I have read some articles which suggest our waking long-term memory is not accessible as a ‘memory’ to the dreaming self, which sounds totally invalid in any event – how can this be true when we can recognise the face of a person we have seen once, fleetingly, many years ago, should they randomly pop up in a recent dream?) I thought to myself: ‘She can’t be dead then! My mum was wrong!’

I was then in my bedroom in London, standing at my desk, leaning over the computer (This bit of the dream was very strange. Recently (in real-life), whilst looking for other people’s online dream diaries, I came across one written by an American lady, NT, who is also an author. I was fascinated by her Blog and her dream interpretations and wanted to follow her Blog, but could not find the link on the page. I knew she had a Facebook account from one of her Blog posts, so I found her there – it was very easy as she has a unique name and uses the same icon for her profiles – a female eye on green skin, which is how I recognised it as her when she appeared 'online' in my dream. I added her on Facebook, but had not yet contacted her).. In the dream, NT came on my Facebook chat – I was already logged onto the page when the dream scene changed to the bedroom. Without me having written anything in the chat window, NT had ‘replied’ to something I had ‘asked’. I am not sure what it was that I had ‘asked’ but I got the distinct impression NT’s reply was in response to something I had wanted to know. NT said (I could not read the text itself, I just know what the message said): “Just ignore him. Mrs S is dead, it wasn’t her you saw”. I am guessing that the question I wanted answering was in relation to Mrs S and whether she was in fact dead (and, implicitly, whether my memory was reliable); and the reference to ‘him’ must be in relation to DJ (who was no longer with me).  I thought to myself: ‘It was definitely Mrs S in the car park’ (I wasn’t even aware the place we were queuing, outside the building, was a car park until I had this thought). I woke up.