Return to Looseleigh

There is a house in Plymouth where I spent the formative years of my childhood, and where I was first exposed to the sinister world of the supernatural. It was (and still is) an unassuming semi-detached house in a quiet neighbourhood on the edge of a wood. I could write at great length on that place, but I will refrain from doing so on this occasion. Like many dreams before, I made the pilgrimage there, although this time unwittingly, drawn back by a seemingly irresistible magnetism. 

The dream started with me preparing to go to a family gathering with Li in lower Wivenhoe. She was taking a long time getting ready, so I offered to go on ahead of her and buy some cigarettes (she smoked in the dream) on the way down. It was a Friday evening, and the off-license was packed with people pre-loading for a night out. I stood in a long queue as it slowly snaked around the cramped shop, tipsy, heavily-perfumed gaggles of fat women shoving me from all sides. Catching the infectious party vibe, I turned to a woman standing behind me and joked that I was going to catch Covid. 

Eventually it was my turn, and I asked for two packs of Benson and Hedges menthol, only to learn that nearly all of the cigarettes had sold out. As I left in dejection, the shop keeper ran after me claiming that he had found one last pack. I bought it and returned to my vintage bike outside, and was observed by a group of girls. I heard them whispering that I was a 'posh lad' so decided to play up a bit for their entertainment. When I cycled away, one of them shouted, "You're fit, but you need to go to the gym." I responded with, "I know, but I can't be arsed" in an exaggerated posh accent which set them all off giggling.

The road to lower Wivenhoe was heaving with people migrating in the same direction, many of them on foot. It took a lot of careful steering to avoid cycling into them, but progress was slow and I decided to make a detour. I peeled off down a side road, planning to make a big loop round, where I hoped the foot traffic would be less dense. Before I knew what was happening, I had arrived in Plymouth, at the top of the hill in Looseleigh, overlooking Ullswater Cresent. This was the neighbourhood of my youth. The woods I played in, more overgrown than I remembered, the grassy verges verdant and glowing green, the road slick with recent rainfall. It was the same, and yet not the same.

After breathing in the fragrance of it all, I decided I had enough time to quickly swing by my old house at No. 29. I planned to take a selfie in front of it, to post on the family Whatsapp group. Two little girls on trikes played outside on the road. They said goodbye to one another, and one of them bounded up the steps to my old house. "Do you live here?" I asked? She replied that she did, and I followed her up the stairs. The door opened and her parents appeared, eyeing me suspiciously for being with their child. I quickly explained to them that I used to live in their house, at which point they dropped their guard and came outside to talk to me. 

The man was middle-aged, overweight, with ginger string-like hair hanging from a mostly bald pate. The woman had cropped red hair and a gaunt aspect. I told them how much I had missed Plymouth over the years, and how the grass was greener here, on account of all the rain. With the small-mindedness of proud locals, they lapped up my adoration and explained how they had always lived nearby but only recently moved into this house. We talked about people who used to live on the estate, and they asked if I remembered so-and-so. It was starting to get dark, and I had a party to be at, but still I had to see inside. I had to know. 

Somehow I found myself indoors, apologising profusely for taking up their time, wiping my shoes on the hall mat, telling them I would be quick. The little girl was in the bedroom where my sisters slept, preparing for bed, and I took some photos in the dark on my phone, mostly of the wardrobe. Who knew what would show up? Next I went into the hallway and revisited my old room with the creepy clown wallpaper. As I was taking a photo, the flash illuminated the saggy naked body of the mother, who had undressed to go in the shower. I apologised and hurried downstairs, hoping she hadn't seen me. 

I had a wee in a narrow downstairs toilet (which doesn't exist in real life) and then a snoop around one more room. It was the father's music room, and it was full of acoustic guitars, all laid out in rows, too many to count. The man approached me with a quizzical air, wondering why I was still loitering. After snapping a few more photos, I apologised again and made to leave, having far outstayed my welcome. I hesitated at the front door, and blurted out, "Are you enjoying living here? You haven't experienced any... disturbances, have you?"

"What do you mean? And why do you ask?" the man asked, panic creeping into his voice. I was on the verge of telling him, but it seemed somehow too cruel. After all, they had to live there. "Oh nothing really, I just meant like loud noises at night, that sort of thing? Never mind!" It was clear that whatever spectral presence had lurked there in yonder years was long gone. Either way, I looked forward to analysing the photos later. The man closed the door behind me, only too eager to see me gone. I had turned up uninvited, imposed myself upon them, and spied on his wife naked.

