Night of 3rd October 2010

My father has lent me his Porsche 964 RS. It's mine for the time being, and Nana is in it with me. We hit a stretch of motorway and I let it out—I revel, briefly, in the speed and power of the car; but I lose control at the first turn: a long right hand curve. The steering is too heavy, the speed too much, and I can't track the curve. We go into the left hand hand verge and barrier, scraping the car and hitting rough uncontrollable terrain. I'm not, however, panicked.

The car grinds to a halt, it's written off.

We exit. There's no starting the car again (and getting it back), so I have to leave it thereabouts. I try to push it to a nearby space in a backstreet (we are suddenly near an urban area: Tokyo).

Sometime later, I have to return the car—but must fix everything up so as to appear nothing had happened. I'm searching for someone I know who can fix this up for me. As we're in Tokyo, I hit upon an old acquaintance, a guy, about my age, called "Gema" (real name Kawashima) who began running his own clothing store in waking life back in Tokyo. He was also an ex-roommate of one of my old roommates: Araki.

I find them nearby and ask if they can fix the Porsche up. They say they can, and at the time I'm assured that this will do (though, in waking life, they never really struck me as professional, or right men for the job). I now have to retrieve the car so they can repair it.

I can't find it.

I vaguely remember where I left it—but not really. The dream becomes a quest to remember where I left the car.

I'm searching the area; I'm always close, but never quite the right place.

I'm back in the house I grew up in, I know the car was on the left hand side, and am looking for it on this side of the house, only to recall I can go no further left of the hall than one room, the dining room—and the car is certainly not in there. I realize it can't be here.

I'm next in an apartment, perhaps mine (but not one from waking life), and my older sister, Nina, turns up with her children. The children are wearing boots and are asking me questions, as is Nina, but I hide the truth of my blunder with Dad's car from them. I must go and find it. Time is tight.

I trace back my steps mentally, and recall where the car might have been left. I'm distressed now as it has been quite a time since I left it, and it's sure to have been stolen, tampered with, or vandalized. I've been blase about the whole incident, and the gravity begins to weigh on me.

I'm trying to make my way back, and find myself at a raised patio with several entrances (leading down). These entrances are not public, and not being a member of the private buildings they service, I'm stuck as to how I'll get where I need to go.

I have to risk it and break the law.

I choose one entrance and make my way in (probably behind someone else who had business going in there). I'm in, but want to get out the lower exit I'm searching for as soon as possible—to avoid detection and capture.

I'm down on a lower level, sea or lake level; I'm close to getting out. I see a kind of dock or harbour, or man-made coast behind the long glass walls and am moving along the long length of the bay trying to find the way out. The raised ground I came from is sensed above me to the right, I think there's a mountain, trees, etc. Not a European scene, but a Japanese one.

Some guards have noticed me. They give chase and I'm captured. I'm questioned thoroughly, and spill the Porsche story. I don't think they believe me; and yet somehow I'm out the other side.

I've remembered the location of the car—recalling the motorway was the key; I was searching the urban backstreets, to no avail. I go and get it. It's still broken, but I have it.

I wake

Night of 1st October 2010

The restaurant/cafe's in a concrete and brick complex of buildings. It's outside, the weather might be good. It feels like an LA cafe. There's a sense of space, openness (like you get in the US).

I'm scaling along the outside of some walls, standing on pipes and brick ledges. The pipes are not drainpipe thin, but more like industrial piping—quite wide, and strong: easy to stand on. My dinner partners are looking on, I'm trying to impress them with my daring route/skill.

I negotiate the last bits of pipe and ledge, drop down by our table - a square table, there are three other guests - and expect some applause or adulation. The others are not as impressed as I thought they'd be. Granted I wasn't that high up - perhaps a little higher than my height - but I tell them that I was just demonstrating; usually I'm much higher up. They remain unimpressed.

I wake.

Night of 27th September 2010

I recall that we'd driven a long way. To a church, to see a ceremony. Though I'm sure we came in my car, my recollection is of being driven by my mother in a mercedes (a modern one). It, like my car, was an automatic—though it had a gear stick with four positions (in a "H" arrangement). The gear positions did not read 1,2,3,4, etc. The two right positions (from my vantage point in the passenger seat) may have read S,D... And the two left I'm not sure. On second look, all I see is three buttons "T,D,S" like on my car. Not much about it makes sense.

