Heads and Isopods

Some weeks back I was having dreams of a grotesque nature involving severed human heads. The first one I tried to ignore by not writing it down, but then the second one took place and forced me to take notice. My dreams can be vital clues as to what's going on in my life, and they have often proven to be downright prophetic. I ignore them at my peril. In the first dream, I was at Heartbreak Hotel in the dining room and kitchen area, being forced to look after the severed head of a man. It was a ghastly green in colour, and sat on a plate in the fridge, wrapped with clingfilm. Because I pushed the dream out of my mind, I don't remember too well the specifics of what happened, other than that the head may have been somewhat alive, and it had unpleasant appendages trailing off from it. If memory serves, the dogs were trying to eat it.

I have a clearer recollection of the second dream, which took place about a week or two later. This time the head in question was female, and she was most certainly dead, long dead if the state of her flesh was anything to go by. Emaciated and sickly green, her face was warped into a tortured scream, not unlike the skeletal corpse maquettes used in Spielberg films such as Poltergeist and Indiana Jones. Again, I was in possession of this head, and I was simultaneously attracted and repulsed by it. I may have purchased it from eBay. I placed the head between two large slices of bread to make a macabre sandwich, pressing them tightly together. The brittle skull cracked with the pressure, and green putrescence oozed out forming an unholy butter. Horrified by what I had done, I withdrew the head and placed it in a plastic jiffy bag. The sandwich had been intended for my dog, but the green gunk looked so nauseating and unwholesome, I threw them away.

I was then consumed by the fear, and I wanted to dispose of the head as soon as possible. I enlisted the help of a gang of teenagers, instructing them to bury it at the local cemetery, in such a way that it could never be traced back to me by police. After their briefing, which formed the longest section of the dream, they headed out into the night with torches and the offending head in a bag. However, they proved to be a bumbling, inept lot, and the operation was unsuccessful. That same night, a vagrant's dog dug up the head from its shallow grave, and the next day, the graveyard was swarming with police. I woke up before anything could be linked back to me, and I must confess that these severed heads have had me puzzled. I can't make head or tail of it. Were severed heads ever covered in Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams?

More recently, a few nights ago, I had another dream that revulsed me. There were no decapitated heads this time, but rather an appalling marine creature that will most certainly be making a future appearance in my novel's gallery of horrors. I was at a rundown zoo, as I usually am in dreams, making my way through an indoor aquarium. As I approached the exit, my face was almost brushed by a long spiny feeler extending over the top of an open tank. I flinched away and noticed a crowd of people gathered around the owner of the offending appendage. It was a giant isopod Bathynomus giganteus, a bottom-dwelling creature that exists in real life, but with some noticeable differences. The isopod resembles a giant woodlouse, complete with segmented carapace. In the dream, whilst retaining its vital anatomy, it also had long spiny antennae like a lobster, with coarse bristle pads at the ends of them.

I watched with mounting revulsion as a woman in a dark fur coat approached the isopod, which was hanging over the top of the tank, and embraced it. The isopod wrapped its feelers around the woman's head and began tenderly stroking her with the bristles. The woman brought her face up to the creature's complicated maw and kissed it, her lips pushing passionately against its chittering mandibles, her tongue thrusting deep into its mouth parts. As its many pointed limbs and feelers convulsed in sexual excitement, I could only stand and observe in horror. The kiss grew more passionate, the woman's hands roving over the isopod's carapace. People filmed the occasion on their mobile phones, as my stomach flip-flopped in sheer disgust. When the deed was done, and the woman was forced to move on by the crowd of visitors, I saw that she was crying.

"It was such a spiritual experience," she sobbed, wiping her eyes, as her friends consoled her. "Did you manage to film it? I need to put it on my Instagram." I caught a strong whiff of musky perfume as she passed, and guessed by her accent that she was foreign, possibly Eastern European or Russian. Whenever I think about the dream, I feel the bile rising in my chest. 

Potholing and Hotdogs

A couple of weeks ago, before contracting Covid, I dreamt that I was caving at Heartbreak Hotel. On the top floor is a crawlspace in the wall, a sort of sideways loft, and it was in here that we used to dump all our unwanted belongings. As a result, the loft was filled with all manner of paraphernalia: books, soft toys, PC games, college coursework, bags of clothes, etc. Whenever someone went in there, Daddy would hear the door opening and shout "You'd better not be dumping!" This time we were not dumping, we were excavating and caving. 

Similar to the phantom hallway in Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves, a strange hole had appeared amongst all the clutter. After some time spent tentatively probing it, I decided to launch a full scale expedition down there alone, with a rope tied around my waist. Li and my sisters watched as I cleared away armfuls of junk from the opening and lowered myself down. Each time the wooden beams supporting the crawlspace creaked from our movements, Daddy would shout up, "Get out of the loft!" I ignored him and lowered myself into the hole, confident he would never find me.

I shone a torch down the twisting shaft, but was unable to see too far down on account of all the clutter. It was necessary to excavate lots of it by throwing it up through the opening above me. At each turn in the descent, more rubbish needed to be cleared away, and as the bags of toys and clothes piled up above me, a real sense of claustrophobia started to kick in. I remembered John Jones trapped down in the Nutty Putty Cave, the same thing could easily happen to me, suffocating under heaps of accumulated household stuff. The minimalist in me was also deeply distressed, but it was too late to turn back, the hole must be conquered.

