More Vivid Dreaming During The COVID-19 Pandemic

[GNC]

Novel. Right there.

Heh, maybe from before life beat the ambition out of me!

 

[AgProv]

Dreaming about returning to my old university to retake a degree. Moving into residences and appreciating how fresh and new and exciting things were, knowing I was back at UEA Norwich but thinking "This is utterly unfamiliar. Have they knocked everything down and rebuilt the whole campus?" (Still grey, still breezeblock - just arranged differently. Like grey Lego. ). Feeling excited to be there but also thinking "Sooner or later they'll realise it's a mistake and I'm here owing to a really big error. Don't thy remember what happened last time? Better enjoy it while it lasts".

Discovered I was sharing accomodation in residences with somebody I had serious differences with first time around - feeling horribly vulnerable and open and exposed. Sensed so was he. But we talked. Can't remember what about but it felt like we were reconciling - he seemed genuinely supportive and understanding, even encouraging. In the dream I remembered that in previous dreams this guy had been hostile, sarcastic, condescending. Was relieved and happy this was different.

Then got the catch. I had to study university level maths and get good scores in order to remain there. I said "You must be fucking kidding! I only got as far as the o-level!" I was brown-trouser alarmed...

The scene leapt... time had elapsed, because I had to sit my final exam. felt pleased I'd lasted and not dropped out or been forced to leave. I was given a bundle of olive-green papers with black type. Looked at them and saw these were not the advanced maths papers I'd been expecting to see and had not been looking forward to - these were logic puzzles of the sort you see in puzzle pages. Where you have five people and five lots of outcomes and with only a minimal number of facts to begin with, you have to deduce, for instance, that Margaret has blonde hair and was wearing the red dress and went shopping in M&S...then fill in the details for her four mates. Those sort of puzzles.

I asked my tutor if this was right, he said yes, you have three hours. also noted people were allowed to get up from their seats in the exam room and go to a back table to confer - asked if this was permitted too, no answer, deduced it was... then woke up thinking "What is the point of that?"

 

[DougalLongfoot]

A couple of weird dreams last night, more due I suspect to the fact it was a bit warmer than I thought it was going to be and was hot under the doona:

1. Pope Francis came round to our house and my mother was arguing with him abut the Church's response in Africa to the Covid-19 pandemic. (I'm Catholic but my late mother was Presbyterian. Our parish priests are from Nigeria so maybe that was where the Africa bit came from. I'm not aware of the Church having any problems with their response to the pandemic in Africa or elsewhere).

2. I was in a restaurant looking for somebody, a woman who I found at a table and she was drinking heavily to the point of nearly vomiting. Suddenly Odin & Loki (as played by Anthony Hopkins and Tom Hiddleston) were at the table. I had been searching for the woman at their behest. I helped the woman to the ladies toilet and held her hair back while she threw up. At this point my dog made some noise and woke me up.

 

[IbisNibs]

Don't thy remember what happened last time?

What had happened "last time"?

In the dream I remembered that in previous dreams this guy had been hostile, sarcastic, condescending.

Do you know this person from your university days, or does he exist only in your dreams? Or only in this dream?

Suddenly Odin & Loki (as played by Anthony Hopkins and Tom Hiddleston) . . .

Classic dream weirdness!!!

 

[AgProv]

Ah, apologies. A common theme of my dreams about going back to UEA Norwich - whatever physical form it takes in the dream - is a sensation of "somebody has blundered. And sooner or later they'll find out that I'm here on false pretences/I'm not good enough to be here/I was confused with somebody else and they got our files mixed up/I lied on the application/There is some other reason why I do not belong here"

In real life I had a stinker of a final year there and barely scraped out with any sort of degree at all; and (let's say this outright; it happened) I had psychological/mental health difficulties. That doesn't let me completely off the hook for the way I alienated a few people and lost friends. 1987-88 was a bad, traumatic, year for me. no sugaring that pill.

