Night of 18th July 2010

I'm in a rural setting, like the Pennines. And like northern Pennine weather, the sky is both light and darkly overcast - a storm is about to hit.

I'm siting on a hillock, surveying the vista, in particular the hill to my right. Nana and Vivi are safe underground, and I will join them, but I have to wait for something up here. Until the last possible moment. The storm is going to be a heavy one, but I reassure them that I will be OK - I must be outside, though for quite what reason, I don't know.

The wind picks up, lighting begins striking in the distance - the storm is stronger than I'd planned for. But I continue to wait. There's a sense that everyone else has fled, the storm is reaching disaster strength. I begin to worry.

I'm watching the hill to my right, a huge lightning bolt hits the hill. It hits again, and rather than being a flash of contact, the lightning bolt is a continuous lash of power. It draws a three sided shape on the hill face, not regular, more like the scribble of an infant. The ferocity and proximity of the lightning is terrifying, I know I must flee now. I wake.

Night of 17th July 2010

I'm reversing the car in the grassy car-park (identical to the one at Bodiam, which I visited in waking life, earlier in the day). I'm not the best at reversing, especially with a turn, as here, so am amazed I pull it off without hitting another's parked vehicle. My car's turning circle shouldn't be so tight, shouldn't allow me to get out in one—but I do. It's not through my skill, I feel overwhelmed and not in control, basically winging it. The car has miraculously made it possible.

Outside the rectangular room, Barack Obama is jubilant. This is his moment of taking office, the first time an African-American has done this in history. I'm right next to him, slightly in front, and unwittingly step into the room first. I instantly realize my faux-par, an especially big one considering it wasn't only his first step in that I ruined, but the first step in of its kind ever in history that I ruined. I quickly turn to Obama, and see he is still joyous and exchanging euphoria with the applauding entourage of staff—he's so joyous, he is crying. Unaware that I'd stepped in the room before he could.

Next I see his wife Michelle at the door. There is a sense that her daughter has just graduated from university, and she is proud and joyous too. Also tearful. I lean over and cup her right cheek with my right hand, and kiss her left cheek.

I wake.

Recent Fragments...

[No complete narratives remain in waking memory the last few days; however, here are some images and passages that have survived into consciousness.]

- The Rocky Ascent

I'm climbing an increasingly steep, rocky hill/mountain face—like a crag. The crag seems to be mediterranean or near-eastern. Somehow religious. I'm not sure how I know this, but the light, the rocks themselves, and the sprigs of green bushes growing in the rocks introduce them as such.

I make this climb daily, or repeatedly. As I'm nearly all the way up, this sense of repetition hits me—I've done this before. Along with the repetition, a sense of danger also kicks in. I have no ropes or harnesses to save me if I fall (make a mistake, lose grip); and this pressure makes the climb suddenly more difficult. My grip feels less assured, bits of twig and branch I cling onto seem less safe, I feel the ground, far below, sucking me in. But I'm nearly there.

I muddle through the last few feet. There is a midriff height steel barrier at the top of the crag, I know it will be easy to get over that, so the main point is getting as far as it. I see a young sapling or shoot growing out of the rock and go to grip it. Older branches can be brittle and weak, and I'm sure the young shoot will be rubbery, tough, and supple—though hard to grip, slippy and small. I grab it and some other purchase points too, it's a ragged ascent: bits of rock and branch break away, but I'd managed to get hold of something else before they went; foot holds slip, and hand holds are precarious—but I muddle through, and up to the top.

Vaulting over the metal barrier, I'm standing around the corner from the house I grew up in. The spot where I stand was a bridge over a canal/waterway, also the apex of a hill. There were (are) old victorian mansions all around, and great old trees.

- Stevie Wonder: I Just Called/The Weather...

Two nights on the run, this theme has somehow worked itself in to the dreams (which themselves, I can't recall). I'm searching for an emotive Stevie Wonder song - the lyrics, and Stevie's voice, are all important, and that's why I'm looking it up - and am sure it begins "The Weather" or "The red sky..." I'm sifting through an i-Tunes style list of music for it. The tune is playing in my mind as a song called "The Weather" or "The Red Sky," but I can't find it; yet the melody is so famous it frustrates me that I can't put my finger on it. Sooner or later I realize it's the tune of "I Just Called to Say I Love You" and the opening lyric I'm thinking of is "No...., No...." etc. But this, too, doesn't seem right. It was the tune of "I Just Called..." and something about a red sky or sunset—something weather related.

