Diminutive Mammals

It's been a long time since I updated this, I haven't had any notable dreams that weren't tedious domestic dramas or train journeys fraught with anxiety. Last night's is worth mentioning as it had a recurring theme of small furry mammals with odd vocalisations. In the first part, I was in my sister's room, in my old Plymouth house from childhood, yes the haunted one. My sisters had a pet Squirrel Monkey, a tiny little thing, that came to perch on my shoulder and twitter strange words in my ear. It had learned how to speak in human language, much like a parrot, albeit a garbled, broken sort of lexis. 

I had with me my book of mammals, a superb publication that features an illustration of every mammal species known to science. As one might imagine, most of this book is made up of rats and bats. I asked the monkey if it could tell me which species of squirrel monkey it was, as there are around 7 different types. I was flicking slowly through the primate section to build excitement when my mother walked in. I told her what we were doing, and she began turning the pages for me, but much too roughly for such an expensive book, treating it like a magazine. I didn't want to tell her off, so I was eager to quickly find the page on squirrel monkeys. I could not locate it and the monkey lost interest.

Later on, I was in a shopping mall with my family when we heard the most alarming growling. It sounded as though it might have came from a large dog, but it turned out to be an injured rat. The creature had been stepped on by the ground, and it was half bald, almost like it had escaped from a lab. I told everyone to stay away from it incase it was diseased. I wondered whether to help it when a big annoying man in white boots stomped into view and decided to manly take care of the matter. He raised a large knobbed stick and brought it down on the rat's head, putting an end to its suffering, and its threatening growls.

Aquarium Escapes

I was first in line for a Sea Life centre's morning opening. I wanted to do some research for my novel, which features an aquarium. Whilst waiting for the counter to open, some people turned up behind me and arranged themselves in such a way that I thought they were trying to push in. Luckily, when the ticket attendant arrived, she served me first, and I paid £20 for an adult ticket. 

I proceeded down the corridor and into the first room, where low tanks of cuttlefish, smiling eels, and wolffish were situated. I was perturbed to see the creatures clustered around the top of the tank, on top of one another, with their heads sticking out over the top. I entered deeper into the room and on the floor, behind the door, some of the fish had spilled onto the floor. When they saw me approach, there was a flurry and flopping of fins and tentacles as they scarpered back into the tank. I saw the coiled arms of cuttlefish squirming against the tiles. I ran back the way I had come, horrified.

Two old ladies went ahead of me into the same room. I peeked in after them and saw that many of the larger eels and wolffish had also plopped out of their tanks and onto the floor. The old women shrieked as the fish flapped around their feet. A smaller eel, seeing the open door, made a wriggly beeline for it, and for me.

I ran off in another direction, down a main corridor that led deeper into the aquarium. The eel was following, I could hear its wet body slapping the floor as it slithered after me. With no time to look back, I ran as fast as I could, the awful sounds always close behind. When I came to a room with a white countertop on which souvenirs were sold, I leapt up on top of it, much to the surprise of some other guests.

An employee saw the eel, and went to pick it up. "What are you doing here?" he sighed, as though it were a regular occurrence. He picked it up in his bare hand and threw it into a bucket of water. My whole body twitched and prickled in fear, lest one of the squirmy beasts should unexpectedly make contact with me. My wife poked me awake and I jumped out of my skin. 

Feral Giraffe

In Lucid Leaking, I wrote about my fear of water invading my home and damaging the walls. Well, that dream turned out to be a prophetic one, as my washing machine packed in yesterday and flooded the house with black water. I spent most of the day cleaning, and it was most galling in that I have only a few days ago paid £330 for a professional deep clean. The dream must have been a warning.

Last night I dreamt that I was exploring the countryside on a grey and drizzly day. I wanted to find somewhere for a wild swim, as previously I had noticed still pools of water enclosed by moist, verdant banks. I wasn't having any luck finding these idyllic pools, but I did stumble across the homestead of an old hermit in the woods. He came outside to see what I wanted, and I asked if I was trespassing. He assured me I wasn't, but that I should watch out for the feral giraffe in the area.

It wasn't long before the beast in question made an appearance, winding between the trees and rubbing its mangy, moulting neck against the rough trunk of a tall pine. The giraffe was someway between an adult and baby, perhaps a teenager, and it seemed quite emaciated. It also had jagged teeth protruding from its mouth, and feverish, bloodshot eyes. The giraffe spotted us and gave chase in that rocking horse gait they are known for.

The hermit turned and ran into the bracken, clearly experienced in the animal's agressive ways. The giraffe rounded on me, and I clambered onto a large fallen tree trunk to try and escape. It tried to mount the trunk to get at me but it got wedged between two branches. It gnashed its dirty teeth in an attempt to bite my shoulder, but I took the opportunity to jump off the tree and escape. I wonder if this dream will also be prophetic - a usually gentle animal turning feral.

Lucid Leaking

Lucid dreaming is a strange phenomenon where the dreamer exists in a state between the conscious and unconscious plane. I have only had two or three of them in my life, but the other night I was fortunate enough to experience another. In the dream, my house had altered and was also a hotel for paying guests. There was a bar in the lobby, in which my friend Darren sat getting drunk. Upstairs in the master bedroom, there was another floor encircling the room, a library with rows of bookcases, ladders, and reading tables. The two Dali pictures that hang on the wall behind my bed, 'The Persistence of Memory' and 'Swans Reflecting Elephants' had fallen off onto the floor. The wallpaper had bubbled and peeled off, and rivulets of water streamed down the damaged wall onto the pillows.

Elsewhere in the room, water had eroded the masonry and soft chunks of plaster were dribbling off the walls.  Cornices were crumbling. The room was a mess and in urgent need of repair. My wife pointed out that the water was coming from a skylight above our bed, up in the library area, that had been left open since we moved in four years ago. I had never even realised such a skylight existed. It was raining heavily outside. Using a metal extendable iron pole, I pulled the hook on the skylight and closed it. I phoned my plumber, Jack, who exists in real life, and explained the situation, begging him to come over to attend to the problem. Jack was less than enthusiastic about the job, and claimed that it was above his skill level.

It was at this point that I woke up, but also remained in the dream. With one leg in the dream world and the other in reality, I experienced the immense relief that my house wasn't falling to pieces, and yet I was still on the phone to Jack. I could see my wife lying in the bed next to me, and knew that it was time to get my daughter ready, yet this phone call needed to be wrapped up. I told Jack not to worry, that it was all merely a dream and my room was fine. He was understandably confused, and grew annoyed that I was wasting his time. I then explained to him that he wasn't real, but a figment of my imagination. The poor man experienced deep existential dread and began to have a meltdown after realising his entire existence was a sham.

This raised some interesting questions for me on the nature of reality, and on those liminal spaces between the different states of being. Jack is a real person, who I've hired numerous times, and yet in this instance, he was not real, although he still possessed a clear identity and sense of existence. After concluding the phone call, I then had a choice of whether to return fully to the dreamworld and continue the dream, or get out of bed and begin my day. I opted for the latter, but for a fleeting moment, I had full control over both halves of the brain.

Tiger Attack

Last night I was stressed about money and dreamt that I got ripped off at a Flying Tiger shop in Colchester. The next day, feeling buyer's remorse, I went into town early and joined a long queue to try and get a refund. The queue wound through an adjacent building, a large converted church where the far wall was one big window. The window looked out onto the elephant paddock at Colchester Zoo, people would come to the church to watch the elephants. I noticed that there were more of them than usual, a herd some ten or twelve strong. 

Where their perimeter fence began, a body of water revealed a hippopotamus punting along. It had a baby that left the water and went to nose at the fence. A great yellow tiger then appeared on the other side of the fence and grabbed the baby's head with its claws through a gap in the chainlink. The hippo's head got caught in a noose of rope hanging from the fence and it was unable to escape. Ensnared this, the tiger was able to sink its jaws into the hippo's throat. After some tugging, it tore off the head, revealing a bloodless stump, much like the frozen wounds from a butcher shop.