My mum is negotiating tight traffic and it appears as though we're winding our way through a side street in Altringham, near the McDonalds, across the way from the bus station.

I've offered to drive (I never did in my waking youth) as I'm a confident driver now and my mum stopped driving a long time ago (in waking life) after a small accident. She says she's OK.

There's a problem with my car. I don't know what it is but a heart shaped indicator is flashing (red) on the dashboard. Though I don't know what this means exactly (I have to check the handbook) I'm sure it's a serious fault.

My father has parked the car near home as it couldn't get all the way there. I go out to get it, look at it. I find it at the top of the hill (a large raised area) in my home-town, near the Shell garage. My father has packed the car away into a box (as he always does) and I have to reconstruct it. This annoys me slightly (I never pack my car away like this).

[N.b., this "packing away" is dream logic, not a comment on waking life]

My car's now parked, roughly, outside a house in construction or renovation or destruction. As I near the car, I sense another car crawling along behind—perhaps the owner of this property, come back. From a distance my car was my car, but as I get closer it has changed into a vintage mercedes, a different car at any rate. I think the colour is grey-blue. The owner has come past me and is trying to park his car. Mine is in the way. Before I know it, the other guy's car is parked and my car is sitting above it, crushing it. The owner is obviously angry and wants my car out of the way; though paradoxically he seems to completely ignore the presence of my car (hence wedging his underneath it) and my efforts to move it.

By the end I'm lifting my car by the front bumper and lifting up and off the other car, and out of the way. Like some kind of strongman event.

I wake.

Night of 31st August 2010

It's a high school setting. A big school. I'm A-level age or thereabouts, and it's the run up to exams or a big assembly. I'm behind the scenes, there are a few teachers and my sister's business partner Nick (a real person from waking life).

Nick is an impresario (as he is in reality) and I'm aching to get in on his art. I sense this is why I'm behind the scenes—I'm trying to get a foot in the door. Nick's preparing some kind of art piece or exhibition, and this is what the whole school will be assembled to see. I'm hanging on, hanging around, trying to get my shot.

Nick tells me, OK it's your chance now. I'm going to be a part of the art, or get to do the art. This is my shot. Nick gestures to a wet square of concrete that he was preparing. It's angled slightly upward, in front of a window. I have to fall, face first, into the wet concrete and leave my impression. This will be the art. I'm very hesitant; not sure whether this is the right thing to do—whether it will work. I wake.

Night of 27th August 2010

I've organized the Wu-Tang re-union. It's not a concert or performance, more like a fan-meet—and I've put it together.

We're in a small, unimpressive, room; I'm standing behind the RZA, now a man with thinning hair and sagging features, who is sitting down at a desk facing the wall. The other members are to RZA's right, I stand behind him on his left.

I'm wearing jogging bottoms and sweatshirt—both soft cotton. The pants are black, and the top a washed out yellow; but still, the Wu Tang colors.

RZA has some kind of sticker on him - like a "hello my name is" sticker - just a plain white rectangle, onto which he writes something. Coveting this RZA sticker, I, or he, peels it off and slaps it on my chest. But, as always happens with these stickers, the adhesive side, once used, is covered in tiny fibres and has lost much of its sticking powers. It doesn't stick very well to my sweatshirt.

I'm in the English school (for instructing non-natives in the langauge—not a proper school). I'm a newbie again; my first class will be a meeting with the head-instructor: Heidi (the real head-instructor from the language school I once worked in). I'm waiting in the teachers room with another, and seem to be unprepared or recovering from a heavy night out—I'm, in some way, winging it. But glancing at the schedule and seeing Heidi's name in my first lesson hour snaps me out of it, and I'm rushing to prepare and look ready.

There is an interlude and I'm looking back at a magazine shoot I once did (I did model for Japanese magazines a long time ago, though the pictures I'm looking at are not a shoot that happened in waking life). I'm running with a girl on the beach, or at the seaside, we're both young—she seems to be, a then, up and coming b-actress or c-idol. I'd always thought I was super-good in these shoots, but looking back at the pages now, I see I wasn't good: I was uncomfortable, and wooden. I notice my silhouette particularly (the shots were backlighted, and light rays come through the fabric of the clothes—showing an outline of the body beneath), it's very effeminate - wide hips, gaunt shoulders - it's almost the same shape as the female model's.