Night of 8th July 2010

It's a big night out. Mr. Nozawa's treat (the Director of the company I used to work for). As always, our party is large and we file into a restaurant that seems to have been reserved for us. Though we are jocular, there's a special tension in the air—it's not because we've never been to this restaurant before, it's because tonight we'll see underground martial arts fighting.

There are many Yakuza about, and we're careful not to antagonize them. Following the rules carefully. The fighters parade in. As they do, the high-strung tension releases into some kind of excited expectation, people begin to lighten up and look forward to the show ahead.

The fights are underway and we are eating as we watch. Mr. Nozawa and the rest are behind me, and being the outermost member of the group I'm still careful to watch my manners around the dangerous criminal types who populate the restaurant.

A headlining fighter's fight has come up; but it's announced that he isn't available and won't fight. There's a sense that someone from the audience has to fill in for him. I shrink in my seat hoping it won't be me that gets picked. I get picked, and find myself suited up for fighting, waiting in the line, and trying to put a capable face on it. Ahead of me two Japanese men, enforcer types with short legs and powerful 'upside down triangle' upper bodies, are grappling away in their bout. They are actually quite mild with each other, and the win isn't secured by crunching violence, dead meat slaps of foot bones into faces, ashen white shock and crimson blood; no, they are both on their feet, and the whole thing was more like a judo match. It was won quite non-violently. I'm heartened.

It's the next bout, not mine, and I sense the most important, or awaited. I've been awaiting it too, to see one of the fighters—an enigma.

He's carried in on a wooden board, doubled up and unconscious. It's made known that he was suffering a terrible cold or virus, and was in no shape to fight, but has come out anyway. I sense it wasn't entirely his decision to come out (he's unconscious). But he is still impressive, awesome. There's an aura about him. It could be that he's still only a high-school student but fights in these bloody martial arts matches; or the corollary that he must be crazy. At any rate, I'm, we' re all, filled with awe. A collective gasp runs through the audience as he is stretchered in.

I marvel at his body, curled up into a fetal ball, and the huge tattoo on his back. It's a yakuza style tattoo - some kind of Japanese folk character drawn in traditional style - but what grabs my attention is that eyes of the demon or man depicted are shut or empty. No colouring in the eyes—they are just flesh colour (the colour of the fighter's yellow skin, I suppose he's Japanese). Like looking at an unfinished tattoo, where outlines are not yet filled in. Anyway, I sense that his unconscious condition and the empty/closed eyes on his back are connected—that the eyes in the tattoo are the source of his power. When they are on, he is on. Unbeatable.

I never see his face, but his hair is dyed bright white/blonde. All in all, a very wild character.

The fighting tournament is finished and I'm outside in the night, with an old co-worker Hirose (a real co-worker from my old work, and not only that, a once good friend, we no longer keep in touch. He was fired by my old Boss). I'm glad to see him again.

I sense we are in Japan, perhaps Tokyo, and though I'd lived there for a decade, I feel like a visitor or inductee (in waking life I've moved back to the U.K., and intend to stay). We're outside the restaurant, and the rest of the group know where to go next (the next clandestine activity of the night), but I don't. I'm not included. It's either because of my rank; or I have just not understood, but either way, I have no idea, and am left behind. As is Hirose.

We dance about the subject for a while, but eventually I offer him a lift in my car. I have the car and can drive, he knows the roads and can guide me. He's been waiting for this offer, and accepts.

We make our way to the car park where my car is. I notice it parked up, and it is exactly the same car that I own in waking life, hence I recognized it perhaps. This being Japan, I'm not exactly sure what to do, and follow Hirose's lead for getting the car. As we're approaching I look to my right, trying to pick out which of the tracks leading out of the car park is the exit. I go past one track, is that?, no, there's another track with an arrow pointing out along it—that's the exit. I plot the simple line I'm going to cruise around to it and out as my eyes track back to the car.

Now I know where the exit is and what I'm doing, all that remains is to get into the car. But we can't just walk up and get in. I follow Hirose, and it seems we're separated from the car in some way and need to get through a door to get to the car's side.