A mother in the queue, who had been showing her baby the elephants, quickly put her hand over the infant's eyes. Murmurs of horror ran through the crowd as everyone ran to the window to watch the aftermath of the gruesome attack. Prior to that moment, I had experienced intense panic and had shouted to try and warn the keepers, to no avail. Perhaps the tiger represented the predatory staff at the Flying Tiger shop? When I eventually got to the counter, they did everything they could to avoid refunding me, and I remained there the entire day arguing my cause. Closing time came around, and still I had not obtained my rightful refund.

Spanish Sea World

I relate to you now o'brother a dream I had on the Caledonian sleeper train as I shuttled through the night, from London to Inverness. Having made rather too free with the wine in the club lounge, I retired to my bunk in a bilious sort of way. The swaying of the carriage was not the sort of lullaby to soothe babies to sleep, but rather the kind to keep a man awake in spite of his bodily protestations. Towards dawn I descended to the lower berth where the swaying seemed less violent. I was then able to get some shut-eye and dreamed the dream you are about to read.

I was holidaying in Spain with my wife and daughter, visiting, as in customary in my dreams, a rundown Sea World and zoo. The zoo section was nothing out of the ordinary, I remember seeing elephants and giraffes. The Arctic zone however, was a different story. Tight, outdoor pools were home to marine mammals such as dolphins and porpoises, locked into endless revolutions of their confined space. Rock formations formed a backdrop to their tanks, offering the illusion that they were in a natural environment. Indeed, the resort was on the coast but did not communicate with the sea. A larger tank was empty, and I was disappointed to learn that the killer whales it formerly held were gone.

Some signs read that until recently there were a total of 36 killer whales at Sea World many of them in ocean pens. They had all been killed following PETA legislation that announced these marine centres were no longer allowed to hold them. I am all for animal rights, so was disturbed to learn of their fate, and also guiltily irked that I was still yet to see a real life killer whale. The true horror of the zoo was yet to reveal itself, but I did not have long to wait. 

Further into the marine zone, I saw bizarre enclosures for wolves and hyenas. The animals lay on their sides, with their paws hanging over the edges of the glass walls. I shepherded my wife and daughter past these enclosures, worried that the barriers were too low and incidents might occur. Round the bend we encountered a tank holding polar bears, and what a sorry lot they were. 

The bears, if they can be called such, were almost wholly devoid of hair. It was more like patchy fuzz, with large bald spots and the unmistakable onset of advanced mange. Lulu had never seen polar bears before, and she had trouble recognising them as such. They lounged around on rocks, packed in tightly, eight or nine of them. They were also stunted in growth, perhaps only half the size they should have been. Their faces were ugly and mutated, as though inbred. One of them had a grey, crusty growth on its ear. Another had a snaggle tooth, a single fang that jutted up over his undershot lower jaw.

I ushered the family on where we reached a cul-de-sac of smaller tanks, all cloistered together on top of one another like the fish tanks of a pet shop. There was a large praying mantis strapped to a wooden panel. A small tank filled with gannets zooming back and forth, all glassy eyed. There were also many types of fish and sea creatures. Interactive panels interspersed these tanks, and Lulu began playing with them. The close combination of ill-suited fauna and scary animals made me feel queasy, so I expressed a desire to leave. As I escaped the hellish zone, I almost fainted.

Outside the marine centre was a large, plasterboard killer whale statue which some teenagers were climbing to take selfies. It was late afternoon now and people were leaving. Lulu wanted me to take a photo of her climbing on the killer whale. The dilapidated state of the sea world hit home most strongly here, with the peeling paint and forlorn welcome sign. Whilst I snapped photos of Lulu, my wife was engaged in conversation with the group of teenagers. I was eager for us to be on our way, but the teens took an interest in us.

One of them, a dumpy boy who, I'm sorry to say, looked as deformed as the polar bears, kept trying to hug us. He had a hanging lip, like a failed skin graft. After hugging Li, he came over to me, hugged me and moved in for a smooch. I flinched away in horror, but not before his mutant lip pressed itself to my cheek and he licked my face. I wiped the saliva away in revulsion. 

We now had a long journey to our hotel, with no public transport available. The road along the coast was long and dusty, with a storm on the horizon. We were able to hitch a lift on a trailer being dragged by a Spanish peasant on a bike. He was on his way to a small historic town which lay between Sea World and our destination. When we reached the town, we bid the peasant farewell and Li told me we would take shelter at a pilgrim haven. 

The pilgrim haven was nothing more than a sort of clay barn hosted by kindly religious souls to offer travellers relief and shelter. We had apparently stayed at one before the last time we were in Spain. I had no clue what was going on, but Li secured us space at one of these hovels, the floor of which was covered in straw. Our hosts were a kind Spanish lady called Celia, and her husband Jesus, a skinny vegan man with a black goatee. They had a toddler called Bonnie, who tried to play with Lulu. 

Soon nough, the storm hit, and the sky turn dark. We nestled in the hovel as lightning crackled and rain pounded on the roof. Li chatted to Celia as I wondered how we were to get back to our hotel. The idea of these pilgrim havens were for women travelling alone to have safe spaces to retire to, and also to give birth in if required. I couldn't help but feel creeped out by the whole thing, despite the kindness of our hosts. As I sat in the straw, I noticed an enormous pus filled blister covering most of my ankle and debated whether or not to burst it. 

Dali Cybernetics - How I Touched the Face of God (Part 2)

Spoiler Alert - the following contains a detailed account of Dali Cybernetics VR experience.

As promised, here is the follow-up to yesterday's Dali Cybernetics review. The main exhibition was over, with only the finale remaining. I left the zen room with my friend and we emerged into a small foyer where VR headsets were attached to the heads of visitors. Before we were fitted with one, we were instructed to read a set of guidelines warning of side effects, dizziness, along with ominous disclaimers such as, 'what you are about to see is not real', 'you will encounter other people as a diving helmet, do not push them.' I was mildly intrigued by this point, but not yet excited or hyped up for what was about to happen. 

I should preface the following experience by asserting that I'm a naturally dour, cynical sort of person and usually quite difficult to impress. Anyone who follows my book review blog will know that I hate nearly everything. I hold art to unrealistically high standards, and I become pickier with every passing year. I was fully expecting my headset to malfunction, as is usually the case for me whenever I experience any kind activity that requires working technology, whether it be laser tag or dodgems. I have long scoffed at the idea of VR and had no interest in trying it, dismissing it as an overpriced gimmick at best. I have never been more wrong.

After skimming over the guidelines, I was approached by a smiling woman who unceremoniously jammed a headset over my head, ushered me through a doorway, and onto the Ship of Dreams. There were no adjustments made to the headset, it was plonked on and tightened before I even knew what was happening. No sensitivity tweaking, no interpupillary distance tracking, just wham, bam, good to go. This was my first time in VR. Visibility was clearer than I expected it to be, although by no means crystal clear. I could probably have adjusted that, but I was so overwhelmed by everything that the slight blur did not present an issue. The feel and heft of the headset was comfortable and well balanced.

I did not immediately know what was going on. I noticed that my friend, who had gone on ahead of me, was only a floating copper diving helmet, the old fashioned sort worn by early aquanauts. I did not yet know that we were on the deck of a sailing ship. It took me rather longer than it should have done to realise that I too, was only a floating head. Looking down at my body and realising it wasn't there was an intensely surreal, Kafkaesque, and discombobulating feeling that cannot be adequately described to somebody who has not experienced it. I had to keep groping for my torso, to reassure myself that I still had one. 

I instantly thought of media in which somebody wakes up to find that parts of their body have disappeared or transformed. The Metamorphosis, Johnny Got His Gun, Boxing Helena, Robocop, Mars Attacks!, Rust and Bone, Tusk. All of those films raced through my decapitated head as I struggled to come to terms with this new existence. My friend was in a similar state of mild panic and awe. It was he who brought my attention to the fact that I also had hands. I raised them for a better look and saw they were gilded copper - liquid gloves melded to my flesh. Like a baby discovering that it has control over its hands and spends hours gazing at them in fascination, I turned them over and over, staring in admiration, examining the smooth, cauterised cutoff point at the wrists. 