It's lesson time. Looking at the schedule again, it's no longer Heidi I must see; another name has replaced hers. I don't know him, but he must be senior—presumably more important than Heidi. Scrabbling for books and material - to look more professional and prepared - as I walk out, the other person is talking to me, though I remember nothing of his words.

I walk out into the instruction area—it's open plan (not like the language school was in real life). I see a bearded man, skinny, a little scruffy, sitting behind a plastic topped desk—this is the man I must meet with.

I go to sit, and find the seat is tiny, for a toddler, my eyeline barely lines up with the desktop. Laughing I go to swap my chair, for the one next to it. Switching them, I get a good look at the chair I just sat in. It was tiny; it had a brown fabric seat, and stood on thin steel-piped legs; the seat was laid back and angled slightly upward, there were no arms or rests—it was open. And it was tiny: barely the width of one of my thighs.

The seat next to it was more adult size. It looked old, second hand, ragged. Rushing to get sat down and begin, I pulled it hastily and sat down without thinking. The seat was brown again, this time, wood or faux-leather, not especially soft looking. And it had high arm rests, like a wall, all around the seat—like a spinning tea-cup you see at fairgrounds.

After sitting down I notice my suit is fouled a little. I'd worn my best grey suit - a Saville Row suit - to impress the Boss. The seat had been covered in a caramel colored sticky substance; now all over my best suit. As the interview is proceeding, my left fingers are quietly inspecting the gunk and trying to ascertain what it is. I quickly realize it's all over the chair. I hadn't checked for anything like this before sitting—I didn't want to hold up the Boss, or make a worse first impression than already made. I have to break eye-contact and look at the sticky crap all over my suit. I see a patch of the yellowy substance on on the left jacket pocket, notice it elsewhere on my pants, etc. And am thoroughly depressed by it. I wake.

Snippets of recent dreaming

1) Porsche up the hill.

I'm driving with my father. We're going up a forest hill; the forest is is damp, green, earthy—a northern place, european. The car's a Porsche Targa. I think I drive.

There's a problem as we near the top. We stop and get out, lift the bonnet and see the engine wasn't bolted on to the chassis: it's slipped off its moorings.

(in waking life, my father phoned me the next morning to ask if I wanted to go with him to a classic car meet; he's a member of the Porsche club)

2) Canoes in the cove.

It's me and another. We're inland, at some kind of shore—it's either a lake shore, or a secluded bay. It's not tropical, quite cool and brisk; like an Alaskan setting.

There's some kind of zombie outbreak, or other calamity that means we have to avoid other people at all costs. You see someone, you run, kind of thing. Paradoxically though, we aren't panicked and don't go haywire when we see some others at the shore (there's a sense we all used to be together). We just slip quietly into the waters and look for the boats/canoes and oars/paddles (there's also a sense that these boats and oars were the other group's).

My partner is in and away. I'm quietly wading in, the water is quite cold so I've got a good deal of clothes on, a bubble jacket the outermost layer. I find my rowboat and manage to board it; in doing so, however, some water has gotten in. I've also lost an oar.

I'm lying prone in the rowboat, so as not to alert the others on shore, and let it glide out a bit. I bump into a rock formation and end up behind it—it's safe to sit up and locate the missing oar. I look through the clear water, see the pebbles and sub-aqua base of the rock I'm hiding behind. The oar is nearby, I make my way over and take it; only to find the oar is tiny. I see another, another two in fact, inside a boat house, leant up against the wall; I take one. It's huge.

(the oars also seem to miraculously change design, the paddle face now has three wide open angular vents in it, it looks as though it wouldn't be much good for propulsion...)

I'm then in someone's house. I've been staying over, or came back here after the trip. I'm still wearing the same clothes as the previous episode. It seems as though we're all in the living room watching my previous exploits on the TV. The house is a grand old victorian one—just like the house I grew up in; but not the same. This one feels more imposing and like an "away" venue for me.

The others, children, are a little wary of me and play nice. A girl compliments my jacket (this bubble jacket is the same shade of olive as the North Face bubble jacket I had a very long time ago in University). The children's parents come in, and are also a little surprised I'm still there, and also a little wary of me—they seem very careful, they try to delicately "handle" me.

After some more time passes, my parents turn up—to pick me up. It's 2 a.m.: I've kept the family up all this time (almost like I was holding them hostage), and this was perhaps the reason everyone was so wary and a little freaked out. I had no idea it had gotten so late, and say "I only thought it was 8p.m., 10 at the latest." I wake.

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.