Sadly, I never got to finish the potholing, for the dream transitioned to something new. I was with Sir David Attenborough in a large warehouse, along with a worker conducting us on a tour. Tall metal shelves towered above us, and suspended on metal rods from the ceiling were cylindrical shaped packages resembling nuclear warheads or torpedoes. "Are those... sausages?" David asked, chuckling at the very idea. "Technically hotdogs," the tour guide told us, "this is a hotdog factory."

"My goodness," David laughed, exceedingly tickled by this revelation. Indeed, the weiners above us were of an immensity that would impress even the staunchest of vegans. I noticed then that the unwrapped ones were skewered on huge rotisseries, slowly rotating as they cooked. On the walls were stacks of grills, where smaller variants, but still gigantic by sausage standards, were being cooked. These would then roll off the trays and be tightly wrapped ready for shipment. They still looked more like sausages than hotdogs.

"Would you like to borrow one?" the tour guide asked us. "Oh yes please," said David, "my wife would be very interested in seeing such a giant sausage." I wasn't sure that I could return one of these monster hotdogs in a pristine state, so I asked if I could buy one instead. "This would feed my family for a week," I explained. The guide was unsure, they usually only loaned them out, but he went to fetch some giant boxes and to ask his supervisor. Whilst I waited, I wondered what use these things would be if we weren't allowed to eat them.

Sherlock and Watson

I was having a zoo dream about animals in squalid conditions when my daughter woke me up at 2am climbing by into my bed. Aside from a few nebulous impressions of baboons and other animals in crowded cages, I cannot recall enough details to write it down. So much for that! The next dream was a lot more memorable, with each detail fully formed and etched upon my memory. Here it is.

I was visiting a manor house with Li, in a place somewhere between Wivenhoe Park and the town of Lewes. The manor had a tea room where the public might visit and refresh themselves, and it was here that I learned the house would shortly be up for sale. Li and I tried to guess how much it would go for, I hazarded around a million, with the result being £800,000. Criminally low for such a large mansion, but this was dream logic at work. After boasting that I was closer to the mark than Li, we finished our tea and headed back into Lewes.

There we saw a convoy of school children and their teachers on bicycles, all the way from London. The child would sit on a small seat at the front, with their own set of pedals, whilst the teacher did the heavy pedalling on a seat from behind, in the manner of a daisy bike, or tandem. Li commented on how cute the children all looked, and that this would be Lulu one day. She then left to go somewhere else, and I turned into Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes, from the ITV Granada series. I encountered my friend Darren, who had turned into Doctor Watson.

"Well met!" I called, linking my arm with his in a cordial fashion. We walked down the street thus linked, until we came to a gentleman's clothing shop. In the window were several fashionable outdoorsy garments, including hunting jackets, britches, and tweeds of every cut. We were both drawn to a pair of bay jodhpurs with forest green leather pads in an old world style. The price was £100, and we checked our wallets to see if we could afford them. Deciding that they were a bit pricey but good for a future purchase, we moved on from our window shopping.

Watson said, "I have an appointment to keep at the mansion tea room, with my old client Shelby and his wife. You may recall them from one of our past cases? Please do join us for tea, we would be delighted." In typical Jeremy Brett fashion, I rang out, "Hah! Shelby, that fool, I well remember. A particularly delicate affair. I will meet you at the manor." We parted ways, but not before Watson offered me the use of his bicycle. Why we couldn't walk there together was a mystery, but I got on his bike and began cycling. All of a sudden it was one of the daisy bikes from earlier, and I felt excessively foolish trundling over the countryside in it.

When I arrived at the manor, I did not present myself at the tea room immediately, but rather observed from afar. Somehow Watson had beaten me there on foot, and was enjoying his tea with Shelby and wife. I felt a pang of jealousy seeing them together, but something of professional pride kept me aloof. I did not want me former clients to recognise me, not least because of a scandal involving his wife. There then followed a rather surreal episode of me walking around the manor with my hand before my face, trying to hide in the various rooms, and Shelby's wife singing in a dreamy voice, "I know you from somewhere!"

Mouldy Bedroom

For the second time this year, I returned to No. 29 Ullswater Crescent. I also had a dream about it last year, so something is definitely brewing with that place. It might be trying to call me back - we shall see. The story this time was that we had been renting it out to tenants, and my family (that is myself, my parents, and my sisters) had gone back to inspect the condition of the house after evicting them. I spent nearly all of the dream in my old bedroom, reminiscing and going through my old things, many of which were still there. The fundamentals however, were changed beyond recognition, with dirty mattresses propped up against the walls, a second bed in the corner, and even a big computer station, such as I had as a teenager at Heartbreak Hotel.

I don't remember if the clown wallpaper was still intact. It was still there in the dream 'Return to Looseleigh', but I don't recall it being up last night. I would just like to dwell on a fact that doesn't get much recognition, namely that my bedroom in a haunted house was covered in creepy clown wallpaper. I mean, could it get any more clichéd? My parents didn't put it up, which means someone else with a demented mind, or a Victorian relic, thought it would be suitable for a young child. How times have changed! I recall there was one particular clown among the motley crew who I found creepier than the others. He was a big lump with bouffant black hair and a baggy backside. He reminded me of my friend, Michael Hayes, who I had left behind in Newcastle when moving to Plymouth.

