Dream 560

'It's the Court Radio'

Dream date: 6 February 2016

Scene 1: Domestic Interior - Night
I was in a domestic interior which was my home in the dream - so it felt familiar to me. It seemed to be a location which was a composite between my former childhood home (Pine Grove, Sheringham) and my parents' flat above my Mum's workplace - as well as a much larger building with a lot of corridors. These corridors/hallways had a number of rooms leading off and a number of dream characters - some known, some not known - were wandering around the hallways and going in and out of other rooms. One of these dream characters was a blonde-haired white male who was dressed in urban clothing. He appeared to be a composite between KK and SN - two hip hop artists from London, both of whom are on my Facebook Friends. I was referring to him as KK, although I identified him as being more like SN. I said: 'KK!' and he turned around to speak to me. I was keen for him to stay in the house.

I was with EH and he was staying over. We decided to go to a large bedroom and try to sleep. EH had a mobile phone with him - a smartphone, which had a screen which was permanently lit up very brightly. The room we chose to sleep in was very similar to my parents' room in my former childhood home, but much bigger. We tried to sleep, but soon were awoken by EH's phone. We couldn't work out what the noise from the phone was - it wasn't an incoming call or text. I left the room - annoyed at having been disturbed - and went to the top of the stairs, looking down at the ground floor hallway. This was a location from my former childhood home - I could recognise it was being similar to real-life. My stepdad was standing in the hallway at the bottom of the stairs, holding a pint glass of beer. He said (in reference to the noise from EH's phone): 'It's the court radion interfering'. This meant - the signals from the law court's radio station was interfering with the mobile signal and transmitting through the phone. I accepted this explanation. My stepdad said that EH and I should come downstairs and socialise. 

We went down to the lounge - this was a room which I cannot identify from real-life - it was a dream-invented room. The lights in the room were very bright and there were a number of people there - some of my family, some dream characters. One of these was EH's uncle, who was visiting. He was a black male who had blue makeup on his face - circular shapes on his forehead and cheeks. He was wearing a tall, rectangular embroidered red hat and was dancing around the room in a strange way. My Mum (seated on one of a number of sofas in this room) said: 'EH's uncle is a guest and you must respect him'. Everyone was watching the uncle dance around. I thought this was all a massive disturbance, given it was late at night and I wanted to sleep. EH did not seem impressed either. There was some conversation which I cannot recall - it took place in this room. At one point I went to the doorway and saw a number of male dream characters walking down the hall. I shouted: 'KK!' and he turned around. I said: 'Are you staying?' to which he replied that they (the males) were, they were just going into another room. 

My Mum then showed me an object - it isn't something I can describe, other than saying it looked like a child's mobile (the item you hang above a crib/cot which may play lullabies to calm a baby at bedtime, or attract their attention). It was made of tangled wire and had a lot of blue sapphires hanging from it (note that it did not look like the image I have included below, which is well-designed, simple and elegant - the object in the dream was messy and had sharp, jagged corners). My Mum said: 'It washed up on the beach from Jon Venables' (see the Dream Information section below for information). I was very interested in the fact the object was linked to Jon Venables in some way and wanted to discuss this further. I wondered if this was linked to the 'court radio' incident earlier. I did not wonder this out loud, but my Mum answered my thoughts by saying: 'That's why the court are transmitting radio waves...' 

I cannot recall anything else about this dream.

TIME: 18:00 - 23:00 hours (I woke up from this dream)

LUCIDITY: NO

SPECIAL NOTES: NONE OF NOTE

Dream Information:

• In February 1993, 2 year old James Bulger was abducted from a shopping centre in Liverpool and taken on a long walk culminating in his torture and murder on train tracks by 2 10-year old boys, Robert Thompson and Jon Venables. The murder investigation that followed took the initial stance that the killers must be adult given the gravity of the offence. CCTV images from the shopping centre and elsewhere identified that the killers were young children and intelligence eventually led the police to make arrests. The case was so highly controversial because (a) the age of the offenders; (b) the fact they were apparently influenced to torture/kill a baby by watching the Child's Play movies (the victim was maimed in a similar way as Chucky in the third movie - covered in blue paint and on a train track); (c) the brutality of the crime which was beyond anyone's expectation of young children; (d) the fact the defendants were tried as adults in Crown Court and then named/shown in the media (not usually done with child offenders); (e) the 'moral panic' which followed in the media, politics and society - leading to a strong vigilante response (members of public vowed to hunt down the boys and kill them); (f) anonymity orders and new identities given to the offenders to protect their right to life - the precise details of the crimes are not in the public domain as a result of the injunctions, meaning we will probably never gain insight into why this offence took place; (g) the fact the case led to dramatic changes in the law - the power to set tariffs for mandatory life sentences and detention during HM pleasure were removed from the Home Secretary, who had used public opinion and political influence in fulfilling what should be an independent, unbiased judicial function; Parliament abolished the presumption of doli incapax - the presumption a child between 10 - 13 years old is not criminally responsible unless it could be shown they knew their act was seriously wrong; and the judicial creation of a contra mundum anonymity right based on human rights; (h) Venables' later arrest for child pornography - as an adult when on parole - attempts were made to name/shame him which were in breach of the injunction protecting his new identity following his arrest and return to custody. My Masters thesis was about the lasting legal legacy of the James Bulger murder case, and children who murder generally. I dislike writing about Law on this Blog as I feel I take complex topics and simplify them for an audience who may not know about English Law, and it is probably pretty boring for my audience, but sometimes it is necessary to set the context behind the dream language/theme/symbolism.

Dreamsigns:

• My home was one which only existed in the dream - the events taking place in this house were also dreamsigns
• EH's dream character uncle
• The object belonging to Jon Venables.

Recurrent Dream Themes:

• None of note

Potential Day/Dream Residue:

• I saw KK and SN on Facebook just before this dream
• Interactions with EH just before the dream took place - I saw a photo of him using his mobile to take the picture (a selfie) in the mirror
• I was watching a makeup tutorial the day of this dream - Tanya Burr was putting blue makeup on her face to recreate a Halloween zombie look
• I was watching true crime documentaries just before I had this dream - I also told EH that my Masters thesis was on child murderers - namely Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, the killers of James Bulger
• 2 days before this dream I saw a reference to the abolition of the presumption of doli incapax in the teaching materials I use for my Criminal Law classes
• The day of this dream I saw an online article about a sperm whale which was washed up on a local beach (Hunstanton) several days ago. This is one of a number of recent whale beachings (in Norfolk, Lincolnshire and Europe) and have attracted a lot of media attention, especially as autopsies of the whales have taken place on the beaches and some environmental activists have become involved, even graffiting the whale corpses. As I write this, I realise that NS (referenced in this dream as he appeared as a composite dream character) has a real last name which is 'Stanton'!

Waking Thoughts & Emotions:
This dream was fascinating to me as it was so bizarre!

* I may have forgotten some aspects of this dream, but if I recall them at a later stage, I will record them below.