So here I was, nothing more than a floating diving helmet and a pair of coppery gloves. For a while, I did not take in my surroundings, being too absorbed in adjusting to this strange new experience. My friend asked me to put my hands out, and he placed his palms against mine, probably to reassure himself that we were still there, still relevant. We had numbers beneath our helmets to identify one another from the other people sharing the space with us. I was 3, and I felt like I was that age again, experiencing the world for the first time. 

A metal railing ran around the length of the room, and I was drawn to this as a solid anchor point. The railing was real and reacted to my touch with reassuring solidity, a counterbalance to my ethereal form. I clung to it like somebody going rollerskating for the first time, and shakily dragged myself deeper into the room. I was amazed at how accurate the hand tracking was. When I clasped the railing, my metallic hands did likewise. Nothing else was real. It was time to survey my surroundings, and this is where the true immensity of VR hit me. Had it not been for the headset, my monocle might have popped out in sheer alarm.

I was on the deck of a wooden ship, with a mast in the centre, at the top of which billowed a white, square canvas sail, snapping in the breeze. I could have spent the entire time staring at this sail, marvelling at its dimensions. I could have spent the entire time admiring my hands. The sense of scale was not something I had anticipated. But there were other sights demanding my attention. A giant egg stood at the base of the mast, impeccably rotund, impossibly unreal, evocative of Dali's 'Metamorphosis of Narcissus.' I did not try to touch it. My attention was drawn beyond the guardrail of the ship, to a calm, undulating sea, almost milky white. I looked behind myself for the first time, and was shocked to discover the door I had entered through had disappeared, replaced by the poop deck of the ship.

This was the first major revelation, the moment I knew I was physically inhabiting this virtual world, not simply sat before a screen. Objects in the environment had real scale, I could walk seamlessly from one side of the deck to the other, I could turn 360 degrees and see everything rendered perfectly. I was actually on the ship, there was no going back. This was mind blowing, and the infinite possibilities of VR flew through my mind. My incredulity expressed itself in words, and I blurted out my discoveries. It is impossible to retain a degree of composure and dignity when experiencing VR for the first time. I was gibbering excitedly like a child, pointing out everything I saw. 

My advice to anyone wanting to try VR is to leave your cynicism and ego behind, allow yourself to be transported, and embrace an infant's eye view of the world. Allow yourself those emotions of joy, euphoria, amazement, fear. Remember what it is to be small and insignificant again. Immerse and unbound yourself. There is no judgement in VR. Perhaps the employees watching us were amused by a roomful of grown adults behaving like children, but that's how things were.

I watched the passing landscape, a dreamlike vista far more compelling than any real world cruise. 'I am actually inside a Dali dreamscape', I told myself. As a teenager poring over Dali's paintings in art class at school, never in my wildest imaginings could I have dreamt that one day I would be inside one of them. Never. But here I was, sailing the seas, on the deck of a ship, next to a giant immaculate egg, with strange rock formations gliding by. 

We hit a wave and the deck shuddered beneath our feet. I grabbed onto the rail with both hands as water sprayed over me, I felt its wetness. I don't know if this actually happened, or my brain tricked me into believing it did, but other visitors reacted likewise. I suspect we really were sprayed with water at that point. It was then that I remembered the darker elements of Dali's paintings. Evocative, weirdly beautiful, and compelling yes, but they could also be terrifying. Something was coming.

From the portside of the ship, closest to where I stood, an immense red claw loomed over the side. It was closely followed by another, the pincers of a gargantuan lobster, each as big as a fridge. I shouted out to my friend, who had his back to it and had not yet noticed. The head and twitching antennae of the lobster appeared. A claw moved towards me, as though to snatch me from the deck. I knew it was not real, yet my brain could not stop my body from instinctively cringing away. 

I cowered like a sailor who had come face to face with a sea monster. At that moment, I was a character from Mysterious Island, facing off against the giant crab. After menacing us with its pincers, the lobster leapt out of the sea and sailed over the ship. I looked up and saw its segmented underbelly blotting out the sky, then it splashed back into the sea on the starboard side and was gone. This was incredible. Again, I was overwhelmed by the possibilies, as excited as a child on a school trip.

What happened after that point was a blur of disordered memories and excited impressions that I struggle to organise into a logical sequence. The voyage was split into three sections, and we were nearing the end of the seabound portion. Cliffs rose into view, flanking a narrow passage which would barely admit the ship. I gazed in awe at the towering cliff faces as they took on mythic proportions, feeling like Odysseus approaching the cliffs of Scylla, or Jason with his Argonauts passing through the Clashing Rocks. 

The cliffs swept by, I was humbled, dwarfed. I did not know where to look. Everywhere, something wondrous and mesmerising was taking place, I wanted to see it all at once. My dreams have always been of the most vivid kind, but not one of them came close to this. We were leaving the cliffs behind now and sailing through a desert. A giant folded clock had appeared on deck, straight out of 'The Persistance of Memory.' We were standing on the clock face as its massive 3D hands ticked over our heads. But there were other things happening elsewhere and I could not look in any one place for long.

On the horizon, a line of Dali's long-legged elephants from The Temptation of Saint Anthony were marching across this fractured landscape. The ship drew closer to the line of distorted pachyderms. I do not remember much music or sound from the experience so far, but now there was the discordant squeal of trumpeting elephants. Then we were beneath them as they strode over the ship on impossibly long, spindly legs. Far, far above, higher than the lobster had been, their bellies went by, towering into the clouds. I was in a visual coma, staring stupefied at the sheer majesty of it all.

At some point after this particular spectacle was over, I noticed that the clock on deck was gone and had been replaced by the giant stump of a guttering candle. The flame looked so real, like I could reach out and burn my hand, but still I did not venture to touch it. It felt profane to do so. I heard the panicked cries of other visitors. At the bow of the ship, giant ants were invading. In true Dali fashion, their segmented bodies had visible gaps between the component parts. On of the ants turned it attention to the ship and rushed at us with clicking mandibles. Now it was Land of the Giants, a favourite TV show from my childhood. 

I looked behind me, and the candle had grown. Rather than melting, it was steadily growing taller, rising up alongside the mast, a proud, phallic column dripping with wax that puddled at its base. Incredible. We were surrounded by fireflies, I saw people trying to touch them, forgetting that they were in a simulation. Then we were surrounded by floating orbs, which became eyeballs. We were ogled from all sides by hundreds of them. I felt naked and exposed before the all-seeing, penetrating gaze of a higher being. 

The desertscape was sucked into a vortex, and we were in space, hurtling toward an unknown destiny. Stars and comets whizzed by. Enormous monoliths and heads of statues rolled at us through the cosmos, sometimes threatening to obliterate our tiny vessel. I gazed upon the faces of angels, but here my memory disintegrates the most, for this section of the voyage was sheer abstract surrealism and beyond the realm of understanding. I was undergoing a profound spiritual ephiphany. I felt like I was in the presence of God and nothing on Earth would ever be the same again. I did not want to leave, I did not want it to end. Already I was calculating how I could remain in the simulation and experience it all over again. I was planning my return.

During the space section, I lost all sense of time, place, and being. I was at one with the cosmos, witnessing glimpses of Creation itself. I imagined how Dali would have felt, seeing his creations coming alive in this manner. No doubt he would have been thrilled, he would himself have likely pioneered this technology had he lived long enough. It had happened - I was finally impressed by that which I had always shunned. 

I saw myself some years from now, a VR junkie, living my life inside these fascinating worlds. I could curl up on deck and stare slack-jawed at the Heavens, as lost and enraptured as any opium addict in the fume-ridden dens of old. The real world held no allure now. I had 'touched the face of God' and transcended the bounds of my mortal shell. Why have a body when I could be a brain in a jar, a head in VR? My overactive imagination jumped ahead and showed me my lifeless corpse being carried from the house, VR set still attached, a line of dribble from the corner of my mouth. It would not be a bad way to go.