We're outside a door lit in the blue/green tungsten light I remember well from older Japanese apartment complexes. The door is dirty and dusty, like a fire-escape or utility entrance. We're cramped up close to the door and behind us/over us is a concrete incline—just like a flight of stairs were above us, and we were stood underneath it. I'm behind Hirose; Hirose is in front of the door. It needs a key, and Hirose has to turn around and reach past me to pick up some kind of communal key that was attached to the incline behind/over us. I feel like I'm in the way. Hirose pulls the key out, but it does not detach; rather it stays connected to its holder, but telescopes out on flat metal panes. Hirose gets the key in the door and opens it.

I wake.

Night of 7th July 2010

It feels like the village I grew up in, though the scenery is all different. There is though the same sense of middle-class and upper middle-class about the place. We're all in high school.

The house I grew up in is somehow not mine anymore (indeed, it has been sold on in waking life), and is currently undergoing updating, renovation, remodeling.

There's some kind of party, in my house I think, and I'm running through it—I'm the "it" person because of my fashionable dress. I've managed to wear the things that everyone else wanted but couldn't get their hands on. I got mine in a department store style setting; but I shoplifted all the items. It was more cheeky luck than premeditated theft: I'd been trying on items, and found the store deserted upon emerging from the changing rooms. I stole away from the shop without the black owner ever noticing. The shirt, the item most people at the party are impressed by, still has a price tag on it. It has pronounced tails, and is patterned with large diamond shapes. The colouring is gaudy, like some awful hip-hop fashion brand. Getting to my house, I see some new gleaming shutters or thin corrugated panels on the side of the house—like blinds twisted shut. The appendage is huge, covering a good sized portion of the leading wall. It's purple or green: garish, and set on an incline. I run up the incline and skate back down it on the soles of my sneakers.

A girl, perhaps a girlfriend, is with me inside the party, in my room. She's also impressed with my clothes. More people crowd around and are ogling the clothes on my back; perhaps reaching out and grabbing them. I begin to run again (not in fear, it's like kiss-chase almost).

I'm at the canal, and jump in—I sense this my training. I'm unfit and running and swimming are part of my regimen to get fit and prepared for the upcoming event (I don't know what it is). I'm a bit wheezy (I smoke in waking life), and am not quite up to par. No one is chasing me anymore, but the girl is still there. However she is not as smitten as before. I think I go back to the house once more, and now it is certainly not mine anymore.

It's university. I'm staying in a bedsit, a dive of a place—it's practically a squat. There's no sign of my housemates, the Spanish (my real housemates in waking life when I was a student), and I sense there hasn't been for some time. Though there are still signs of them having been there.

A rented video is in the main room, a small room, and it needs to be returned.

I'm getting ready to make a trip to the outside. The outside is more run-down than the squat; I sense it's a mildly dangerous place and it's generally better to avoid going unless you have to. There is rubble outside, it's like a bomb-site or post-war landscape.

Diego, my best Spanish friend, has come in through a window. I'm overjoyed to see him, but he acts like a stranger. I'm trying to make conversation but he barely acknowledges. Almost as soon as he's come in, he's out again. I too go out.

I'm walking past some rubble that I sense is my (our) university. There are some high chain-link fences; behind them I see students in rag-tag clothing standing about. There is some kind of musical performance or concert about to start/starting. I look again, and see an androgynous black person singing. Perhaps this person is the group.

I wake.

Night of 3rd July 2010

Nana and I are staying in a small hotel room. We must be on holiday. We have 4 children; the youngest of which is still a baby.

I'm in the shallow rectangular pool with the baby, it can't be our first born (who is a baby now in waking life) yet I refer to her as such. I'm holding her in my arms and trying to enjoy the pool with her; but, being a clumsy person, am quite stressed that I have to take responsibility for the baby in the pool (I know I'll make a mistake, so why me?). And I make a mistake.

I fall over to my left, and gravity stops me from being able to stop myself falling on the baby. My entire body weight is falling upon the baby. Its left leg is squeezed off at the knee by the impact. I'm horrified.

I quickly pick up the tiny amputated leg, it's still warm; and I sprint with the baby, and the leg, in my arms. I'm yelling at the hotel reception for an ambulance.

I wake