The dimensions of the room had altered and it was much bigger than before, but still small enough to be considered a box room. In addition to the layout being off, the belongings had also changed. It was a mixture of my old stuff and the last boy's who had lived there. In the haste of their eviction, they had not taken all of their things with them. There were framed sports awards and certificates on the walls, trophies and medals, such as might be found in your typical American, red-blooded boy's bedroom. Certainly not fitting for an unathletic, British delinquent such as your narrator. Most of the awards were for tin-pin bowling. The top of the chest of drawers was covered in plastic superhero toys on stands, such as Batman and Superman. They looked like they might have been from cereals.

I decided that I wanted to live in this tiny room again, with scant possessions and no responsibilities. The bookcase still had my old Narnia books, as well as a whole range of Star Wars novelisations, and also some Hero's Challenge game books (Fighting Fantasy knockoffs). I felt a wave of nostalgia on seeing these, and thought about how far I had strayed from innocent, childish pleasures. Not as far as many other adults frankly, I was watching the animated Droids series last night, but something inside me has corrupted. Speaking of corruption, I noticed an unpleasant, fusty smell in the room, and the bedsheets on which I sat were cold and moist to the touch. I thought it might be due to the single glazed window, which could be seen dripping with water through blue, vertical fabric blinds.

Through the window, the glare of car headlights in the driveway shone into my face, and I became aware that I was topless, a grave sight to anyone who might be watching. I ducked down out of sight and tweaked the blinds closed. I quite enjoyed this feeling of being like a child once again. I turned my attention to my old computer, its bulky monitor, once white, was now stained a dirty yellow. I tried to power it up, eager to see if it still worked, but the light sputtered and failed to stay on. Whilst inspecting a loose connection, I discovered that the inside of the computer was full of a viscous black sludge. "That will need to be cleaned out before it'll work," said Terry Cooper, who had suddenly appeared in the room. 

Terry is someone I knew at university, but as to what he was doing in my old childhood bedroom at that moment, I had no idea."There's mould in the walls too," he announced, advancing towards the back wall with a tool in his hand. "It all needs gutting!" He swung the tool and made a hole in the wall, through which black mould could indeed be seen. I told him to wait before he caused further damage, for I wanted to photograph the bedroom and send it to my friends. "This mould could explain the ghost," Terry went on, "it could have induced hallucinations and panic attacks." I had heard this theory before - it is, to my mind, an idea just as fantastical as a supernatural entity. I do not blame people for trying to rationalise things, but the contortions of imagination can be outrageous. 

Terry ignored my request and recommenced hacking away at the wall, tearing off chunks of mould-pitted plaster. I looked around for items to salvage from the destruction and my eyes rested on a suit bag hanging in the wardrobe. I pulled it down, spread it out on the bed, unzipped it, and found a whole collection of cheesy shirts, waistcoats and jackets from the 1980s that had once belonged to my father. I tried on a particularly garish jacket that was far too small for me, and ran downstairs to show my family. My mother and sisters were crowding around the front door, waiting for the postman to ring the doorbell, which played 'Don't Stop Me Now', by Queen. When he failed to press the doorbell, they all sang the song loudly through the letterbox at him, scaring him out of his wits.

Vampire Scribe

Last night, I was a Familiar to a vampire lord of respectably high rank. I came across my dusty master in his dusty manor, ensconced in his dusty study, poring over a large number of dusty tomes and encyclopedias. I asked him what he was doing and he distractedly replied that he was plotting a grand tour of the vampire provinces to seek out (or force) political alliances for undisclosed purposes. "It's a dreary, thankless task," he muttered, "but I can't begin the tour without conducting the proper research or completing the paperwork." I asked if there was anything I could do to lend a hand, for I was after all, his servant. He seemed only too relieved to put down his quill, and explain what I had to do.

There was a large stack of papers, each one containing the same form template, but each relating to a different vampire lord. He was filling out each section, detailing such things as 'heritage and bloodline', 'how to approach X', 'how to respond to X gesture,' including sections for ideal bribes, special powers to be aware of, weaknesses to exploit, etc. It was a meticulous exercise in royal diplomacy and I admired my master's perspicacity. I was proud to serve such a shrewd vampire and the work appeared very much to my taste. An idea entered my head. "If you take me on as your employee, and match or exceed my current wage, I could quit my job and you would have me more often in your service." 

It was a bold request, but he knew that my family duties and timetabling job prevented me from being around more often. He seemed to mull it over, perhaps wanting to see how I performed at the task to hand. Before he could answer, the doorbell rang, a vampire caller. "We'll discuss this later," he said, as he rose to answer it. This was the best I could have hoped for, and I set to work, hoping I had not bitten off more than I could chew. The first paper, the one he had left off at, was none other than Count Dracula. I leafed through the numerous heavy books and newspapers scattered over the table, some of which were University of Cambridge publications. An old encyclopedia Britannia had a section on the famous count.