So as you can imagine, that has the capacity to colour my dreams even now. It's the "that's what happened" in "do they remember what happened last time". The former friend who has been cutting, sarcastic and condescending in dreams is one of the people I hopelessly alienated at this time. (In real life, I did make a sincere and belated approach to apologise to him and to one other; it was painfully rebuffed, but that's how it is, and I tell myself my conscience is clear - "I made that sincere attempt to apologise and if possible to reconcile. Their response to that is not mine to control. I wish them both well, but we're done; have a nice life, both of you.")

Lockdown has offered an opportunity to reflect on and re-evaluate My Life So Far. A sort of therapy. And - belatedly - I'm confronting that horror story of a final year at UEA. to look it in the face and say "Yes. This happened. I did this which I should not have done. I did not do that which I ought to have done. Those events had repercussions."

I've even found a Facebook group for people who lived at the same off-campus residence site where this stuff happened; up until now I've just been lurking there and reading what other people post and been hesitant to contribute or comment, wondering if I'd be welcome. took a good six months of lurking before i introduced myself and started adding comments and observations. I've not been kicked off yet...

And of course I have strong, overwhelming, dreams about a traumatic time in my life!

 

[catseye]

AgProv, have you tried returning to the physical location? Have you been to the (real life, not dream) UEA campus since you left?

I was having recurring dreams of a location - somewhere I used to work. I'd left under perfectly normal circumstances, no bad feeling, but I did always feel that there was some 'unfinished business' about the place in my dreams. I went back for a visit to the location and the dreams stopped.

No idea why, maybe my brain just needed to understand that the place was still there or something.

 

[AgProv]

Went back for a visit some years ago and that was useful. But... still getting the dreams, so there's got to be something in there I need to face down and come to terms with.

 

[Ghost In The Machine]

Went back for a visit some years ago and that was useful. But... still getting the dreams, so there's got to be something in there I need to face down and come to terms with.

Still something you’re processing by the sound of it. And I guess one advantage of the current situation is more time to figure it out. I loathed high school and even now still my nightmares are often set there... even if not about situations that happened.

 

[AgProv]

First rushed draft of what could become a longer story - why I am having intense and often bad dreams about my old university. I've kept it simple and linear for now - there were other things going on too, but this is the gist. Let's see... 1987-88. A long-standing relationship broke down badly. at least partly because I was not prepared to be fully honest with her and in one respect I had been lying to her horribly. She took up with a guy who had been one of my closer friends. I took this badly. I had psychological problems and a sort of mental illness, never properly diagnosed but might have been a sort of bipolar thing. I do remember having had a really bad bike accident the previous summer -over the handlebars, headbutted tarmac (no helmet) out cold, hospital. Wondering if this contributed - actual brain damage? Ex GF said she was really worried about me for a month or two after, but everything seemed to get back to normal - appararently I had been "different". Autumn of 1987 - back to university. First few weeks spent in an empty flat where I'd previously share with friends and GF, but they'd all moved out. My bad reaction to GF going to BF was part of this, also my personality in general ( asocial?) made it hard to share space with me. Loneliness weighed heavy.

Begged university to find me a residence place. Moved into the off-campus resident site at Fifers Lane again and was a final year student living among first years. Nobody's fault here, no points of contact. I'd also arrived about five weeks into the term - newcomer among people who had already begun sorting themselves out into social groups.

Also realising I was on the wrong course and should have twigged this a lot earlier. - no interest, no desire, no motivation. Still cut up about ex GF. Possible side effects from the bike smash and nutting tarmac - wish I'd investigated this further... started drinking a lot.

Serving behind the union bar for extra income... one night a girl came in who it dawned on me was gorgeous, in a quirky way. I still wonder what the mechanism for these things is, what governs it. Didn't help that having just broken up with CM (let's call her that) there was an enormous empty void there. And this person, let's call her S, had unwittingly walked right in and... well, I was in love, or at least infatuated. A horrible mix of disasters, all at once.

