I try to write down the dreams that interest me (or any, at all, that I remember). I’ve got a set of conventions that help make some sort of two-dimensional sense out of something that consists of at least four:
firstly, record all details. This is the biggest problem with writing this stuff down: it takes a long time. To write down everything that you can remember about what happened is a arduous process, but it goes a long way to awaking details that had been misplaced when you started.
The second is the use of the ellipse. I work on a 2 – 5 period scale, which is semi-exponential: things that happen moments apart, or that may even be contemporaneous but disjointed or of uncertain connection get two ellipses. Things which occurred in differing, subsequent realities get 5 (and sometime things which may as well have been different nights get 6). However, some ellipses are just that: ellipses.
A third semi-convention is the tone: it’s described in the first person, as though this is a real diary, and there is a real Other listening to my story, with some sort of nihilistic patience or amour for mundanities.
The saving grace about dreams is that often, in parallel with our metabolism of real-world events, you tend to only remember the interesting bits: perhaps it is more correct to say they are last to fade.
Do I think there is any significance to what occurs in my dreams? Only in one special case: Where I see something while dreaming and sincerely think “Of course. OF COURSE. That’s genius! WHY did I not think of that? I’d never think of that.”
….We’re in the countryside [state unknown], large, rolling hills … some sort of adventure or journey, much distance covered .. there is a house, a house that strikes me as a perfect house. There are three other people with me, they may be my brothers. The house is recessed into a prominent green hillock, it is low, redbrick with two stories made obvious by the external architecture: there are several subtle Georgian windows, and ivy growing over much of it, although the hosue itself shows no sign of being aged. The roof is flat, and upon it a patio which may well connect to the rest of the hillock, contained by neo-Georgian crenelations.. we pass it, heading down the prominence to the beach (long open strand, black sedimentary cliffs, bright green grasses) when we realise there is a tidal wave coming. The entire ocean lifts itself up for miles, more or less becoming glass: we can see every single detail of the ocean for miles quivering inside the oncoming mountain of wave. Colossal table corals, reefs, fish, grouper and hundreds of sharks, etc. The quantity of detail is indescribable. We are all mesmerised even with the wave heading directly for us, and we stare through the waves at the islands revealed through the mounting water: the closer the wave gets, the further we can see. There is an issue of parallax, we crane to see just over the horizon’s curvature: one person who could be Maurice, or Jack can see the Perhentians: the wave hits, and we are thrown vertically hundreds of metres, suddenly we are contained within a bus or large-bed lorry, spinning and discussing …
…Traveling again, perhaps with the parents, in a city which may be any and every city I have been to thus far: low slung, manic, organic, congested, self-assuredly sedate… we are driving; there is the sense that perhaps this dream city I am in is the beginning of a new civilisation, which, though lacking polish, or rigid order, seems hopeful, which I realise I have not felt in a long time. … However, someone tells me that the more you stray from “the blue arrowed walks”, which are designed to allow visitors and residents to navigate easily, and see the city, the more you the signs of disillusionment, apathy, decay, collapse, isolation… … I reflect on this when I see these blue signs, note when we do not follow them: the brief person who told me this appears to be right … The car halts by a park, and signage shows a number of frayed but intact posters predicting, or commemorating or promoting the collapse of our civilisation, perhaps as an exhibit:
The posters are design-heavy, multi-layered and dark, with much overlying chaotic text done as transcripts, or screenshots, and there are three designs. The third design is and will remain lost to me, or perhaps never “existed”, but the first is thus:
the usually confusion of text permeates the background, and there is an unreadable header, so that I am unsure what it is for: dates and similar bodies of text you’d find for an exhibition crowd the edges, but the sloppy application of the posters prevents ease of distinction. That is inconsequential though. The central image, viewed through a loupe of some sort is of a wide disheveled feverent mass; in their centre, supporting the focus of the image, are a group of select fanatical zealots, dressed in gothic christian robes; browns, oranges, reds and the inference of gold in the clothes, but not giving any suggestion of opulence. These priests, eyes and mouths wild in ecstatic fury hold aloft a holy dais: on it, the perfect empty white skeletons of four (three?) astronaughts, still in their EVA spacesuits, gold visors open, eyes and jaws wide open, they loll in a semi ridicule of their misappropriation. Their suits are clearly old but have been maintained as relics, with a slight confusion as to purpose, as well as small adornments. This image. Is brilliant. These four chaps are the centre of the image.
The second poster is far more simple: there is more pre-apocalyptic text imposed (statuses, blurred screenshots?) but the main image is of a shopping list from Tesco’s. The paper is old and darkened, thought otherwise intact, with a crimson splatter extending from the top right, obscuring the logo somewhat. The receipt’s header is embellished with the usual crap that nobody reads : clubcard points, repetition of the store’s name etc. The contents of the receipt are hundreds of items of preserved food, as well as batteries, paper, tampons, cans, knives, rope etc.
..We drive on, having passed this, and I despair that I didn’t bring my camera; Eoghan would have loved to have seen that. … We head down a road, through a lower part of the city .. we crest a hill, and stay airborne for longer than we have any right to: there is a swelling sensation of my stomach dropping as we continue to not rejoin the road: I wake to a persistent vertiginous sensation
[wake]
ACTIVATE THE CANNONS 