I don't remember the end of the dazzling show, but at some point the dreamscape faded and we were inside a wire mesh, Tron-like cube. I didn't realise that it had ended and we were supposed to leave. My mind had been fried, and from this point on, I would exist only as a passive avatar. Visitors were leaving through a hidden door. I became convinced that I had missed the start of the whole thing, as indignant as an addict, angry that the staff had tried to cheat me. I wanted to stay for the next rotation. I noticed that one of the diving helmets had half sunk into the floor of the virtual space, like Robin Williams trapped in the floorboards on Jumanji. Perhaps this particular guest had succumbed to virtual reality, become assimilated into its cybernetic framework?

Eventually, all good things must end, and against my will I was drawn to the exit. Once in the portal, four grid walls closed in around me, boxing me in with nowhere to go. Before I could get fully claustrophic, there was a flash of blinding light, the light at the end of the tunnel, and the same woman who had strapped my headset on was pulling it off. I was back in the dreary foyer of the exhibition, blinking in stupefaction. My body was back, but my mind was forever altered.

In a daze, I went through the motions of visiting the bathroom and ambling through the gift shop, chatting non-stop about the encounter. I saw Dali jigsaw puzzles for sale. Who on earth would want to buy a 2D jigsaw puzzle after experiencing that? Once outside, I saw with bitterness the bleak and hideous grey of the real world. I felt slightly nauseous and my head pounded, although that could have been the effects of only drinking coffee on an empty stomach. My friend complained of a similar sickness, and we located a park close at hand where we could 'touch grass.' 

One of the trees was planted upside down, with its branches in the ground and its roots soaring into the sky. I pointed it out, to see if my friend could see it too. He could. Perhaps part of our minds were still locked away in the simulation? The comedown was intense. The oppressive environment of East London was appalling to one who had so recently soared with angels and clung from the very fabric of the Multiverse. I was about to sit down on the grass when I noticed a pile of dog shit. Yes, we were definitely back in the real world.

This profound spiritual awakening, so unexpected, but not unwelcome in my Autumn years, immediately set me to work researching consumer-friendly headsets. The one we used was an industry model known as HTC VIVE Focus 3. It has a lot of nice specs and features, including hand tracking and a fitted cooling fan, but comes with a hefty price tag and is typically reserved for the workforce. A more compatible and affordable choice would be the PSVR2, but I wanted to know how it compared to what I had been through. So far, I have been unable to find anybody familiar with both headsets. This relatively new era of tech does not enable the average consumer to afford more than one. 

Ideally, I would like somebody who uses PSVR2 to visit the Dali exhibition and offer an honest comparison. Have I really touched the face of God, or am I simply a starstruck initiate with so much more to look forward to? I sincerely hope it's the latter, but either way, I could not be more pleased by the manner in which I lost my VRginity. I'm not ashamed to admit how wrong I was about VR. At the ripe old age of 38, I thought there was nothing left in the world that could surprise me, but VR has done so much more than that. The possibilites to use it for a better world are too numerous to list here; that would be a discussion for another day. Right now, the future is here - one must simply reach out and grasp it...

Dali Cybernetics - How I Touched the Face of God (Part 1)

Thursday 27th July 2023 was a life changing day for me. It may go down in my personal history as a moment of revelation, standing alongside other gilded milestones like Saturday 28th October 2000, when I first saw The Texas Chainsaw Massacre as it premiered on UK television. These moments are to be cherished, documented, and discussed. This blog has primarily dealt with my rich inner world of dreams, but today, I break tradition to review an exhibition I attended in London two weeks ago. 

The exhibition in question was Dali Cybernetics: The Immersive Experience, which took place at The Boiler House in Brick Lane, a rundown, industrial part of East London. As someone who has attended a wide range of London art exhibitions, from high end installations to down and dirty warehouses, I had some idea of what to expect, but nothing could have prepared me for the religious epiphany that lay in wait. But I jump ahead. And how can one not, when one has been transmogrified, soared with angels and, to quote the poet John Gillespie Magee Jr., 'touched the face of God'? 

Upon entry, you are presented with a pair of cardboard 3D glasses, the very same to be found in every children's magazine in the nineties. These 3D specs are sparingly used and, as in the nineties, are at best a tawdry gimmick. You will find nothing spectacular in their application. Indeed, they were a mere teaser for what was to come, an appertif for the main serving.

For those with an interest in Salvador Dali, and surrealism in general, the early information is presented in standard gallery fare, via printed text on walls. The information explores his fascination with cybernetics, science, and mysticism. I learned more about Dali than I thought I knew, such as the full extent of his virtuosity. Not only was he a painter, he also dabbled in film, sculpture, graphic arts, photography, physics, astronomy, novel writing, and much more, all to a high skill level. He was a true Renaissance man. In a world where we are encouraged to find one profession and stick to it, we will not see his like again. I remarked to the friend I was with, that had he been alive today, Dali would most certainly have been a video game developer.

One line from the exhibition which stayed with me was Dali's mission. It is stated that he aimed to 'bridge the gap between man and angel.' This intermarriage between religion and science, a communion I long knew to be entirely possible and necessary, was reinforced for me here. I knew I was on the right track with my personal philosophy. If Dali says something, you stop and listen.

Another thing that jumped out at me (not literally, not yet) was how energetic the man was. The second room is a small cinema, with a looped film of Dali strutting along the street, posturing in front of an audience, and finally being buried in a coffin full of money whilst being sniffed at by an ocelot. All standard fare for the eccentric extrovert. Just watching his antics made me feel tired - us sleepy, modern men are not made for such frolics.

After the film, there is more information and artworks, including an interactive installation involving drawing on an ipad and having your contribution displayed on a large wall mounted display. I did not engage well with this, and rarely do when active interaction is on offer. Imagining all the bacteria accumulating on those screens, my post Covid aversion to humans kicked in. Then it was down a flight of stairs and into the penultimate room - a spacious gallery with moving images projected onto the walls, floor, and ceiling.

Visitors are encouraged to take a seat on the numerous deckchairs or bean bags scattered around, and to watch the visual display. It lasts for some thirty minutes before repeating itself, and there are moments where you can don the 3D glasses for trippy effects. Feet enthusiasts will be excited to learn that at one point, the giant foot of a woman comes out of the wall straight into your face (pictured below). I am not here to judge. We see many of Dali's more famous paintings presented thus. This part of the exhibition was serene and lulled me into a state of lethargy. It acted as a fluffer for the main event, relaxing one's mind and body, rendering one more susceptible to engage with what followed. 

My main criticism of this portion is that the music was ill-chosen, a point I was sure to raise in my customer feedback the next day. Far too aggressive and in some places downright derivative, the music distracted and detracted from, rather than enhanced the experience. The intrusive tracks did not fit well with the surreal, morphing artwork all around. When we have far more suitable scores from Minimalist composers like Philip Glass, Steve Reich and Terry Riley on offer, why resort to such clumsy choices? Was it a licensing issue, or a conscious decision? Either way, it marred the experience.

AI and discussions on its application remains a popular topic at the moment, and part of the immersion experience is given over to showcase AI-generated Dali art. Indeed, as could be predicted, to the untrained eye it was nigh on indistinguisable from Dali's true works. What amused me was the way the music turned sinister and oppressive at this point, to villify the concept for audiences. One could easily imagine the lamentations on the 'death of art' that went on behind the scenes. Earlier in the exhibition, we see a quotation from Dali, who himself prophesied that AI would be the future of art. I am sorry James Cameron, but it was not you who made that prediction.

I appreciate you bearing with me up to this point, but we are now entering the main event. The money shot. The thrilling climax. My spiritual epiphany and conversion to a religion I never knew existed. I present to you the reason for the pilgrimage and the 'engoodening' of the exhibition - the VR section of Dali Cybernetics. From reading other reviews, it distresses me knowing that some people skipped out on this part through fear of the unknown, or perhaps an aversion to new experiences. Forgive them, for they know not what they do. I used to be one of them. I was lost, and saw the light. I was bereft, and found succour. I was a mariner without a compass. A shepherd without a flock. A cosmonaut without a ship, etc. etc. But more on that later, and you will have to wait until tomorrow.