Alienated, wrong course, no academic motivation or interest, few friends, and the ones I had were fast getting alienated by my horrible behaviour, tendency to be a bit of a Walter Mitty, drinking far too much, psychological imbalance, possible bipolar, on the bipolar highs I'd be babbling and making it up as I went along (Walter Mitty) esp if drunk (didn't want to acknowledge my actual history and family and background, making up entirely new alternative life histlries for myself maybe in the hope they'd stick.... ) ... also the realisation that I had no family to go home to and i was technically homeless once I had to move out of the university accommodation. (parents long separated, no contact with father, one sister didn't want me moving in even temporarily, another sister in overcrowded house with her own woes, mother unable to accomodate me... ) Big money problems too. Rather large overdraft debt. Wrong place, wrong course, wrong head. Warnings from university management about my conduct, completely flunked out in Finals, and utterly infatuated with a girl who had made it quite clear she did not want to know. That was crushing. The feeling of isolation, exclusion and being locked out during those final weeks at uni was heavy and suffocating. Every time I saw The Girl, she'd turn her head away and blank me - on a site that small, this was inevitable and from her point of view it was probably very understandable, but it didn't make me feel good at all. self-esteem crushed. Feeling like a leper. Trying to cling to a religion i didn't beleive in any more, and wan't really living the values of, to see if this made any sense.

Remembering that there was a sense of pain and hurt and disbelief and utter regret that something that had started so well for me had ended so badly and horribly. This surfaces in dreams too. Grief.

Got somewhere to stay after leaving residences; and didn't bother attending graduation ceremony - no point - and got my degree, such as it was, in the post. Because of family problems it was not possible to move north again back to Manchester, nowhere to go to - got some basic level work in various places, kept up an association with the university even though I was no longer a student. Several things woke me up. I remember the Dean of Students, who'd warned me about bad behaviour, spotted me on the campus. He gave me a long thoughtful look; nothing was said by him then, but within a couple of days I got it through intermediaries that it might be a good idea if I moved on. (The easy way? Gentle hint?) I also realised in a moment of sanity that I was regularly going into the central coffee shop at UEA because it was cheap, yes. Making a coffee and a newspaper last a long time and watching the campus streets outside for glimpses of Her. If She came into the coffeeshop I'd feel - well, desire and despair and know this was as close as I was likely to get. I even saw Her in the streets in Norwich. (well. small city) Never directly approached or tried speaking to her as I knew there'd be no point and things might suddenly become a lot worse. But... Realised even then it was an insane situation to be in, working for peanuts just to be near a girl who didn't want to know and clinging on to something that had ended badly, and should by rights be over. Took a deep breath, got a job in a different place that came with accomodation, left Norwich before it got really out of hand, said my last goodbye to university. (It hadn't been hard to figure out, and I'm relieved that in 1989 the word "stalking" had not really been coined - brand new "thing" with no vocabulary, and nobody had joined the dots, or made it an arrestable crime. Reflecting that if all this were happening today, it might not have gone on undetected and unchallenged for months, there'd have been earlier intervention of some kind! .... I was pursuing that poor girl and stalking her on the UEA campus, and I owe her one massive apology for that. Moment of clarity - I realised the least worst outcome and the only way to cure it was to put myself where she wasn't. one of us had to leave town, and she had more of a right to be there than me. Simple as that, though it hurt. Glad I had the clarity of mind to see that and the strength to follow through; she could get on with her life uninterrupted and I could fix myself. ) . Spent the next decade putting myself right, and didn't go back to Norwich till around 2005. Where I revisited old haunts and had a moment of Stephen Fry melancholy - Fry recalls going back to Cambridge long after graduating, and feeling like he was walking round an empty film set, with the cast and crew he'd been a part of long since disbanded. Same for me in Norwich. Most of the sets were there - the actors and actresses were not. Met nobody I recognised or who recognised me. Blissful anonymity.

