The Weirdest Dream
I woke early this morning when our middle daughter thumped across the landing, creaked open our bedroom door, and asked if we were going to the French Market in town (a twinned town in France sends over a number of stall holders each year selling fresh fruit, vegetables, clothes and various assorted bric-a-brac). I blinked my eyes open and struggled to bring the alarm clock into focus.
“Later”.
Over the next hour I had perhaps the most bizarre dream in quite some time – certainly the most memorable. I'm going to try and record some of it before it vanishes from my head.
It all started with me approaching a spaceship that had landed – a typical saucer shape, with rounded edges. There was an open hatch on top, which I climbed through, into an interior that was on reflection an almost perfect recreation of the ship from Barbarella (a wonderfully ridiculous movie, if you've not seen it). Anybody that has seen Barbarella will know what happens during the opening credits, and that's where this gets weird.
One of the distant friends I have made on the internet over the years was inside, and in-line with the movie – she was naked. I guess it helps that she's always been one of the people I would imagine being enormously intimidated by in real life – stumbling over words, and making a complete fool of myself in front of. The dream version of her was predictably 1960s Barbarella Jane Fonda-esque in the optical-poptitude stakes.
Piecing together what happened next, I figured out the saucer was in the back garden of the house I grew up in, and I was still living with my parents. I'm not sure quite how it happened, but we were now in the small box-room I had throughout my teenage years. I heard thumping around downstairs, so went to investigate.
My Dad (who retired years ago) was running back and forth, making breakfast for a work function the next day – he appeared to have some sort of cooking job. In reality my Dad was an engineer... this is where the dream starts to get ridiculously strange, and hard to piece together at all.
We wandered down to the lounge together, to watch the friend's wedding video together (in reality – the here and now – she had just got married) – and put it on the TV. While watching the various on-screen antics, the Carpenters song “Just Like You” morphed the room into a live show of the song, with my Mum appearing center stage (I'm still not sure why). Alongside this, suddenly our children were on the couch alongside and inbetween us (between us we have half a soccer team) – wiggling their way in to steal arms and cuddles.
I remember looking across the gaggle of children at my distant friend's face, and shrugging. At that very moment, my eyes opened, and the real world trampled all over the dream, as it always does.