I cycled away from Looseleigh, towards the main city of Plymouth, which in dream logic, would take me to lower Wivenhoe. It was lighter in the city, the cloak of darkness had not yet brushed it. Jolly Irish pubs bellowed out music, and hot dog wagons gushed their effluence into the evening air. Suddenly a silver car beeped me, startling me out of my observations. It was two of my sisters, Fallon and Dana. They beckoned me inside. "Party is cancelled," they told me, "nobody turned up and there's massive drama with Camella and Lloyd." Then they drove me back home, filling me in on all the gossip. This part of the dream at least, was realistic.

Boundary Road Unbound

We all had a terrible night's sleep last night due to Lucinda crying and being unsettled. When I finally did doze off around 2am, I had some busy dreams, the majority of which I've now forgotten. Belugas featured again. I was with my family at a zoo that resembled the indoor African zone at Colchester Zoo, but it was more of an aquarium. Instead of the cafe area with benches on a balcony overlooking the plains animals, there was a metal staircase leading up to an open air tank. 

I ascended the staircase and saw a Chinese man balancing on the head of a giant beluga. He was performing to a small crowd of people standing around the tank. I called Lulu up to see, and I remember being terrified that she would fall into the tank and either drown or be eaten by the beluga. I took her hand and waited for the whale to surface, but when it did, its head resembled a mutant creature, with a bony carapace and clicking mandibles. I pulled Lulu away from it in revulsion.

In the next part of the dream, I was at Heartbreak Hotel with my friends Drew and Kate. I had a pet micro lion, a toy animal model that had come alive and needed looking after. I was in the process of cleaning out its habitat, which was a swathe of savanna grass and tiny acacia trees attached to a wooden board in the manner of a model railway diorama. Its food and bedding needed replacing, and the only place I could procure these from was Essex University. Drew told me the supplies were in the SU storeroom, but to get the key I would first need another key from the security office. I told him it sounded like a video game quest.

The afternoon was getting on but I decided to make the trip so the lion could have food and clean straw for the night. Drew agreed that this was a good idea since the lion was in its 'primal stage' and would stand to benefit from stats boosts. Perhaps it was like a Tamagotchi with levelling up capabilities. My friends came onto the driveway to see me off, and as I cycled away Kate shouted, "Looks like you are the leader after all!" I didn't understand her comment, so I just waved my hand dismissively.

It was my first time cycling in several years, and my old bike was stiff with rust and disuse. My balance was also off, and I wobbled to and fro as I tried to stay on my side of the road. The road between Wivenhoe and the university had become unrecognisable. The cycle path was gone, the familiar trees had been cut down and new ones planted, the left turn from Colchester Road onto Boundary Road was no longer there. There were also wooded hills in the distance across the fields, reminding me of when I cycled in Chengdu.

Disorientated and confused, I stopped to ask a construction worker in a high viz jacket for directions to campus. "Straight across the road, up the stairs, or access ramp with your bike, down the other side, turn right, then left, second exit at the junction, double back on yourself and you'll loop round and enter from the south side. You can't miss it." As is always the case when directions are too complicated, I pretended to understand and thanked him for his help.

I walked my bike across the dual carriageway, noticing how light the traffic was. It was the dead weeks before term started, and none of the students were around. I reached the other side, arriving at the bottom of a steep covered stairway and ramp, just as it started to rain. I noticed that some facilities had been built here, so I decided to quickly check them out. It was a small shopping village for students, with brand new businesses. I entered a building called 'Well Bean', wheeling my bike through the glass doors. 

It was a Japanese cafe, gym, and hangout area for students living on campus. Two old CRT televisions stood in the hangout zone, playing programs from the nineties. I ventured into the cafe to check the menu, but the place was not yet open for business. Artisan coffee and Japanese desserts, such as Dango dumplings on sticks, were listed. A middle-aged Japanese woman with a mop came out and I told her how appetising the menu looked. She didn't understand me, so she just smiled, bowed, and said "hai!" until it got awkward and I left, apologising for the muddy bike tracks.

It was then time to ascend the stairway, but I brought my bike into the wrong lane, the side with the stairs instead of the slope. Sensing the eyes of the construction worker on me from across the road, I owned my mistake rather than shamefully backtracking. I was panting and sweating when I reached the top. The walkway levelled out and I crossed a bridge (not unlike the Hythe's infamous Spider Bridge) with good views of the altered landscape. I had to admit to myself that the development was impressive, but the whole arrangement seemed nonsensical, and put me in mind of M. C. Escher's 'Relativity'.