As I say, found the Fifers Lane ex-residents site on Facebook, lurked there for a few months whilst plucking up the courage to post in a place where I wasn't sure how well I'd be welcomed, started posting a day or two ago, had some positive feedback, which is good; I've been upfront on the mental illness part, but stressed that's not what defines me now, "and I'm saying it this once, to get it out of the way". The person I describe here as "The Girl" is a member, as is somebody who, if I read between the lines, was very close to her at uni. Saw them together a few times and they appeared physically close. Interestingly enough, earlier tonight her presumed ex "liked" one of my postings and a comment - then a little later seemed (perhaps) to realise my name was on them and withdrew both likes. Small thing, but makes me go "hmmm. Maybe I am remembered." Shame, as I have no animosity at all for him; he seems a really decent bloke. As for "The Girl" - took a breath, clicked through a couple of links, and looked at pictures of her as she is now. Which was a big step. Recognisably the same person, she's aged well, but for me, there is absolutely none of that longing or intensity of desire. Nothing left, except maybe a tiny wistful regret. She's just somebody who was around a long time ago and affected me then, but that was in 1988. I'm in no hurry to click the "add friends" button, and I guess neither is she... we can just tacitly ignore each other, and be adult about this. I hope.

So there you have it, a brief summation of most of the shit that came down for me in 87-88-89 and why I'm treading carefully in reconciling myself to it - serious emotional intensity, a lot of it went on... no wonder dreams are intense!

 

[FrKadash]

I started using nicotine gum a few months back to help me get off vaping. I've found nicotine has a really strong hold on me in any form and I'm struggling to give up the gum now!
When I first got it from the pharmacy they warned me about the possibility of the gum/patches causing vivid dreams, and they really are vivid! If I chew it too close to going to sleep the dreams are terrible. I've never had such extreme vivid, surreal and detailed dreams, but they have a negative feeling to them, and sometimes merge into nightmares. I'm still chewing the gum but have cut it down and don't have it close to bedtime!

 

[AgProv]

I started using nicotine gum a few months back to help me get off vaping. I've found nicotine has a really strong hold on me in any form and I'm struggling to give up the gum now!
When I first got it from the pharmacy they warned me about the possibility of the gum/patches causing vivid dreams, and they really are vivid! If I chew it too close to going to sleep the dreams are terrible. I've never had such extreme vivid, surreal and detailed dreams, but they have a negative feeling to them, and sometimes merge into nightmares. I'm still chewing the gum but have cut it down and don't have it close to bedtime!

Bloody hell, I'm on those...

 

[EnolaGaia]

... So there you have it, a brief summation of most of the shit that came down for me in 87-88 and why I'm treading carefully in reconciling myself to it - serious emotional intensity, a lot of it went on... no wonder dreams are intense!

Just for the record ... There's another possible way to interpret the prominence of past university elements (scenes; locations; etc.).

It may be that nowadays you find yourself in a similar position of X (X = (e.g.) helplessness; being adrift; existential angst), and your nightly dream-dramas triggered by current events are being played out using stagecraft and casting from the prior traumatic period during which you were similarly rudderless and afflicted.

Phrased another way ... It's conceivable your orientation to the current situation feels similar to the university-era malaise, and elements of that past trauma are surfacing as the most prominently relevant analogues.

In other words ... Maybe you're working through the pains of the present in a context illustratively furnished with pieces of the past.

 

[MercuryCrest]

I normally have vivid dreams, but I, too, have had even-more particularly vivid ones as of late.

One thing I'd like to point out is, I understand that people normally can't "read" things in their dreams. A book is a bunch of squiggles, etc. I think it's down to the part of your brain that understands the written word is "shut down" or something. I've certainly experienced that part.

I've been able to very clearly read things in my dreams the last few weeks. Like, homework assignments (whole paragraphs), driver's licenses, etc. While I've done that occassionally in the past, this is far more clear and happens way more often. Anyone else getting this?

 

[IbisNibs]

Hi, MercuryCrest, I can read things in dreams during normal times, but I'm kind of a weirdo anyway.

So there you have it, a brief summation of most of the shit that came down for me in 87-88 . . .

I'm glad you survived, AgProv! The first years of living as an adult are a very stressful time. You're an adolescent and trying to function in ways you've never had to, and may not have been prepared for. If you didn't grow up with healthy emotional support systems, and you don't have good psychological support during crises, it can be a very dangerous time of life, too.
Not everyone survives, and certainly not everyone who survives decides to take responsibility to change their lives. It takes courage to keep learning and growing. Know that there are many people who can relate, in one way or another, to what you've been through, and who are encouraged by your endeavors to transform.

