Monday 29 February 2016

Time travel ~ in my dreams!

I had a dream the other night that stayed with me for ages ~ you know how some do?  Fear not, I know being told the plot of someone else's dream is one of the world's most tedious things ("then you changed into Paul from the office and we were running away from the Nazis - oh no, sorry, that was after the roof had fallen in but before I saw my mother laughing at me in the mirror...").  I promise I won't do that.  I'll just tell you why it stayed with me.


I dreamed that I travelled back in time ~ not very far, just to 1988, to Cromer in Norfolk where I lived during the last decade.  In the dream I met several people I knew when I lived there, and tried to tell them stuff like 'oh no, don't do that, you have no idea of the path it will take you down!', just as you'd warn the you of thirty years ago, if you had the chance (my mother used to say that we all needed two lives, the second one to get it right).
  

The dream was incredibly vivid, and I was right back there, in that cosy, pre-internet, much more simple life.  D'you remember how it was?
  • You wanted information?  You'd go to the library, or to WH Smiths to rifle through a few books.
  • You needed a practical service?  You'd ask people for a recommendation, or take pot luck with the Yellow Pages.
  • A new book or film?  You'd read reviews in papers, or just buy/see it anyway. 
  • You needed to get in touch with someone?  You'd wait until they were home, and ring them up.  Or drop them a line.


It's hard to recall, now, not having an endless source of information about every bloody thing in the whole world, at your finger tips.  As for that phone thing ~ one of the people I met in my dream was a girl called Claire, who shares my birthday (although she was born 22 years later).  In 2000 she was, like me, one of the last people to have a mobile phone, for the same reason ~ she didn't want to be constantly 'on call'.  I remember us both arguing with her mother about it; I only got one because my father didn't like the idea of me walking along crumbling cliffs on my own.



The internet has made us more informed, more wordly, ensures that we never, ever suffer a moment of boredom, or if we do we damn well shouldn't.  All the same, I did enjoy being back in that more innocent time, if only in the world of dreams.  It was kind of nice.  Easier.  



....which brings me to the other reason the dream has stayed with me.  For those few seconds, I knew what it was like to go back in time.  It was amazing, magical, fascinating, just as you might imagine, but so terribly frustrating, because I couldn't explain to everyone WHY some things they were worried about didn't matter, how life would just roll on and take its own course.

Have you ever dreamed an emotion or experience about which you know nothingOne that makes you think, when you wake up, 'oh, is that what it's like'?  Quite a few years back I dreamed that I murdered someone.  Taking someone's life made me feel as though I'd stepped outside the normal world, and was plunged into a terrifying dark realm ~ Hell, if you like, although no-one else would have seen anything different about me.  I knew that I would be living a nightmare for the rest of my life.   I wonder if that's what it really feels like.


The other experience was much less scary but equally powerful.  When I was eleven, I dreamed I was in love.  Obviously, at that age I knew nothing of such things past crushes on pop stars, and I remember waking up and thinking, 'so that's what it's going to be like ~ crikey!'  It was such a glorious, intense and all-consuming feeling, but not altogether pleasant, in the moments of doubt.  Oddly enough, the object of my affections looked rather like someone with whom I would fall in love some twenty years later.  I think that was probably coincidence rather than premonition, though!


My dreams are usually the predictable mish-mash of mild, long-held anxieties, random people I worked with twenty-five years ago, ex-loves, and bits and bobs that I can tell come from whatever I've been watching on telly ~ I doubt they mean much, and I can usually analyse them pretty well.  Only a few have stayed with me for years (though I have fond memories of the one on the Aerosmith tour bus!).

  I'd love to hear about anyone else's nocturnal adventures :)


36 comments:

  1. I'm always trying to get somewhere to meet someone- it's always too late and I'm dithering between keeping on trying and giving up. Which, come to think of it, reminds me of a chap I used to work with: Gilbert, he was called. he always said " If at first you don't succeed, give up." So, perhaps next Time I have this dream ...

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    1. Ha ha ha! Yes, that's one of my frequent dream scenarios too - they're mostly about anxieties, I think!

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    2. And I think that's insightful about 'living in a nightmare' after murdering someone. Hmm, a book I think?

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    3. Possibly! I don't know if I could do it, though. I'm find the crime/thriller aspect of some of the novels I write very difficult, as it is!