I was above campus looking down. It stopped raining and the sun came out, illuminating a cluster of modern art sculptures on the grass by the carpark. They looked like abstract figures made of chunky, orange plastic pipes. There were about fifty or so, arranged in a chaotic jumble that made one's eyes wobble. I soon realised that I was on a bridge above Square 2, near the Economics department, but I woke up before I made it to the security office. Mission failed, I suppose.

Night Garden

For some strange reason, I was camping at the North Pole with my family. We were in the middle of nowhere, staying in an insulated square room with a big pane of glass replacing one of the walls so we could look outside whilst remaining cosy. It was night time, and a fierce blizzard was raging outside. Beibei had run off into the snow, and my wife and daughter had moved a bed outside and were huddled beneath the blankets whilst the snowstorm howled all around them. A news report on a small television in the corner of my room reported the threat of a mutant polar bear that was preying on tourists. It was characterised by having one green eye and one red, and was said to have a murderous appetite. Fearful of an imminent attack, I whistled for Beibei to get back inside, and then managed to convince my wife and kid to sleep indoors. 

"It's not safe out there," I told them, explaining that they would either freeze to death or be eaten alive by the rogue predator. With my family back inside, I locked the door and turned up the heating, watching the white snowflakes hitting the glass wall and piling up. I had never before experienced such savage bleakness as this wilderness. The night was blacker and hollower than pitch and I cringed from it in fear, expecting to see a glowing red and green orb approaching the window at any moment. Although the polar bear never made an appearance, I spent a restless night in mortal dread. Later on, the blizzard blew itself out and we were treated to a view of the aurora borealis. It was hauntingly beautiful, a ghostly green glimmer lighting up the frozen landscape.

In the next scene, it was dusk, and I was back in England, staying at my parents' house. It was a combination between their house in Wivenhoe, my own in Cooksbridge, and also our old Newcastle house. My mother told me there were a lot of animal visitors at night, so I installed myself in the bedroom window overlooking the back garden with a pair of binoculars and began a vigil to see what would emerge. As the sun went down and the light dwindled, I thought I saw large animals moving around in the field behind the house, but I couldn't tell if they were cows or deer. Next I watched some garden birds flitting around in the branches of a tree that grew near the patio.

Besides the more common native birds, the first visitor of note was a medium-sized passerine with drab brown and grey markings. It resembled a Large Woodshrike, but later I was to learn that is was a 'falchion', named after the sword on account of its slightly curved beak shape. The bird does not exist, but in the dream it was not native to the British Isles, and as the night wore on, other exotic animals were to appear. Soon it was too dark to see anything, so I fetched a torch, and also called my daughter over to spot the animals with me. We shone the torch beneath the tree, illuminating the side of a garden fence, overgrown with branches and vines. In the dense foliage we saw round glowing eyes reflected back at us.

At first I took this to be an owl, but as the beam adjusted, it was revealed to be a monkey. There were several of them here, all medium-sized, of two different species. There were titi monkeys (exact species unidentified but either San Martins, Vieira's or Parecis) which I had initially mistaken for owls on account of their round white faces and big eyes. Their long bushy tails hung like bathrobe cords beneath where they huddled in the branches. There were slender-limbed leaf monkeys, or langurs, also unidentified but ginger in coloration and with the peaked hairstyle seen on the Francois species. They were more active than the titis, and leaped around the tree foraging for food and avoiding my torch beam. With the exception of night monkeys, all monkeys are diurnal, so seeing them here was strange.

I moved the beam to the bottom of the fence and, slumped beneath the dangling tails of the titis, was a solitary slow loris (probably Sunda). These primates are nocturnal. It remained motionless, frozen in place by the torch, its eyes shining like car headlamps. Lulu grew excited by all the different types of animals outside, but when I pointed out a shallow stream with lots of small fish swimming around, she told me that fish were boring. From my position on the windowsill, I spotted some tiny written labels on the patio, as seen in an aquarium or museum, detailing what all the species were. Even with my binos, visibility was too poor to read them properly.

We positioned ourselves at another window near the front of the house to see what else we could find. This window was on the ground floor and looked out onto a hedge bordering the driveway. First, a chestnut-coloured weasel plopped out of the hedge, wormed across the driveway, and into the neighbour's house through their letterbox. Then I saw the grey snout of a Virginia Opossum pushing through the hedge, its mouth opened wide in a whiskery snarl. No longer content with seeing these animals from inside the house, I put my coat on and ventured out into the back garden, bringing Lulu with me. At our approach, all the creatures vanished as though they had never been there at all.