 

[Comfortably Numb]

I wondered if this might be of related interest:

Live Science podcast "Life's Little Mysteries" 28: Mysterious nightmares

Source: livescience.com
Date: 18 May, 2020

You hear a faint sound of laughter and ... is that claws scraping on metal?

In this episode of Life's Little Mysteries, we'll take a closer look at dreams that terrify: nightmares.

What causes nightmares, and does everybody have them? What can you do to prevent nightmares? And if you're caught in the middle of a nightmare, can you turn it off? Listen to Life's Little Mysteries 28: Mysterious Nightmares, to find out!

We'll also hear about how nightmares can fuel creative thinking, and why more people are reporting vivid dreams and nightmares during the COVID-19 pandemic.

[...]

https://www.livescience.com/llm-podcast-28-nightmares.html

 

[catseye]

AgProv - I really feel for you. I'm glad you've made something of your life after that awful experience.

As to the Girl...sounds like limerance. If you've not heard of it, google it. It is a very powerful thing that can ruin lives and muck up your emotions for a long while.

 

[catseye]

Oh, and last night I had a very vivid dream. Some of the details have gone now, but it consisted of me sitting in my old home, with another person (I think it was my mum). I was waiting for a message to go and pick someone up, I kept looking at my watch to check the time. The watch was a very smart one, dark strap and a dark face with gold hands. The face was a sort of dark greenish brown with no numbers (which would be a disaster for me in real life, I have trouble telling the time unless a watch has REALLY BIG NUMBERS and, in consequence, never wear one). I was reading a newspaper at the table, big adverts, hoping that I'd get a message through the adverts that it was time to go...

I then had to go to a hospital, where I met one of the patients, a man with teeth missing, which caused him to whistle loudly when he talked.

As I say, some of the details have faded now, but when I woke up the whole thing had been so vivid that I still had that half-disappointed feeling that I'd not got to go and pick up the person I was meant to, and also the feeling that my mum had been slightly anxious about me during the dream.

 

[AgProv]

AgProv - I really feel for you. I'm glad you've made something of your life after that awful experience.

As to the Girl...sounds like limerance. If you've not heard of it, google it. It is a very powerful thing that can ruin lives and muck up your emotions for a long while.

Bloody hell. I wish somebody had told me this years ago... trying to make sense of this I read a lot about stalking, erotomania, de Clerambault's, et c, found correspondences and bits that fitted, but lots of stuff that didn't add up - for instance I knew all along she wanted nothing to do with me and never would. According to the literature, I should have been absolutely deluded and believed the exact opposite. I also had self awareness enough to want to stop it; and I had the strength in the end to walk away from it. In erotomania this should not have happened either. I would not have dreamed of walking away in a classic erotomaniac disorder. But limerance... it fits. Thank you for discovering this for me!

my gods she is beautiful...

 

[michael59]

I live in a tiny one bedroom apartment. I just wanted to mention that before I tell my vivid dream last night or this morning.

I dreamed that a massive gray timber wolf jumped on my bed I lifted my covers and said, "Come on, jump in. " I wrapped my arm around his neck and snuggled in. I was awakened by my own voice saying, "That's my good boy." and I kissed my pillow.

 

[escargot]

I live in a tiny one bedroom apartment. I just wanted to mention that before I tell my vivid dream last night or this morning.

I dreamed that a massive gray timber wolf jumped on my bed I lifted my covers and said, "Come on, jump in. " I wrapped my arm around his neck and snuggled in. I was awakened by my own voice saying, "That's my good boy." and I kissed my pillow.

My ex would walk one of our toddlers around by holding onto her hands over her head. He one woke me up in the early hours by talking to her - 'Good girl! Well done!' etc.

I sat up to see him walking across the bedroom, bending over, apparently walking Junior along.