I began to transfer the relevant information to the form. Correct modes of address from humans were bowing, prostration, or grovelling, depending on the nature of the request. This did not apply to vampires, where such meetings were usually a contest of dominance and bluff, with escalating displays of strength. Dracula was from a very old strain of nobility, and as such he followed an antiquated, courtly form of parley. When he made a particular gesture with his hand, the correct response for a vampire ambassador would be to aggressively crawl towards him on the ceiling, so I drew small symbols on the form to denote this. I found all of it very interesting, and I fantasised about updating my LinkedIn to 'Vampire Scribe.' 

When he had dealt with the visitor, my master returned and asked how I was getting on. I excitedly told him everything I had learned about Dracula, hoping to impress him with my research, yet aware that there still remained a huge stack of forms to fill out. "Yes, yes, I know all of that," my master replied. "I always respond with an aggressive display of power. What I want to know are Dracula's secrets, how does he transfigure himself into a pillar of mist?" I sighed and said, "I'm afraid you won't find that written down anywhere. I can only offer what's been published. Have you thought about my proposal?" The vampire pondered, then said I must grant him his freedom in return, whereupon I told him he was getting his lores mixed up.

Up, Up and Away

Due to my guilt at being unable to walk Beibei yesterday, I dreamed that I had three pets to look after, acquired as a trio in a cardboard box from a newspaper advert. I not only failed miserably in this task, but also indulged in unintentional animal abuse. I was in a living room from my childhood, surrounded by family members, but my back garden and street were the same as those in Cooksbridge. There was a cute and charismatic puppy, towards which much fuss and attention was directed. He was seen as the main draw, with the others being unwanted add-ons, mere conditions of the purchase. Ironically, I have now forgotten the puppy's name and breed, so much for favouritism.

Then there was a shy, fluffy kitten with slitted eyes. Of the trio, she had received the least amount of attention. Indeed, the poor creature had not been given a name, and it was doubtful whether she had even been fed since arriving. I am not a big fan of cats, having never owned one as a pet, but this is not to say I dislike them. At some point in the dream, I remembered the kitten's existence, and argued about what to call her with my sisters. Based on the colour of her fur, my sisters claimed we should call her Honey. I didn't like this name, and thought she should be given something special to make up for the earlier neglect. I therefore changed it to Seyn, after my Star Wars waifu.

The third pet was an oversized, flop-eared bunny, excessively huggable, but prone to biting. We called him Flopsy and had played with him a lot before losing interest due to his unpredictability. Later on, I found him under the sofa and gave him a big squeeze, receiving bitten fingers in return. I wrapped a red blanket around him like a cape, and then tied 3 helium balloons to his torso. We put him into the garden, laughing hysterically as he hopped around, trailing the cape behind him. When leaping into the air, the flowing cape lent him the impression of being child sized, the balloons buoying him to even greater heights. A storm was brewing, with gale-force winds, and suddenly Flopsy was whisked into the sky.

We watched in dismay as he floated higher and higher. Flopsy let out squeaks of distress, kicking and squirming. The cape fluttered free, but the balloons remained firmly attached. Up and up Flopsy floated, into the clouds. Lulu pointed in wonder and bewilderment whilst we ran about like headless chickens. Either the balloons would burst and Flopsy would plummet to his death, miles from home, or he would rise into the very stratosphere, perhaps even into space. Soon he was but a tiny speck, at the same altitude as the planes from Gatwick. I grabbed a doctor's kit, and ran outside into the street, trying to keep him within my sights.

The winds dropped, and slowly Flopsy grew larger as he floated back to earth. Miraculously, he was borne back to our street and landed two door's down in the bushes of a neighbour's front garden. The landing was smooth, but I applied a stethoscope to his chest to check his heart rate. Only then did I realise that it was Lulu's toy doctor kit I had grabbed in my haste. To save face, I went along with the procedure anyway, telling everyone that his heart was going like a jack hammer, but he had survived the ordeal. At that point, the neighbours came home and were surprised to find a small crowd on their property, attending to a bunny with a toy stethoscope. Flopsy then gave my fingers a sharp nip, a sure sign he was back to his usual self.

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.

Automaton Invasion

The dream has started to fade because I wasn't quick enough writing it down, but about a week ago I had my first real nightmare of 2022. Now and again I'll have a dream of apocalyptic proportions, usually involving impending doom, and very often from the sky. It can be a war breaking out, an otherworldly invasion, a satellite falling towards Earth. The most outrageous to date was an army of mecha-Nazis descending onto university campus from orbit and pulverising all the students with laser guns. My latest dream of this category did not reach the stage where chaos reigned free, but in some ways, this made it all the more stressful.

I was in the city, whether Brighton or London I couldn't say (perhaps an amalgamation of the two, or maybe somewhere else entirely), and I was sitting in a cafe trying to write my novel. The government had been particularly callous of late, doing all the usual things that make people moan such as raising taxes, removing job seeker support, cutting public sector funding, withdrawing resources from the NHS, etc. Anyway, as I do not normally take much interest in these matters, I was wholly unprepared for the news that the UK was arming for war.

This in itself would not have been a matter of immediate concern, but as public panic spread and more speeches from the Prime Minister were broadcast, I realised it was going to affect me in the worst way imaginable. Every citizen, whether eligible or no, was being compulsorily conscripted to the coming war. The government claimed that we faced a threat such as never before seen in the history of our nation. An army of automatons were on their way to annihilate us, not just to conquer, but to wipe us off the map. As the British army had been almost completely eradicated at the first encounter, they needed to swell their ranks with us civilians. 