Classic Tanker

For as long as I can remember, I've been having recurring dreams about animals that wouldn't usually be held together, squashed into the same tank, at zoos or aquariums. I call these dreams Tankers, and last night's was as classic as they come. It started with me buying a new house with my wife and trying to figure out how to transport all the bookcases and shelves without a delivery van. There had been a cataclysmic event which had transformed large parts of the world, either burying them underwater, or reverting them to a state of nature. The dream actually helped inspire and fix an issue I've been pondering with regarding my novel. 

We were driving down Greenstead Road in Essex, which had been transformed into a verdant avenue. The houses were gone and had been replaced by palm trees. The road was also gone and was covered instead by a lush, springy swathe of grass, as brilliant a green as might be seen in the Okavango Delta. We drove over the grass and I remarked on how much smoother it felt than driving on tarmac. I said that we shouldn't have made roads in the first place, because any dampness or softness in the soil was still preferable to the numerous potholes that never got repaired on manmade roads. 

It was a beautiful drive, birds singing and chirping either side, tropical flowers blooming, the sun shining. Towards the end of the avenue, the lawn road split into two forks. Between the routes, a central area filled with ferns and shrubs was home to a colony of king penguins who lay on their bellies, soaking up the sun. It was an Edenic experience, and I was happy that a place which formerly filled me with dread had been so transformed. This was the road where Osgood Smiths, one of my first jobs, a dregrading confectionary warehouse, had been situated.

We parked the car at the end of the avenue and were informed by a woman at a ticket counter that it was known as as the Green Belt, and formed part of a zoological complex. I told her that I wished to see bison, and she directed us to another part of the zoo. We passed a large tank, home to several species, including a large variety of tropical fish. It was simulatenously a water-filled tank with aquatic animals, and also a place for terrestrial species. There were lots of small monkeys who played with the fish, reaching up to grab them as they swam overhead. How the monkeys breathed underwater, I had no idea, it was more like the fish were floating in air. A group of enormous komodo dragons crawled by close to the glass, dragging their heavy, muscular tails. They were more fearsome and a lot bigger than their real life counterparts, with protruding fangs like vipers. A zoo keeper called to his colleague that they had not been fed recently, for they appeared to be hunting the monkeys.

Further along, I saw cramped, bubble windows where two walruses slumbered on top of one another, awkwardly folded into the tiny area. More smaller windows with micro exhibits came next. There was another curled up walrus, this one a sickly shade of yellow. I spotted a marmot, or groundhog, with nothing more than a small pool to wash its face. Next to it was a European beaver, smaller than its American cousin and looking more like a muskrat. Similarly to the marmot, it only had a tiny area to live in, most of which was water with a few branches to climb onto. Between these smaller tanks and the large one, there was a small drawer that could be opened. Inside were two little robotic companions. They were made out of plastic and electronics, and responded to different forms of petting. The one I played with looked like a pink weasel. I tickled its belly and it squirmed around in my hand with programmed glee.

I noticed a commotion in the larger tank, so returned to take a closer look. The two walruses were gone and I saw that their bubble communicated to the larger tank by a gap at the top. Having uncurled themselves, the walruses were now much bigger, and floated around the tank with the other animals. Viewability was not good, as there were only a few portholes through which to look, but I caught side of their ragged, rear flippers pounding through the murky water. One of the fish from the tank had escaped, and hovered strangely in the air. It had a short trunk, and was known as a hog-nosed fish. I angled my head for a better look at the surface of the tank and saw the frilled head of an animatronic triceratops charging through the water. One of the walruses had grappled onto the side of it with its flippers and was slashing its tusks ino the dino's rubbery hide. 

The dream turned a bit strange at that point, so I won't go into further details. We had to form a row, dressed in various historical outfits (I was a cultist), and complete an assignment for sweets and VR rewards.

Cooksbridge Sea Lion

In this dream, it had been raining a lot, and the river Ouse had swollen its banks. A lot of runoff made its way to the street outside our house in Cooksbridge, creating a deep, expansive puddle on the road. I was in Lulu's bedroom looking out of the window when I saw a black hump emerging from the pool, and cutting a path through the water. A head emerged, and I saw that it was a sea lion. I had heard of seals being spotted in the Ouse, but not sea lions. I called my daughter over and lifted her up to see, but she did not share my susprise or excitement. The sea lion did not know what to do, and appeared to be swimming in endless circles, occasionally emerging for a quick blast of air. After a while of this, it left the puddle completely and began worrying the neighbour's wheely bins, knocking them over and ripping out the plastic bags. The neighbours called animal control, who were on their way to relocate it.

African McDonalds

In this first after a dearth of memorable dreams, I took my family to South Africa on holiday. My five year old daughter is a fussy eater, who takes after how her father used to be. Worried that she wouldn't eat any of the local food, I took her to a McDonalds in the city. Those with children know the irony of travelling halfway across the world to experience an exotic locale only to end up at a fast food joint. My Chinese in-laws were also with us, who it must be said, share their grand daughter's fussy habits, liking only Chinese food.

Compared to the UK, the McDonalds here was very quiet, and I was surprised to see white, middle aged British women working there. We sat down at a booth and were back and forth to the counter ordering drinks and chicken nuggets. It was a hot day, as it generally is in South Africa, so I was enjoying the lazy pace and cold drinks. I noticed that several birds were inside the restaurant, and I sat back to try and identify them. The far wall was a mass of greenery, which they flitted in and out of.

There was a bulky, dark bird with a long tail which fanned out like a peacock, or a grouse. I tried to point it out to my daughter, but she was more interested in her chicken nuggets, and it would fly away everytime she tried to look. Not only were there birds, but a white furry mammal skulked around the restaurant floor, looking for dropped food. I think it was a civet. The staff did not pay any attention to the animals, and I assumed they were frequent visitors.

When I was bored of watching these characters, I took a walk to the rear of the building where a length of glass windows offered a view outside. I was shocked to discover an Edenic paradise on the other side. Luscious green, tropical jungle, rolling mountains carpeted by trees, a sparkling blue waterfall, and occasionally the flash of sunlight on a window to remind us we were still in a city. Two elephants roamed about close by, and I saw the heads of numerous giraffes coasting through the treetops, one of them was an albino. I called my daughter over to look, and together we watched the inspiring vista.

Dinosaur Denial

A few nights ago I dreamt that my eldest sister and her family had moved to a bigger house in the country. We all went to visit them, and the children were playing outside in the garden which was open to the surrounding fields and woods. At first it seemed like an ideal setting for them, and Fallon was gushing about how much better it was for the children than their old place. That was, until I noticed that they were surrounded by dinosaurs. The dinosaurs roamed freely, but when I pointed them out, Fallon seemed in denial. It was likely that she did not want to admit to the folly in buying a house in such a dangerous location.

I stood in the field, with her husband Aaron, as the sky turned pink and the sun slowly began to set. A herd of Amargasaurus rumbled by in the distance, and enormous Pteranodons swooped in the meadow, catching creatures in the gathering dusk. I tried to figure out what prey they were catching, when one of them flew close I looked at the struggling animal in its beak but could not work out what it was. I commented on how large and terrifying the pterasaurs were, but Aaron, like his wife, simply shurgged and downplayed the threat.

I then looked up the hill that rose to the woods and spied a gigantic Spinosaurus that had taken an interest in us and was cautiously approaching. I could see the outline of its ragged sail against the setting sun, and it's elongated head, almost duck-like, bobbing and weaving as it regarded us. When I pointed it out, Aaron reluctantly agreed to move inside and bring the children, but Fallon kept the patio doors wide open. I told her that the Spinosaurus could easily stick its head inside and eat her children, plucking them out one by one like a fox in a coop. She told me it was a lovely summer's evening and she wouldn't close the doors. She also told me off for trying to ruin their joy in put a downer on things. 