I said something like 'For flip's sake, it's 3m, put her in her cot and get back to bed!'
At which he sighed, stood up and flung the baby across the room onto our bed.



It was his pillow. I NEVER let him live that down.

 

[michael59]

My ex would walk one of our toddlers around by holding onto her hands over her head. He one woke me up in the early hours by talking to her - 'Good girl! Well done!' etc.

I sat up to see him walking across the bedroom, bending over, apparently walking Junior along.

I said something like 'For flip's sake, it's 3m, put her in her cot and get back to bed!'
At which he sighed, stood up and flung the baby across the room onto our bed.



It was his pillow. I NEVER let him live that down.

That's what I mean. A full grown timber wolf would not be able to turn around in my bedroom, it's too small. It would have to back in or out and I was hugging my pillow thinking it was the wolf that's why I kissed it.

The craziest part is that I felt like I had known that wolf all my life. I am frightened of strange dogs and won't go near them never mind snuggle up in bed with a wolf. lol

 

[catseye]

I am currently snuggled up in bed with my dog - and I've probably kissed her already this morning. Your dream made me go 'awww'.

 

[AgProv]

Vivid dreams over the last day or two.

Weds night: dreamt I was in one of the many jobs I have done at various levels in cooking, catering, hotels, et c.

A quick sidenote about making it work after university... a milestone in my post-UEA life happened, the very first time I went into a hotel as a guest, not as an employee. I sat in the dining room on the other side of the kitchen doors, with kitchen staff making my dinner and waiting staff to bring it to the table. I looked towards the kitchen doors and thought about a guy, some years before, who had been doing the gruntwork in the kitchen to make ends meet, and get something of an income together. It was a funny feeling. I'd been resigned to having to do low-level kitchen work to survive, as it was something I knew I could do and work I could always get. But, all the time, that tiny little flicker of optimism.... I'd been thinking.. "one day, I'll be on the other side of those doors" without knowing exactly when. When it finally came about I thought, from the hotel dining room, as a paying guest... "I'd love to just have a quick word with the version of me who ended up barely graduating from university, and being a sort of male version of Polly from Fawlty Towers combined with occassional Manuel on the lowest possible pay plus share of tips. To go to the knocked-back and depressed guy who on that night around November 1988 was scrubbing the pots, and telling him - you will find it gets better. But not just yet. I wonder if there's some poor bugger working in that kitchen right now who's as knocked back and desperate as I was, and who wonders if it's a life sentence."

Anyway, in the dream I was ticking off the tasks that were necessary, setting up a meal for evening service, getting stuff in the ovens to cook through for service later - the sort of afternoon tasks that get delegated to you (to explain - there might be a sole person working an afternoon shift, in between end of lunch service and start of dinner service, just doing prep work) and which you can do in your sleep after a while. No bother till something went wrong and the kitchen flooded. Ok, thought my dream self. not serious. you've seen worse. Get a mop. clean up. Except that the mop had had its strands cut back and it was a third of the usual length. It still mopped the floor. Only... painfully slowly and taking ten times more effort....

Then some sort of hiking session to the top of a hill or a mountain. I remember there were two girls in the party and one other bloke. On the hilltop there was a certain amount of low-level sexual activity leaving everybody partially dressed; recall a dark girl and a blonde girl, and a feeling that if I focused I'd know who they were in real life. But anyway. Very pleasant with no tension or negativity - it's good to have a nice dream! Getting dressed and repacking backpacks afterwards. The girls had left and gone ahead; recall a slight tension with the man, who was good-looking and dark haired, as we dressed and repacked. Remember a bar of chocolate, I think a Fudge bar, that i slipped into my trouser pocket hoping it wouldn't melt... end.

And last night's dream... HRH Prince Charles going rogue and shooting people dead, including an Army or police officer who might have been his bodyguard. No rationale or given explanation, even in dream logic: just Charles going nuts and gratuitously killing people. And being perfectly polite and charming as he shot them. Weird. oh, and a sub-plot involved an assassination attempt on HM the Q - not, oddly enough, from her oldest son. It appeared to involve a youngish blonde woman who was wearing an "exploding dress" - the idea was she took it off, and as her body heat in the material dissipated and it cooled, it triggered an explosion.