Obviously, such alarming news was not to my liking. It was plainly obvious that Boris was throwing us to our deaths. There would be no military training, no time for any of that, we were report to the nearest garrison to sign up, be issued our weapons, and deployed without further ado. Certain individuals of high rank, or those who simply curried favour with the party, were being awarded special exemption passes, and it was these that everyone now wanted to get their hands on. Chaos engulfed the streets, riots broke out, and huge bodies of civilians tried to flee overseas.

What was I to do? I had a family to think about, I had no disabilities to announce, nor loopholes to exploit, yet signing up would be suicide. Besides, everybody was being conscripted, able-bodied or not. I was unsurprised to see that the usual left-wing hand wringers had suddenly forgotten to care about the oppressed minority groups, being much too wrapped up in their own cowardice to extend sympathy and outrage elsewhere. I wandered aimlessly, doing my best to avoid the police who were rounding up unwilling conscripts just like me. 'I need to get to China', I decided, but it was too late for that.

This nightmare is a very obvious manifestation of the stress and sense of doom I have been suffering from of late. This has been triggered by more family members catching Covid, the illegal shenanigans at No. 10, bouts of self-inflicted insomnia, and the climate crisis that continues to chip away at our existence, though which is largely ignored. I would also like to blame doom scrolling before bed, and also paedophiles, because why not? 

Beggars and Bears

I was hoping for a good Brighton dream because I enjoy exploring the city's dreamscape and Dadaist architecture. Last night's offering was quite stressful, but there were some incidents worth noting down. Chaos had engulfed Brighton, with anti-lockdown protests and parties springing up all over the city. The authorities were overwhelmed, shops and pubs were overtaken by rowdy punks and anti-vaxxers, whilst the streets crawled with rioters, drug addicts, radicalised beggars, and Chinese grifter gangs taking advantage of the disorder. I roamed these mean streets in the dark, avoiding people whilst trying to carry out obscure errands.

A female heroin addict beseeched me for money to feed and clothe her daughter, reaching skinny, puncture-addled arms towards me. I knew that this particular beggar really did have a neglected child confiscated by social services. A volunteer careworker would often take the kid swimming at the local baths, before lying on the hard tiles to dry off, looking at the stars and dreaming of a better life. I did not give the troubled mother any money, so she shouted obscenities at me, cursing my white male privilege. Next I was accosted by two shady middle-aged Chinese women. They were hustlers trying to sell contraband or trafficked prostitution services, I did not stick around to find out what.

Suddenly desperate for the toilet, I tried to enter a nearby bookshop but it had been turned into a rave venue, with people queuing from all over to get in. Farther on, I ducked into a less popular nightclub and finally secured an empty cubicle. The toilets were covered in graffiti and illuminated by green glowsticks, with two punks in the stall next to me doing drugs. Whilst I relieved my bladder, they stuck their heads up over the top and watched me. I had a full tank to empty and was a captive audience whilst they gloated. I then realised that I was stark naked, a cliche to be sure, and I spent the next part of the dream stumbling around dark alleyways trying to find my clothes. Maybe this was punishment for my lack of charity. 

The dream moved on and I was in an unknown part of America, somewhere close to Canada. I have been there before. The air was cold and crisp, there were coniferous forests and mountains to the north, and everyone lived in sprawling rustic lodges with verandahs. I was working as a postman whilst my daughter attended a theatre trip organised by the local preschool. There was also a big concert featuring a famous singer about to start, but I had no idea who they were. My postal route took me to a row of detached cabins in a scenic part of town, with forest views and a fishing lake close to hand. With each property being so spaced out, my job was taking a long time to do accomplish. 

I looked at my next bundle of mail and saw that it was addressed to Steve Irwin. This surprised me, because the man has been dead these past sixteen years. Nevertheless, I went to the cabin indicated on the address, and started pushing the mail through a vertical letterbox. The door opened before I could finish, and there stood Steve Irwin, dressed in his familiar khaki croc-wrangling gear. Somehow, he had returned, or never died in the first place, and I was too polite to ask. Feeling somewhat sheepish that I had been publicly slandering him on Reddit recently, I handed him his parcel and bid him good day. Halfway down the road, I found some more letters for him that I had missed.

As I dithered on the road, I saw a grizzly bear lurking near the treeline. It did not seem particularly interested in me, but even so, I nervously backtracked to Steve's house. He was ready at the door when I arrived, having seen me from his window. I handed him the remaining letters and asked if the bear's presence was normal. "Yup, perfectly normal, happens everyday mate. They're after our fish!" he replied. I departed a second time and headed to the theatre to collect my daughter. On the way, I reflected on Steve's mysterious reappearance. His wife and family were still in Australia, so I wondered whether they had separated, or could he have purposefully faked his own death and gone into hiding?

Ruminating thus, I stepped out onto a playing field I needed to cross to reach the theatre. It had been freshly turfed and was excessively springy underfoot. I jumped to test its springiness and bounced half a foot into the air as though it were a trampoline. This was so much fun, and I began to bounce up and down like a child. Behind me I noticed a girl from university, on her way to the concert. I felt self-conscious that she had seen me bouncing on the grass, but then immediately thought to myself, 'so what?' I bounded a few more times to prove that I didn't care. 