Monstrous Wolf

Last night I was with some friends at a swing park when we espied a pack of wolves on the fringe of the woods, some distance away. In typical machismo fashion, we urged one another on to take shots at them, to scare them off lest they hurt the children. It was a bad idea. In my eagerness to impress, I took aim with the sniper rifle, lined up the biggest wolf in my sights, and squeezed the trigger. Unfortunately, I had failed to account for the trigonometry of long range shooting, and my bullet fell far short. Although missing its intended target, the wolves were intelligent, and knew we were trying to hunt them. Most of them scattered into the forest, but the alpha male, the one I had intended to shoot, charged in my direction. 

I just had time to reload before the great brute was upon us. My compatriots hung back and left me to finish the job. As the wolf opened its jaws to attack, I thrust the barrel of the gun into its mouth and shot it through. It was a horrendous, demonic wolf, with elongated jaws like a crocodile, or some primordial beast that no longer stalks the land. The bullet did nothing to repel the creature, so I fired again. Again the wolf came on, enraged and foaming at the chops. I shot again, and again. Then I had to reload. The beast reared up to deliver a killing bite, just as I managed to slide one more bullet into the chamber, swing the rifle back into its open maw, and fire again. This shot did the job. The creature began to hiss and expel smoke from its jaws, like an old steam train. 

I thought it would drop dead now, but was not prepared for it regurgitating a big awful sack, like a placenta. We watched in revulsion as the wolf turned inside out to release its gastric burden, and then finally melt away in viscera and sulphur. What it left behind began to stir and groan in its membranous prison. The cocoon burst, and out flopped a giant, bald mutant lady, half reptile. One of her legs was a swollen, scaled club, appalling in its mutatedness. Whether the unfortunate victim had undergone such a metamorphosis in the wolf's belly, or if she's been like that before, we would never know, for the wretch could only moan. Half of her face was covered in green scales, and one of her arms was also a blistered mess. After several minutes writhing in agony, her body bubbled up, and then she exploded like a pus-filled boil.

Hotel Haunting

In this latest dream, I was on holiday in Paris with my family and my friend Darren, who was staying with us at the time of the dream. We were checked into a hotel in a central part of the city, a hotel which was rumoured to be haunted by a white lady. Li was away at a conference, and I was with Darren and Lulu when we heard the shriek of war planes overhead. The plaza lit up as multiple warheads streaked across the leaden sky. We ran with a crowd of frightened civilians, attempting to escape the warzone. Debris exploded around us and something large and metallic fell out of the sky, narrowly missing us. A war was not something we had signed up for, but we managed to get a good distance away from the hotel and to safety. I thought perhaps they may have been return missiles from Russia or Ukraine.

Later on, we retraced our steps through the blast zone to get back to the hotel. When we complained at the front desk, the staff assured us that the strikes were over and we would be safe to finish our stay. We were not so sure, but did not have the time or money to find alternative accomodation. Darren had downloaded a ghost app, which tracked supernatural activity. It was night now, and as we lay in our beds in a shared room, Darren whispered that the white lady had been picked up on the app and was making her way from a distant canal to our hotel. The app marked her progress as a radar blip, and we cowered beneath the sheets as it drew ever closer. 

"She's in the lobby now," he whispered, "let's pretend to be asleep." We closed our eyes and spent an uncomfortably long time waiting to see what happened. After a while, I checked the phone again and saw that the radar blip was right next to us, which meant the ghost had entered our room. I'm not sure what was more terrifying, the airstrike of earlier, or the confirmation of an invisible presence in the room. I will be going on holiday in Paris in real life in August, so let us hope this dream does not turn out to be prophetic.

Coil

Things have been busy lately so I haven't had a large amount of time to keep up with blogging. As a result, I am writing up an old dream from some weeks past. I dreamt about a horror film called Coil, straight from the annals of my own imagination. The film doesn't exist, so don't try to search for it. Ewan McGregor was a murderous vigilante with a coiled neck. His origin story was that he met some orphans in Bolivia and became 'the People's Serpent' to protect them from local mobsters. He would protect the children by encircling them with his deformed neck. His neck was a bit like the bloated lekku of Bib Fortuna from Return of the Jedi, albeit more maggoty, sweaty, and viscerally disgusting.

Much of the film was set in a sunny American state, where he played the 'nice guy'/ love interest of the female lead. Towards the end of the film, his identity as Coil is revealed and he is linked to a string of grisly murders they were investigating. He managed to hide his deformity throughout much the film by always wearing a scarf. In the final act, he unwraps the scarf to reveal his fat neck coils which can unwind to strangulate prey. He then proceeded to chase the heroine through the house, where she was alone at night. The film reminded me a lot of Slither (2006) for its aesthetics and practical effects. I don't know what induced me to have such a dream, but I thought it was sufficiently unusual enough to warrant a short post. Perhaps it can find its way into a novel one day, in some form. 

Coastal Exiles

This was a strange, philosophical dream with hints of horror, intrigue, and erotica. I was on an undisclosed, rocky beach which had a network of tunnels chiselled into the cliff face. These tunnels were visited by people eager to uncover mysteries. It involved traversing a dank, claustrophic series of undergound hallways resembling sewage maintenance, searching for clues until a locked wooden door could be opened. On the other side, something profound or distrubing would present itself to the seeker, usually prompting them to live a life of exile on the shore, pondering a specific question for the rest of their lives. But I jump ahead.

I underwent the trials earlier in the dream, but the memory of what awaited me behind the door has now unfortunately fled. This was because I had a busy shift at work today and was unable to write it down whilst fresh in my memory. All I recall is there being lots of dripping moisture, a soggy book, and something to do with fingers. The next person attempting to undergo the trials was a woman I know from real life, called Tamsin. She was excited about the prospect of uncovering the mystery, and was vlogging the experience to boost her social media following. We had some fleeting chats before she entered the tunnels.

After my trial, I was wandering somewhat aimlessly on the beach, which was cold and dismal. A parked double decker bus offered some warmth, hosting pockets of teenage schoolgirls who sat gossiping and eating smelly crisps. I attempted to find a spot on the bus, on both the lower and upper deck, but I felt self-conscious around the teenagers, and was worried I might be mistaken for a sexual predator. I returned to the sea, where I noticed a scattering of people all sitting around on large rocks and jutting boulders, gazing out to sea in the manner of Auguste Rodin's The Thinker.

Tamsin returned from the tunnels, although I wasn't sure if she had completed her challenge. She told me that these people had all opened the door, and were now isolated from society. They had given themselves over to thinking about nothing but one specific question, channelling all their mental energy into it day after day until they died. Towards the end of their lives, they may not have reached enlightenment, but they would be closer to the truth than anyone else in the history of the world, so close they could almost reach out and touch it as a physical object. Then they would depart from the world. I decided to join them in their exile, but what my question would be, I did not know. 

Sea Lion Loft

Lately I've been worried about structural collapse. I have a new build house, and because they tend to be made out of materials similar to cardboard, a lot of cracks have been appearing in the ceiling. More seriously, the outside mortar is crumbling away, and requires an expensive repointing job. With these concerns in mind, I dreamt about my other house in Wivenhoe, which had we had moved back to. Before we moved to Sussex, we had tried to convert the loft to a bedroom, but the architect and builder we hired disappeared after the blueprints were drawn up. This time, we were determined to do something with the space, and we had the idea of turning it into a sea lion pool.

I'm not sure what possessed us to make such a ludicrous decision, but we went ahead with it, and the result was appallingly executed. Five sea lions were bought and transported to the pool, half of the loft area was fitted with a glass tank, and a small window, only the size of the entry hatch, looked into the tank from below. We could see the sea lions gliding past if we stood directly beneath it, but there was no way in and no way out, being hermetically sealed. Once their fish and shrimp food ran out, there was no way to resupply. There was also nowhere for the sea lions to haul themselves out onto, they were trapped swimming in endless circles. 

I began to worry about the weight of all that water pressing down on the ceiling. Being directly above our master bedroom, and the bed where we slept, the nightmare of everything falling onto us in our sleep was constantly present. One day, I inspected the ceiling above the bed for signs of wear and was stressed to discover beads of water forming in a line. The beads then turned to a trickle as a long crack appeared. I had the presence of mind to run downstairs, just as a defeaning rip tore through the house and the floodgates opening. I was looking after my parents' dogs and tried to corral them all into the living room, but I was too late.