Woke up, reflected the "exploding clothing" plot was used by Harry Harrison - a guy knowing he will be strip-searched treats his clothes with liquid explosive which is inert at body temperature but when it cools... the goons doing the strip-search are satisfied to impound a few decoy things and don't even look at the clothes apart from checking pockets. Later on - bang.

 

[Coypu]

Harry Harrison, the Stainless Steel Rat.. wow that brings back memories of a brilliantly wasted youth..

 

[Mythopoeika]

Harry Harrison, the Stainless Steel Rat.. wow that brings back memories of a brilliantly wasted youth..

I read most of those and I met Harry Harrison at a Worldcon.

 

[AgProv]

I read most of those and I met Harry Harrison at a Worldcon.

Jim di Griz, up against the Grey Men on the Planet Burunda, working with the local Resistance while his wife quietly fumes in the background because on this planet the resistance wear bikinis... (Memo, never annoy Angelina)

 

[IbisNibs]

. . . a milestone in my post-UEA life happened, the very first time I went into a hotel as a guest, not as an employee. I sat in the dining room on the other side of the kitchen doors, with kitchen staff making my dinner and waiting staff to bring it to the table. I looked towards the kitchen doors and thought about a guy, some years before, who had been doing the gruntwork in the kitchen to make ends meet, and get something of an income together. It was a funny feeling. I'd been resigned to having to do low-level kitchen work to survive, as it was something I knew I could do and work I could always get. But, all the time, that tiny little flicker of optimism.... I'd been thinking.. "one day, I'll be on the other side of those doors" without knowing exactly when. When it finally came about I thought, from the hotel dining room, as a paying guest... "I'd love to just have a quick word with the version of me who ended up barely graduating from university,

Congratulations on making it to the other side of the doors, and good for you for not giving up!

I used to wash dishes. Invaluable life lessons. You'll understand and appreciate this book:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/827458.Dishwasher
It's so full of truth.

 

[Min Bannister]

Haha, I just had a funny dream in which Dominic Cummings and his wife, too ill from Covid to look after their children, nevertheless managed to drive 250 miles in order to potentially spread the virus to his elderly parents. And even funnier, he claims there was nothing wrong with this and it was within the guidelines! Lol! No more cheese for me today.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-52780561

 

[AgProv]

And last night's entries.

Some sort of "workplace" with a break in proceedings, lots of people milling round outside, might have been a fire drill, fire alarm? Large open courtyard or area outside a large building. Everything relaxed and laid-back, listening to conversations going on in the groups around me; got the impression that somewhere nearby was a playground or waiting area for families with children. Couldn't see very far and the idea that lots of people were around me was an inference rather than a visual observation - lots of noise and chatter including children at play. Nearby were the sort of people who use swear words for punctuation, we all know them - a repeated intervention by one of the mothers of children about people swearing around the kids, she got really angry about it. As more of an observer than a participant, I felt relieved it wasn't me who was on the receiving end of a telling off!

Then travelling home from work, returned to a variation on a theme of the house where I grew up; for some reason, I veered from my own front door and went to the neighbour's house, maybe to avoid something happening at home. Had to justify myself being in their front, so I knocked on the door: the older woman who came to the door (small, dapper and over seventy) was nobody I physically recognised and was not the neighbour I expected; she looked surprised, I wondered what to say, and it came out as "I had to see you and say hello" - she seemed amused and sceptical as if she did not believe a word, I had an uneasy feeling I knew her from somewhere....

Then at school again... felt amused that the figure in the dream, who was identified as the overbearing class bully (more recognition of his role rather than any actual person) had long flowing pre-Raphaelite blonde hair. Utterly incongruous. I realised all I'd have to do in any confrontation was to target the hair - realised if I had a box of matches I could set light to it - the thought gave me a sadistic glee...

 

[Yithian]

Tangent on Cummings all but removed (initial story remains).

But, but, but...

Don't bother.