Cooksbridge Living

Since my first update I have dreamt about a seedy establishment in Brighton, a shameful rerun of my sister's wedding in Nottingham, and a depressing house party in Cooksbridge. None of these were sufficiently wholesome or engaging enough to write down. Last night's dream barely qualifies either, dealing as it does with incipient provincial affairs. However, it is a good establishing scenario.

I moved to Cooksbridge in 2019, and since then have had only a handful of dreams about the place, usually involving a haunting. These days, I am unworried about using real place names. My trolling days are long over and the threat level of undesirables tracking me down is low, especially if I can bore them to death first. Hopefully this dream can manage it.

I was new to the area, as were my neighbours, and we were attending social events to integrate ourselves with the community. In real life, Cooksbridge is a sleepy rural village with a low population. Farm shops, pubs, and a petrol station are the sole amenities. In the dream, the place was more of a bustling market village. It was mid summer, and the fields were green and gold.

The old guard were visiting me from Colchester, Dylan and Charlie, and we spent some time in Lewes looking for places to have breakfast. Back in Cooksbridge, we attended a farmer's market, which took place in the beer garden of a fictitious pub. I was dressed in an ornate, red silk suit, and many flat-capped, cider-sipping locals turned their heads in my direction. I was worried lest my friends got drunk and made a bad impression.

My neighbour Helen was also at the pub, and we had a long chat over a bottle of wine. The farmers seemed wary but intrigued about the presence of strangers in their midst. When it was time to leave, several of them came over to introduce themselves and to ask our names, crushing my hand with meaty, calloused handshakes. One of them, an aged gentleman farmer (we'll call him Bill) seemed particularly interested in Helen.

My sisters paid their visits to me next, and it's worth noting that my house was not the one I live in. It was a rambling country homestead surrounded by fields and orchards. As I sat in the open access garden, Bill passed by and beckoned me over for a chat. He asked many pointed questions about Helen, and I gleaned that he was sizing her up as a prospective wife. I tried to discourage him, but for some reason did not impart that she was already married.

When I talked to Helen again later in the dream, she complained of his unwanted attentions, but also claimed she was treading carefully. Bill was an influential, respected member of the community and she did not want her family to be ostracised so soon after moving there. I wished her luck and returned to my house. My eldest sister had arrived and we began to bicker over who would use the bathroom first. Sometimes dreams can be a little too realistic for my liking.

Welcome to 2022

My first dream of 2022 involved me returning to my bedroom at my parents' house in Wivenhoe. This was the first room I lived in when we moved to the house (dubbed Heartbreak Hotel) some twenty-two years ago. I was fifteen and angry about moving away from Plymouth when I had pending GCSEs. 

The bedroom was on the ground floor, adjoining the bathroom, and it was the smallest in the house. I would later move upstairs, but a lot of my formative moments happened in that first boxroom. It was here that I sulked and schemed in my teenage angst, here that I received my horror film education courtesy of Channel 4, and here that... well I won't go into all that.

In the dream, I was on my computer Zooming with Film Club, listening to music and drinking, unaware of the time. Just like last night, it was New Year's Eve. I may have dozed off for a short while, and before I knew it, the sun was up and the new year had dawned. As is often the case in dreams, I was enrolled on a sixth form course that I rarely showed up for, a guilt I'm convinced stems from not finishing some modules and coursework in my third year of college. 

My mother called me out of bed, reminding me not to miss class. I trudged into the kitchen, dehydrated from the booze, and seeking orange juice. After drinking what I could find, I ransacked the fridge and retrieved a jar which turned out to be pickled potatoes floating in a viscous orange fluid. I returned it to the fridge in disgust.

My plan that day had been to cycle to college to attend class, but the uncharacteristically warm weather turned my head. Rather than waste time studying, I decided that I was in need of New Year purification. I took my daughter with me and we boarded a bus, full of refugees, bound for lower Wivenhoe. The bus dropped us off in the car park of the village's Community Centre, right on the coast. As the refugees retrieved their luggage from the bus, I took my daughter across the car park to look at the sea. 

In real life, Wivenhoe ends at the river Colne, in the dream it was sheer granite cliffs rising around us, enclosing a natural harbour. We scanned the incoming tide, looking for marine mammals. Gulls swooped among the breakers, and clusters of people in skimpy swimwear stretched and perched upon the jagged rocks, or bobbed in the water, oblivious to the chill they must have felt. The ocean has a very significant place in my dreams, something you will come to see if you read this blog enough.

I told my daughter that we would spend the night at the Community Centre with the refugees, lying on the floor in sleeping bags. A sign at the entrance put an end to such ideas, informing us that the space was strictly reserved for the use of foreigners. I am not so much interested in psychoanalysing my dreams as I am recording the loose narratives and observing what themes emerge over time. I hope the enterprise proves fruitful.

Aquarium Floaters

A couple of nights ago I dreamt about a new acquaintance for the first time. I was in their home city, visiting a museum that had an aquarium of sorts (places are never fully what they are supposed to be in dreams) and I was having a dismal time. Not only was the city a grey, featureless metropolis, but the museum aquarium was rundown and leaking. In the main foyer, some of the larger fish were able to swim around near the ceiling, seemingly suspended in thin air. There were red coloured tub gurnards (Chelidonichthys lucerna), bulky, medium-sized fish bumbling along in loose shoals like miniature fighter planes. I steered clear of those, for I am a raging icthyophobe, and I remember reading somewhere that a flying gurnard can kill you if it smacks into your head.

