jonathan.beckett@gmail.com

Weird Dreams

I went to bed ridiculously early last night, and then slept straight through. I guess “straight through” is relative thoughafter sleeping for 8 hours I woke at 6am, and thought about getting up immediately. Of course I didn'tI stared at the ceiling for a while, listened to the kids fidgeting in their beds, and to the cats sneaking around the house. I also thought about the dream I awoke from.

As is always the way with dreams, none of it really made much senseand huge chunks of it have already vanished from memory. A few key scenes are still there though, so I'm going to write them down.

I was sitting on a couch on some kind of outdoor decking, with friends from all walks of my life gathered around a fire pit of some kind in small groups. The friends seemed to be a collection of people I have known throughout my entire lifefrom Junior school, right through to co-workers, and people I only know via the internet. I seemed to be single, because none of my family were there.

As the sun went down, and a chill set in, I made room on the seat next to me for the girl walking towards me to sit downa girl I had always liked at Junior school, but had never had the courage to even speak to. She smiled, and snuggled into me to keep warm.

This is where the dream becomes a bit unhinged.

Suddenly we were stretched out across the three seater sofa across the decking from the fire pit, and the decking was attached to a bar, with service staff walking back and forth. The girl and I were sprawled across the sofa, talking about all sorts of rubbish, wrapped in a huge fleece blanket. By now everybody else was similarly huddled around in small groups. I remember being very conscious of our bodies being intertwined under the fleece, and worrying what people might think. In the middle of talking, we suddenly kissed mid-sentence, and then looked at each other really, really awkwardly.

We bothsaid something along the lines of”well that changes things”.

And then the stylus on the dream skipped again suddenly we were sitting on the sofa, and she was buying a drink for us both. As we both took sips from the drinks, food arrived at the table (some kind of chilli baked potato dish to share), and thenAnd then I woke up.

While making breakfasts and lunches this morning I tried to figure out if there were any parallels to real life things going on in the dream, but couldn't really find anything. Half the trouble is that as the hours have passed since I woke up, huge patches of the dream have either grown more disconnected, or vanished entirely. It's funny how dreams do that.