They ran upstairs barking, and I could hear the guttural roars of the sea lions as they engaged in battle. Water gushed downstairs, along with all manner of debris, dead fish, and squirming shrimp. It was a disaster beyond my wildest fears. I closed to the doors to barricade myself and my family in the living room as I went through my phone trying to find the contact details of the man who had installed the tank. Eventually I found him, and he agreed to come over to assess the damage. He told us that the sea lions would need to be relocated to the local zoo. The rest of the dream was spent standing outside as the house was cordoned off and a team of firemen and animal wranglers arrived to begin clearup operations.

One of the investigators located an empty wine bottle that had turned up inside the brickwork of the house, which had apparently been contaminating our water supply. Inside the bottle was a giant ball of green mould, which had been freely mingling with our water. I told the man that we always recycled wine bottles, and it must have been carried by a rat back into the house. I did not understand the bottle's connection to the tank collapse, but the investigator insisted it was my fault, no doubt trying to clear the construction company from any insurance cover. The dream was certainly a strange one, but I should point out there is a scene in my novel with a similar scenario, only it's a giant nile crocodile in the ceiling.

Seaton Delaval Hall

A signficant return to Seaton Delaval Hall. I dreamt about it only a few nights ago, when I drove past with my wife and daughter on our return to Whitley Bay. It's time to take note when a location recurs so soon. The haunted hall, much like it used to do in real life, offered the rooms out to guests for the night, so they could enjoy a spooky experience. As we were still holidaying in Whitley Bay, we decided to visit the hall to see what it was like inside. There were only two rooms available to stay in, both in the central building, on the top floor.

The main room, and the one in which most people stayed, was an expansive loft, with rough wooden floorboards and splintery beams. Guests were expected to bring their own tents to the unfurbished space, which would typically be set up in the middle of the floor. This attic was pitch black, lit only by whatever light the campers brought with them, in this case, a small paraffin lamp. There were no windows, yet around the circumference of the loft, the floor ended, falling away into blackness. And black it was readers, blacker than anything I had ever experienced in dreams or the waking world. A malevolent presence hung about the place, and it was said that many a visitor experienced terrors beyond their wildest imaginings.

The loft was reputed to be the site where the White Lady had originally comitted suicide, after discovering that her baby was dead, throwing herself from a window, which had since been boarded up. Part of me knew I was dreaming, so, beckoned by the irresistable darkness where the floor fell away to meet the sloping roof, I threw myself into the void. My reasoning was that I would die and respawn. But panic filled me as I fell, into the soft, musty darkness. Down, down I went, into the fabric of the house, inside the walls, irretrievable and choking, sinking into the ashes and dust and fouling tar. It was a horrible situation, and an awful way to go, as my wife and daughter waited above. 

I inhaled mouthfuls of the noxious blackness, filling my lungs and hoping for a swift death. I've never died in a dream before, but this time I did. My death was so traumatic, my unconscious brain dragged me out, back to the loft. I did not experience relief, but rather fear that my daughter might accidentally fall in next and experience similar suffering. Her small body would never be found, not even if the entire hall were to be demolished, so deep and claustrophobic were those shadowy recesses. It was like the out-of-bounds, liminal sections in video games, uncoded and inaccessible. A Nutty Putty hell.

We left the horrific loft to check out the other room available to guests. This one was a proper room, with a double bed, curtains, and some furniture. It was a small room, designed for less adventurous couples who wanted a more comfortable stay. There was a large round window with spokes, such as might be found in a clocktower. Despite the admittance of light, and the domestic comforts, the close proximity to the loft exuded enough evil energy that we had no desire to spend the night or remain a moment longer. I told Li how terrifying it must be to stay in those quarters. On the way out, I wrapped myself in an old fashioned night dress and pretended to scare our daughter as the White Lady.

Osgood Tarsiers

Osgood Smiths is a confectionary warehouse in Colchester where I worked for a large part of my teenage years. I continued working there during my first year at universisty to pay for my fees. It was a miserable place, with tedious, backbreaking work assembling sweet, crisp, drink and cigarette orders for local newsagents. I still dream about the place now and again, and the dreams are always just as boring as the reality. Last night I was back, post university, pursuing the same relentless, mindnumbing order assemblage. This time there was a difference, in that Sam Hearn, a former university friend, also had a job there. We were communicating through headsets, despite it being his day off. 

A typical shift would involve taking a paper order from the tray on the boss's desk and having to hunt down the items in the warehouse, keeping them on a pallet ready for packing They would then be strapped up into bundles on a machine, shrink wrapped, then labelled, scanned, and entered into an invoice on an old LED computer with a black screen and green letters. There were now animals in the warehouse, primates and parrots, which customers could order to buy. I was going through my rounds when I noticed an order for two tarsiers on my clipboard. A tarsier is a small, nocturnal primate from Southeast Asia. I found the ones I was looking for in a corner of the warehouse, near the Coca Cola bottles. They were clinging to a long wire branch, covered in cobwebs and clumps of their moulted, woolly grey fur.

I was a little bit scared of these bug-eyed, scratchy-clawed critters, so rather than attempt to pick them up directly, I took hold of the wire branch they were clinging to and carried it back to my pallet. On the headset, Sam Hearn was talking about how his favourite animal order to assemble was a 'blue monkey.' My sister, Fallon, was hovering near my pallet, slacking off, and she came over to inspect the tarsiers. We noticed that they had shed their tails. These were eventually found on the dirty warehouse floor, like little brushes. I was able to re-attach them to the primates, as though with velcro. The tarsiers leapt onto my chest and I began to wonder how I was supposed to get them ready for packing. I did not want to ask In the Corner, the giant boss who ran the warehouse.

Return to Whitley Bay

This year, all going well, I plan to take a short holiday at Whitley Bay, in Newcastle. I lived there for four years when I was young, and although I do not have many pleasant memories of the place, it was after all, a coarse and anti-intellectual coal-mining community back then, it does feature as a prominent location in the novel I'm writing. I therefore plan to return for research purposes. A few nights ago I returned there rather earlier than I had anticipated, in the land of nod. 

In the dream, I drove there with my wife and daughter, a long journey from the south coast. My parents are planning to come with us in real life, but in the dream, I had forgotten to make plans with them. I was sending them Whatsapp messages to the family group, throughout the dream. The first recognisable location we drove past was Seaton Delaval Hall. I explained to my wife that as a boy I was driven past this foreboding mausoleum on my way to school every morning, eels twisting themselves into knotted nerves in my belly, for it was a grey and vicious school, and I hated it. 

Each morning, as we approached the gravel drive, where we would have a brief glimpse of the estate, walled in by trees, we would crane our necks and frantically scan the many windows, seeking a glimpse of the fabled White Lady. Like so many of these stately homes, she was reputed to haunt the grounds at night, and could often be seen by locals standing at an upstairs window. None of us ever did see her, but that didn't curb our enthusiasm. I explained to my daughter on the back seat that there was a ghost in the building, passing on the excitement to the next generation.

Our glimpse of the hall was over, and we were on the stretch of road that led to my old secondary school, Seaton Sluice Middle School. A terrible place if ever there was one, but I wanted to see it again. It was a weekend and the school was closed, but the gates were open and we were able to go in to explore. We explored the canteen, a place I don't have any memory of, but in the dream, I was surprised to see that nothing had changed from my 'dream memory.' The old plastic tablecloths were still draped over the table, showing their age, a polar theme stamped upon them, ice floes and seals. 

We left the slightly creepy canteen behind and reached the seafront, where there resided the iconic Spanish City, a former amusement park with an elaborate entrance resembling a Sultan's summer palace, bleached white. The place had seen better days, and now resembled a crumbling ruin with chipped paint and exposed meshwork. The whole promenade was dead, a forgotten glimpse into a past that had not moved on. Lonely, bleak, and utterly uncompromising in its melancholia, I watched the tired sand dunes as we drove farther up the coast, seeking out our budget hotel.