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  2. Gosh... the world without internet is a double-edged sword, really. Remember how excited everyone would be when the phone rang, hoping it was for them? Now it's a fight to get someone to answer it and we generally let it ring out because we know only "so&so" rings on the landline, etc. Now if I don't reply to texts within a timeframe of which the other person determines, we get in to trouble. So irritating.

    Recently I dreamed that my brother smuggled Australian wildlife in the USA and went home immediately and let me take the fall. I was in an interview room being terrorised by homeland security and the FBI. It scared the absolute crap out of me! I felt so frightened and they kept threatening my deportation and even took my passport from me and refused to give it back until I told them "the truth" (what they wanted me to say). And everyone (incl friends and fam) thought I was guilty. It was really awful. I felt so scared and alone. I woke up wanting to punch my brother lol.

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  3. ha ha!!! So you found out what it was like to be on an episode of 24, huh? As for the text etc answering - you know, I've kind of gone back the other way now. I have an old fashioned phone that just about takes pictures (remember how amazing photo phones seemed, just 15 years ago), and hardly ever look at it. My friends are used to the fact that the best way to summon me is to tweet me. Some of them aren't on Twitter, of course, but that's just tough :)

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  4. I have recurring dreams, but they just reflect my usual 'what if' anxiety state about...well...practically everything that could go wrong, so in my dreams, they do...predictablly. A few have stayed with me too. In one I had as a child, my brother died. It was the saddest I have ever been, and I still remember it. Strange, that. As for life before the internet, I sometimes wish for that again too, but then again only sometimes.

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    1. It's weird how some stay with you, isn't it? And the saddest you have ever been was in a dream..... your first experience of bereavement. Okay, now I'll admit it - the person I murdered was my brother!

      Yes ~ life before the internet. In those days I just used to write my novels, give them to a couple of friends to read, then crack on with the next. Still, at least it shows I wrote for writing's sake, I guess! And I wouldn't know such people as vallypee without it.

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  5. Your dreams sound like a lot of fun! I often wish I dreamed more, or at least remembered the ones they say I must have, as I feel sadly neglected in the dream department.

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    1. It's not uncommon not to remember them. They say we have about 7 a night!

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  6. Time travel- In my dreams...Thought provoking stuff indeed Terry & good luck with the book!!! I still remember having a recurring and very frightening dream as a child, in which for some bizarre reason I was about to be executed in ancient China!!!...Absolutely bonkers I know, but so vivid and frightening at the time, that the memory has literally stayed with me :)

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    1. I wonder why??? That's a weird one, isn't it? Most dreams you can analyse, but that one.... makes you wonder about past lives :)

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  7. I can't really say that I have a recurring dream - I used to when I was late teens/early twenties of a being on a yacht and going down some stairs and there was this man there who wanted to talk to me. We never did talk though, I always woke up at this point. I often wondered what he had to say.

    My dad died at the end of January and the night after he died I dreamt that I visited him at some garage (he liked tinkering with cars but didn't have a garage), I remember it being blue and that there was a few other men there. when I left I asked him was he coming. He told me 'no, he wouldn't be able to come home again and that he was sorry, but tell everyone he loved them'.
    Make of it what you will, was it in my head or was he reaching out to me?

    Your dreams do sound so much fun though. It's obviously that creativeness in you. x

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    1. Wow! Who knows? Was it just your head or a messagde from .... the other side?!! Both those dreams might have a theme, though, which is you being left wanting in your communication with a man, perhaps? I always think it's the theme of a dream, or how you felt about it that means something (usually an anxiety, I reckon) rather than what actually happened. That's only my theory, of course, might be total rubbish!

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  8. Interesting post :)

    I always work out 'real' stuff in my dreams Terry. For the past 15 years it's been in a fabulous seaside town (it's not where I live) and I'm often in one particular building where I have to work something out. Travel figures too. Either escalators (which criss cross a huge area in a different building) or train and I've flown from the town too. I've also been at the jetty waiting for a boat when there's a storm coming or travelling by foot where there is lots of water. My family are there but I have a different set of friends than in my waking world. I've browsed through shops and spent money. There's one particular warehouse which is like an Aladdin's cave with all the goodies available to purchase. It's a great place to work things out :)

    I've always had a rich dream life ...