My friend decided she wanted to catch some of the fish and guide them back to their tanks. To do so, she brought with her a large hoop surrounded by hanging strips that acted like baffle boards. Using a pole, she raised the hoop towards the shoal, trapping a few of the fish and sweeping them back towards an open tank. She then tried the same on a baby reef manta ray (Mobula alfredi) that was also gliding in circles near the ceiling. The ray, despite being a baby, was too large to contain in the baffle hoop, so she gave up and turned her attention to a small hammerhead shark. I told her that it was a scalloped hammerhead (Sphyrna lewini), as distinguished by the notch in the centre of its 'hammer.' She was likewise unsuccessful in trapping the shark, and we left the museum to go somewhere else.

Colchester Zoo Revisited

When I resided in Colchester, I was a regular visitor to their zoo, which is ranked highly in Europe. The Colchester Zoo of last night's dream would not even pass WAZA standards, let alone make it onto a leaderboard of any description. I was there with my friend, D, and one of his friends from Devon, with whom I was unacquainted. The first enclosure we encountered was a grimy, indoor compound of Lubetkin's Disinfectant Era legacy, a tiled compound with puddles of stagnant water and heaps of dirty hay. Inside were hippos of both species, common (hippopotamus amphibius) and pygmy (Choeropsis liberiensis). They could only be viewed by squatting in an uncomfortable position and peering through windows that looked as though they had not been washed in at least a decade. The common hippos were slumped in miserable heaps of flesh in the corner out of sight, snoozing their lives away. The pygmies were more active, but nonetheless lethargic in their movements as they monotonously munched straw.

Around the corner from the hippos was an old-fashioned Victorian cage resembling a giant bird cage with a ring on top, where an iron chain might be attached. The bird cage was made up of rusty iron bars with wide gaps between them, easily wide enough to admit an arm or a leg. Around the cave was a stone spiral staircase that led up and outside. Inside the cage there sprawled a number of resting ligers, the hybrid offspring of a lion and tiger. They were cramped into the tight space with barely room to turn around. Without a thought to his safety, D's friend put his arm through the bars and tried to stroke one of the beasts. I warned him to withdraw it immediately, which he fortunately did. We tramped up the staircase to an outdoor courtyard of more cages, though of larger dimensions that the oppressive liger cage. There seemed to be no clear indication as to how animals were being grouped.

One of the cages was all ugly wooden beams connected by rusty mesh through which the guests could view the animals. Inside were stunted Bornean orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) dragging their straw-ridden cloaks through the muck. Sharing the space with them was what an information sign claimed to be a dhole (Cuon alpinus), yet its hair was so matted and overgrown it could have been just about anything. A curious clacking sound attracted my companions over to another cage. I followed reluctantly, resigned to yet more squalid conditions. It was a bald ibis (Geronticus eremita) standing in a shallow pond and rattling its beak over and over. Its eyes were protruding and covered in a strange mesh of pulsing blue and pink veins. Eventually the ibis managed to dislodged one of these flaps of skin, pulling out the eyeball with it. which the ibis promptly swallowed. D's friend explained that the disease was caused by a 'crystallisation of unstable chromosomes.'

Window Skunks

Recently, new neighbours moved next door to me, yet besides a couple of conversations on the driveway, I have yet to get to know them properly. I dreamed that they had opened up an art appreciation society, with monthly gatherings at their home to discuss the woman's favourite artist, an impenetrable modernist from Los Angeles, who, to my shame, I pretended also to be a fan of to curry favour. Starved of intellectual conversation, I was desperate to be accepted into their inner circle, but unfortunately I drank too much wine and was unable to coherently converse about the artist at hand. I spent the afternoon embarrassing myself to the point where my imposter syndrome was laid bare for all to see. Feeling not a little sheepish, I retired next door to hang my head in shame.

For some obscure dream reason, my wife and I were also new homeowners in our house, and we explored the three stories of our new abode, discussing where our furniture would go. When we reached the second floor bedroom, we saw a large bay window with two panes of glass, forming a sort of lounge space within where one could sit on cushions, drink tea, read, and look down over the street. Just as I was about to draw back the inner window to check it out, I noticed a family of striped skunks (Mephitis mephitis) nesting in this alcove. My wife and I were excessively surprised, and remarked on how our daughter would react to this, but we were unwilling to slide back the glass and let them into the room. Upon noticing humans on the other side of the glass, the mother skunk began to talk.

"We need to leave babies! Come on, out, out, out, back through the way we came!" There was a metal grate over the outer window, yet the top left pane had come loose, and it was through this that the skunks now attempted to leave. "Please, don't leave on our account!" I told them as they attempted, one-by-one, to wriggle free. "It's a high drop to the pavement below," I continued, "you're liable to do yourselves an injury. Why not stay here until I call animal control, and they can help you get out." Although I could understand the skunks, they were incapable of recognising human speech, and my recommendations were given in vain.