Cooksbridge Condors

It was a grey sort of day, and I was looking at the garden through the patio windows when I noticed two rather large birds in the field beyond the fence. You know how your eye is instinctively drawn towards anything out of the pale? Well it was this scenario. "Li, come and look at these weird birds!" I called to my wife, who came over. The birds were larger than pheasants, the birds we're used to seeing in the field, and far more rotund, almost like turkeys. Their feathers were speckled brown, like a hen's, but their heads and necks were bald and wrinkled. Sexual dimorphism indicated that a male and female were present. After pecking around in the ditch, they waddled up the bank and into our garden. It was then I could identify them as condors.

Condors are large birds. The Andean condor has one of the largest wingspans of all flying birds, and the largest of all raptors. I do not know what species these were, but as they drew nearer to the glass doors, I realised there was something monstrous about them. I got my phone out to take photos, but as is always the case in dreams, the camera wouldn't work. The condors had spotted us, and rather than take off, as most birds would, they came closer still, right up to the glass. They had long, hideous crocodilian snouts, brimming with sharp teeth. Their snouts clattered against the window as they tried to bite us. Eventually, when they realised they weren't getting through, they wandered off.

Next to visit our garden was a huge fuzzy Procoptodon, a kind of prehistoric kangaroo. It bounded into the middle of the lawn, turned to look at me with its bear-like face, then leaped away again. I think I may have managed to get a photo this time. Later on in the dream, more exotic creatures made an appearance in the field. They were peafowl-like birds, equipped with razor spurs and shimmering, metallic tail feathers. Quite a curious assemblage.

Bat Tree

I've started to have considerably more dreams set in Cooksbridge, and two nights ago, one of them became rather more iconic than the usual fare. There was a big old rambling house at the side of the road, completely overgrown and dilapidated, lived in by a reclusive pensioner. Dominating the front lawn was an immense tree of a tropical variety, something like a spreading fig with overhanging branches and lots of dangling foliage - I'm not very good with trees! It excuded a stickly, slightly sour aroma, evidence of it being from a much warmer clime. Roosting in this dark and foreboding tree, well-hidden within the fronds, was a colony of medium-sized fruit bats, or megabats. Two species were present: Egyptian fruit bats, and a larger Epauletted fruit bat (exact species unknown), although I'm not sure how I possessed this information as I'm almost as bad as identifying bat species as I am trees.

I had to pass by the tree on my dog walks, and as the tree was bursting out over the pavement, I invariably came into close proximity to the bats. For the most part, they kept to themselves, hanging upside down in concealment, their leathery wings wrapped tightly around this bodies. The bats would leave the tree at dusk to go foraging, but what they ate around here was a mystery. There was a sinister narrative involving a diamond which was allegedly hidden inside the house, but I forget the details. The bat tree stuck in my mind throughout the day, and I got to wondering what might have triggered it, or what it could represent, if anything. I wondered if there was anything threatening about my dog walks that had permeated by unconscious. The majority of the dream had me back at university as a student, stressing about assignments and deadlines, a recurring theme.

Beethoven Conference

It was a Sunday and I was playing DayZ when Li reminded me that I was due at the university for an interview on Beethoven that I'd signed up for. The classical music association was looking for gamers to offer their input on the great composer. The process involved mailing my PS2 to them, to prove that I was a gamer. My acceptance letter was included in the return parcel and I saw that the other participants had all dropped out, leaving me as the last remaining guest. I had been promoted to lead speaker, and I was to head the all day conference, running from 9am to 5pm in the evening, followed by refreshments.

I arrived at the university as a bundle of nerves, having had no time to prepare anything. I took my place at the lectern in the lecture theatre, which weirdly, was in the middle of the tiered seating, so everyone in front had to look behind them to see me. I don't remember how I opened the conference, but I must have stated everything I knew about Beethoven in those first fifteen minutes. When I ran out of material, my voice began to falter, my speech became incoherent, and eventually the flight response kicked in. I fled to the back of the lecture hall, at the top of the seats, where some changing rooms awaited.

Once inside, I changed out of my suit and into an informal yellow t-shirt with jeans, hoping to blend in with the student crowd and make my escape. Since abandoning the mic, some students had been invited up to read their poems, and a pianist played a few of Beethoven's pieces. I slid awkwardly over the backs of the seats to get to the bottom of the theatre. On my way, I saw a lot of sterm looking men in top hats, seated towards a shadowy alcove at the back of the hall. In addition to these sombre audience members, there were was a university sports team, and a gaggle of summer school students.

I sank into a chair on the front row and tried to make myself small. It was to no avail, for the moment I was spotted, the woman organising the conference reinvited me to retake the mic. A burst of andrenaline took over, and I decided to end this harrowing case of imposter syndrome and admit the truth. I reached the lectern, and in a shaky voice, I admitted that I had no idea why I was here, or what I was expected to do. Before I could complete my sentence, the pianist jumped in with an aggressive sonata and drowned me out. I waited, defeated, furiously wracking my brain for more things to say about Beethoven.

I remembered the famous quotation, 'written from the heart, may it go to the heart' but I wasn't confident that I had it down correctly. Fortunately, my daughter woke me up from the nightmare at that point, at 5am in the morning. I had never been more relieved to hear her crying.

Wooden Boy

I have lately been watching various Pinocchio adapations, there seem to be a lot of them around at the moment. It was only inevitable, therefore, that I had a Pinocchio inspired dream. I was a volunteer at a live theatre company, along with other members of the public, who would queue up to perform with the same troupe. The gig was to play the titular character of Pinocchio, allowing the actors to dictate the narrative and be swept along for the experience, almost like a paid 'actor for a day' scheme.

I forget the opening scenes of the play, but my memory kicks in when Pinocchio (me) was visited by a doctor with a waistcoat and pocket watch. The actor playing the doctor was clearly homosexual, and whilst performing the farcical gestures with me, involving a health inspection (which was supposed to be funny, because Pinocchio is made of wood), he surreptitiously molested me. I did not know if this groping was part of the play, or something the actor was doing to signal his interest, but I firmly pushed his hand away and the show went on without interruption. 

The doctor pretended to bleed me, and getting into the spirit of proceedings, I performed an exaggerated swoon and feigned a collapse. To revive me, I was led to some tables where chefs were serving up real platters of hot food. I looked over all the appetising stews, soups, and noodle dishes, asking for generous helpings from each. The joke here was that puppets do not need to eat. I indulged in some small talk, telling the catering staff about how fussy my daughter was.

The next part of the show was the big puppet threatre set piece, run by the abusive gypsy Stromboli. It was the same actor who played the doctor, in even more fanciful attire, replete with silken cuffs, frills, curled wig and pompadour makeup. He placed some glasses on my face and painted blue spirals on them, then he took my cheeks in his hands and crooned about how I would be his masterpiece. He whispered in my ear "no strings." The innuendo laden wordplay was not lost on me. The other puppets put on a bawdy, provacative performance to 'I've got no strings', much to the amusement of the audience. This involved the puppets performing a copulation dance with  painted wooden breasts and genitalia on display.

For the next scene, Stromboli grew angry with Pinocchio and tried to discard him. I was thrown into a metal airduct, which I was supposed to squeeze through before ending up in the trash. The duct was far too narrow for a person to fit into, so I climbed out and scuttled over to the refuse pile instead. Because I had held things up, the actor playing Pinocchio behind me (remember that this was conveyor belt theatre) was emerging from the duct at that time, and landed painfully on his face. There was now no guidance for what I was supposed to do, so I wandered between metal pipes and dusty walkways until a Dickensian London gang caught me up and introduced me to rough-living street life, complete with energetic song and dance.

I had played my role rather woodenly up until this point, not wanting to take the shine away from the real actors, but now I got really into the performance and acted my heart out. When the show ended, I was given a resounding applause, and even won the prize for best participant role out of all the volunteers. Nonetheless, the molestation had made the experience not worth it in the end.