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    1. Fascinating! Sounds like travel is signifying something, for you, doesn't it? Buildings do for me - a certain house that I've dreamt about for years. In hard times it's been unsafe, with floors falling in, dangerous staircases, more people in that I want. I remember when I first married my second husband and was very happy, a lot of the dangerous bits were made safe, and it had been redecorated, with a fire burning in the hearth. Not hard to analyse!

      As I said to Stacey above, I think it's how you feel about what's happened in the dream, rather than the actual events. Your travel theme is a wonderful one, and you sound very balanced with a far reaching mind... what do you think?!

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    2. Well they do say the house is the mansion of your soul Terry ...

      Water for me = emotions and of course dreams are very Neptunian aren't they :) We're always travelling in one form or another I think!

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    3. I've read that water in dreams or psychology is all about the emotions - deep dark water meaning that you have stuff you're hiding from yourself, the fast running stream a metaphor for being unable to face up to things and moving on too quickly, etc etc!!

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  9. The worst dreams? When I dream of something happening to the children or grandchildren. But we've all had them, from time to time, since my husband died. So getting a text in the morning along the lines of, 'just tell me you're ok' always gets a quick response, and then we can get on with our days.

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    1. They're so much about anxieties, aren't they? And dreams do tend not to come true ;), thankfully!

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  10. What a fascinating post Terry. I've had a couple of 'precognitive' dreams, so I thought at the time, but if they were subject to scrutiny there might have been a logical explanation. What's interesting also is, I think that you need to dream for mental health, and if people are sleep deprived they can suffer irrevocable harm. A few years ago there was a TV prog where gruops of people challanged each other to say awake the longest. It just petered out, I think it was too dangerous a thing to do. Maybe some of the contestants got ill, and threatened to sue the TV company?

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  11. Great post, Terry. I rarely remember my dreams these days or if I do they make no sense whatsoever.

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    1. I think so much of what we dream is just random and has no meaning at all, Cathy!

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  12. Yes, could be ~ or maybe the result of a satisfied and active mind :)

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  13. I've had a couple of dreams where I've died but they weren't horrible dreams, it was simply a case of, "Oh, my time's up" and fell 'asleep'. I was very calm, which is odd because I worry myself silly thinking about death sometimes. A lot of my dreams also feature my ex husband which I believe is due to unresolved issues rather than a desire to be with him again.

    I hate how bad dreams can set your mood for the day though.

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    1. Yes!!!! I dream about my exes all the time and I so agree with you. And you're right, the atmosphere of a dream can affect the whole day.

      Your dying dreams are interesting ~ I think that shows you're a fairly balanced person! x

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  15. Good afternoon. If you had really looked at 'my ebook' you would see that there are 11 of them (ie, ebooks, in the plural) and I have well over five hundred reviews, so do not feel any need to pay for them, or, indeed, your help in writing books blurbs. I suggest that when touting for business in this way, you really DO check out a writer's work, but it is never a good idea to try to gain clients by writing spam messages on their blogs. btw, isn't a 'book download' and a 'purchase' the same thing?

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  16. I usually just delete these as spam, Shaz, but just felt like replying to this one! They amaze me - I mean, if you really want someone's business, wouldn't you try and find out a bit more about them?!

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  17. I know exactly why you left it Terry. And I even understand why it was done (after all, a popular author and a post with lots of comments ... and if you've checked 'notify me' of comments then everyone who has commented will get to read it too. But NO, just no. Not respectful in any way and certainly not the way to try to start a communication with someone who has the possibility to be a future client or share your service to others.

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  18. Absolutely. I wonder if anyone ever takes this sort of spam seriously? I do hope not. A few years ago I used to get some writers saying to me, hey, I've just been approached by this publisher/promoter/agent who's really interested in my book! What do you think? And, inevitably, it would be some crumby vanity publishing company, or someone just trying to make money without offering anything of worth, or (and I actually explored this one, just to amuse myself) someone calling themselves a literary agent who hadn't got a business address, clients, website or any pull with publishers whatsoever ~ he just wanted writers to sign over a certain percentage of future sales. Charlatans are everywhere, alas - and spammers!

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    1. I think first time authors who aren't involved with any forums/networks probably do Terry ...

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  19. Sadly, you're right - I've seen the evidence a few times!

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