The Neglected Horse

 Sometimes I dream about having to care for an animal I have no experience with, resulting in a series of disastrous husbandry blunders. A couple of weeks ago it was a horse, and whilst having some limited experience with horses when I was much younger, I had no clue what I was expected to do. Indeed, to begin with, I did not even know that I had a horse, much less was expected to take care of one. It was a fine summer's day and I was out in the country, my family and loved ones scattered here and there following their own leisure pursuits. A skinny nag, not unlike Don Quixote's long-suffering Rocinante, trotted over to me, a nosebag attached to its head. 'This is my horse' thought I, as I gingerly attempted to mount her. After a few false starts whereupon I fully expected to feel a swift hoof ploughing into my midriff, I managed to attain the saddle.

I took the horse along a country trail at a modest plod, trying to remember the riding lessons I had learned so long ago. When my confidence had increased slightly, I moved from a walk to a trot, but was unwilling to go any faster. My sisters came towards me on horses of their own, more experienced and fully enjoying a spirited canter. "Show offs..." I grumbled. I noticed that my steed was agitated and kept trying to veer off the track looking for food. I leaned over her neck and saw with dismay that the nose bag was zipped shut, meaning the horse had probably not fed for quite some time. I opened the bag to let the horse feed, which it promptly did, gulping down the expired food that had turned into an unappetising brown sludge at the bottom of the bag.

My next concern was where to stable the horse, and where to let her graze. As anyone from the country knows, every field, hedge, dike, and ditch is owned by some red-faced, land rover driving nincompoop, so you may imagine my consternation in allowing the horse to graze just anywhere. Thus overburdened with this dilemma, I remounted the horse and turned her back the way I had come, hoping to find someone to advise me in my predicament. This dream was no doubt born from the anxiety currently ruining an otherwise idyllic existence, namely that of undergoing weekly driving lessons and feeling my complete inadequacy in the enterprise.

African Vista

I had another dream where the view outside my window did not match what I see in reality. I had awoken to find the house shrouded in mist, pressing thickly against the windows. Eventually it withdrew enough to show me that the town had been encircled by a towering fortification, such as might be found ringing the realm of Mordor. The looming grey walls rose oppressively from the mist, and were topped with spiked battlements that weighed heavy on my heart. I called my father to see if he could also see the walls from his residence. He told me that it was a Zionist government plot and to pay it no heed, the whims of power would change and the walls would melt away as swiftly as they had appeared. More confused than before, I ended the call and returned to the window to take photos. The mist had swept in again and concealed the view. Hoping to find a better angle at the back of the house, I went upstairs to the study window.

I was unprepared for the startling change of scenery. Rather than mist and the wall of doom, I was confronted with a sunny vista of an African wilderness replete with winding, sparkling rivers, emerald green swathes of well-watered veldt, in the middle distance, the ruins of a sandstone temple, and in the far distance, a majestic mountain range, above which an immense rainbow curved over the blue firmament. Roaming across this landscape in staggering numbers and variety were the beasts of the bush, all those well known species of an African safari. Rumbling elephants, loping giraffes, whooping zebra, grunting wildebeest, roaring lions, laughing hyenas, snorting rhinos, yawning hippos, snapping crocodiles, strutting ostriches, quarreling baboons, foraging warthogs, prowling cheetahs, galloping gazelles, and flocks of brilliant white egrets. I immediately took out my camera and began clicking away, overwhelmed with wonder, but worried lest the scene should dissolve before I could finish taking photos. As I tried to zoom in and focus on the pink gape of a hippo in full yawn, the camera died and the dream dissolved.

Jungle Safari

One does not usually associate South America with safaris, but I hear there are some jungle tours available, and these may have influenced my latest dream. During an extraordinarily long and stressful sojourn at an airport with my wife, from where we were trying to fly back to the UK from Europe, we were told to board a bus to another airport. This put me at a great disadvantage, as I was supposed to be meeting up with David Attenborough and embarking on an international ecological trip, starting at Costa Rica. Regretting the cancellation profoundly, I boarded the bus with my wife and we sat back for what promised to be a long and bumpy ride.

As we pulled away from the airport, the scenery around us changed, and we were on a muddy jungle trail punctuated every so often by corrugated metal shacks. It was whilst passing one such shack that I saw a green anaconda (Eunectes murinus) slithering out from behind a building. Despite its species name, this particular snake was its characteristic brown with black spots. As we were travelling slowly and forced to stop frequently due to the bad quality of the road, I had time to point out the snake to my wife, whereupon several other people on the bus also took an interest. We moved off again, and before long we saw a small jaguar (Panthera onca) wearing a collar and lead, clearly a roadside curiosity.

The air had a certain thickness, and the sickly sweet scent of the rainforest, yet as far as I knew, we were still supposed to be in Europe. More animals appeared out of the side windows, a wild boar (Sus scrofa), a serval (Leptailurus serval), greater rheas (Rhea americana), and a ragtag herd of camelids, most notably scruffy-looking llamas (Llama glama) and alpacas (Vicugna pacos) moulting clumps of shaggy hair. Mixed in with the llamas were some curious camel-like beasts I had never been before. Physically they resembled Bactrian camels, but they were rather longer and had dappled coats. Some locals on the bus told me that they were giraffe-camel hybrids, but I forget what they called them. They seemed to be bred for no purpose other than to look strange.