I stood in the garden beneath a full moon, looking into the illuminated windows of the neighbours on both sides. On my left, an image of my early childhood. It was the bedroom of a Cooksbridge neighbour, a three year old boy. His walls were full of He-Man, Thundercats, and other eighties memorabilia - posters, banners, and toy plastic shields. To my right was my parents' neighbour's son's room, a teenager. His was lit with a green spooky glow and showed posters of Hammer Horror classics, B-movies, monsters, zombies, and all that good stuff. He was watching late night television and undergoing a formative horror education, just as I had done when I was his age. I was profoundly affected by this dream.

Seaside Depot

A familiar and recurring location manifested itself in this dream, namely a seaside resort sharing elements of real life locations. I had recently passed my driving test and was allowed to venture forth by myself for the first time. No longer beholden to public transport, I took my dog, Beibei, and drove for about an hour until I came to the aforementioned place. My vehicle was a curious thing. Taller than it was wide, it resembled a miniature bus fitted with flashing disco lights around the bonnet. It ran on electricity instead of petrol. I drove it through the ticket barrier into a multi storey car park but, being a new driver and lacking confidence, I allowed a nearby valet to park it in a bay for me. He also performed a cleaning service. I left Beibei behind, with the windows cracked, and ventured out onto the pier.

It was a grey, brisk day, and the sea gleamed with a milky haze. There were many leisure amenities on the pier, including a large building called the Seaside Depot. It was a mall-like complex containing arcades, restaurants, bars, a theatre, cinema, swimming pool, etc. There was also an outdoor fair with rides, and a zoo with a monorail running through it. I was supposed to be attending a live stand up performance featuring a famous comedian but his name completely escapes me now. I don't like comedy and had probably been peer pressured into it. Still, I was happy to be exploring a new place and trying something different. I asked two charity collectors sitting outside the gates where I could buy a ticket, and they handed me a map of the complex.

Scanning the map for the hall where the comedy act was supposed to take place, I was excited to see that the outdoor zoo had a section labelled 'African Savanna' marked with hippo icons (my favourite animals), but unfortunately I woke up before I got to see them. I entered the Depot and followed a maze of corridors searching for the main reception. As I ventured deeper into the complex and had a good look around, all thoughts of the comedy act were forgotten. The zoo itself had been enough to tempt me to change my plans, and I determined to fully scout out the area with a view to bringing my child along on one of our Daddy and Daughter days. I descended a staircase and was met with the reek of chlorine.

I was in a long, clinically-lit passageway full of complex pipework, pumps, and filtration devices. Water sloshed over the sides of rectangular basins lined up along both sides of the passage, the tops of which were at hip level to myself. This is recurring dream imagery I've had since I was a child, so I had a good idea of what to expect. Ear-splitting whistles and screams suddenly rose above the whirr of machinery, the gurgle of water, and the clanking of pipes. In the narrow water troughs on the left, I saw the white, rounded, melon heads of belugas bobbing up and down. Belugas have featured in my dreams a lot since I saw them in a Beijing aquarium and was deafened by their screams. I have always felt that they are too large to keep in captivity, and their tanks in the dream were little more than water troughs.

Farther along, at about the midway point of these strange holding tanks, I came across another curious sight. On the right hand side, an even smaller tank held two blue wildebeests. They aren't actually blue, that's just their species name. Although wildebeest are strong swimmers, having to navigate fast-flowing rivers, they are most certainly not aquatic, or even semi-aquatic beasts. They huddled together, lower halves submerged in the water, their top halves slumped against the wall. Sodden manes plastered against shivering necks, dripping beards, and rolling, bloodshot eyes gave me the the impression of miserable old men in a bathtub. A typical feature of these dreams is to have animals squashed into tanks that are far too small for them, paddling pitifully in tight circles, or wallowing listlessly like these wildebeest.

I left the hall of tanks behind and came into a carpeted lobby with an American diner off to the side. The smell of cooking made me hungry. I noticed that some people had their dogs with them on leads, so I decided to head back to the car for Beibei. Once there, dream logic kicked in and my daughter was also in the car with Beibei. She was covered in bad eczema rashes and I began applying her cream whilst telling her about the place I had discovered. I awoke soon after this, filled with a desire to visit the beach. Our subsequent trip to Brighton was a bad idea. I got into an argument with an interfering woman accusing me of animal abuse because I tied Beibei up outside the swing park. I also had an unpleasant encounter with a charity salesman, prompting me to wonder if my dream had not been slightly prophetic.