Last night, I asked for a dream to help me title my dream fiction collection/series.

I was going to call it 90 Dark Degrees. Like Armoured Car, which is what I call the publishing part of this enterprise, 90 Dark Degrees is from the poem Sleeping Standing Up by Elizabeth Bishop. It's about the power of dreams to transport us. And it has dark overtones relating to the Second World War and the Nazis too, not unlike many of my dreams. 

I created an email address based on ninety dark degrees. I designed a logo and everything. But, while I like the darker dreams and turning those into stories, it's not all about horror. I need to get away from misconceptions that leave me feeling like a fraud, and that might turn off or disappoint readers. I love my horror roots. And I write dark, but not that dark.

So, I'm looking for a new title. Since it's dream-based fiction, it seems reasonable to have a dream-based title. 

In my lucid dream diary, I wrote: "What shall I title my dream fiction series?"


Response/Interpretation One

That night, I dreamt I was performing an exercise in French textbook. I had to group like words together.

Which gave me the idea that this is a good place to start. I used to do it sometimes when writing poetry.

• I'll collect titles in a dedicated place.
• I'll collect words that are relevant or resonant regarding the project.
• I'll look for a french component/element.

The Call of the Void

Regarding the French component, I followed the suggestion and read a blog post Google pushed my way called: "Nine French phrases that English really should have too." L'appel du vide spoke to me. It translates as the call of the void or the call from the void. Also known as the high place phenomenon, it's that feeling you get when you're high up and start to think about jumping. You may not be seriously interested in breaking your legs or committed to dying that second, but nonetheless, the voice starts whispering and there's a tug. 

As a title, The Call of the Void sounded good at first, but I think:

• It's too close to horror.
• It sounds a bit pretentious as a title, especially if I go for the French.
• It's about the urge to act but resisting. My stories and my cultivating of dreams are more about succumbing to urges.
• The article suggests that l'appel du vide involves the risk of self-destruction, which is far from my beliefs about the benefits of opening up to dreams. 
• It's a well-known scientific phenomenon and there's a correlation with suicidal thoughts. While mental health is a topic that's important to me, it would be misleading to give my stories that connotation. 

So this might be the title of one book out of several. Or it might be a signpost that leads to other titles and other ideas. I've brushed up on my dream incubation techniques to generate more suggestions from dreams and to learn to read them better.

If you have any thoughts about The Call of the Void as a title or if you have other ideas about titles, I'd love to hear them.

Email me or leave a comment. It will make a difference.


Response/Interpretation Two

​​

It's all about the owls at the moment.


In a memorable dream, a giant owl/eagle/vulture landed next to me on the edge of a cliff. As we looked out together, I felt at peace, but also on the edge of danger and opportunity. I wouldn't say the huge bird was friendly, but in the dream I knew it had my back.

I woke with a strong feeling about owls being awesome and started noticing them everywhere.
​

So with every owl-sighting accompanied with pleasure, amusement, and a sense of deeper meaning, I decided that owls were a thing and I was going to make them even more of a thing.

• I looked at lots of images of owls. 
• I tried to draw some of the owls I found. This was challenging. It focused my attention, though. I imagined that this would help me have more lucid dreams, since it increased my awareness and focus on dreams and waking life.
• I saved an owl as my laptop background image.
• I also made an owl my email background image. 
• I added an owl pendant from a friend to my keychain. 
• I hung a crystal owl (thanks kids) in my writing room. 

​

Now I see at least 2 or 3 owls per day: the keychain owl, the writing room owl, and the email owl. And it's not unusual for my morning walk to my caravan to be accompanied by the sound of owls.

But where I think this gets interesting is the random owls.

It's like when you start seeing certain patterns of numbers. You get the number 11 bus at 11:11 and you check your shopping receipt and you paid £11.11. It's coincidental but it starts to feel spooky. And the more you think about it, the more you see it.

In the two weeks before writing this post, I was seeing at least one random owl per day. I had a great conversation recently about owls vs. larks. They are in kids' drawings, games, adverts, online, and on people's clothing.

"I see owls. They're just like regular owls. They don't know they're owls."

All this owl-spotting has prompted me to track it for 30 days, to see if there's a pattern, to see what happens next, and for fun. 

I'm only adding the owls that I didn't plant myself. And I've decided not to get weird about taking photos of every single owl. This is fun and everything, but if I get obsessed about taking photos of dream signs, that's going to make me less connected to my environment, not more. Noticing dream signs is one thing. Pulling out my phone and stopping life traffic is another. 


Here it is.
​

A couple of weeks ago, I saw that my daughter had an owl on a necklace and I told her that I liked it. Today she was going through a bag of her things and pulled out another owl.

Was getting rid of some school papers from when the kids were very small. Quite a few owls in here.

I was tidying up in the kitchen while the family listened to a Radio 4's Book at Bedtime, which sounded like His Dark Materials. It had Lyra and someone called Pan. And an owl.

Before bed, I listened to an episode of the All Aboard the Dream Train podcast. Jennifer Dumpert talked about sleep and dreams, including circadian rhythms and how she is definitely an owl.

​

Day two. No owls.

Kind of embarrassing actually.

Starting to think that I've made a mistake starting this and that I'm not going to see any owls for a month.

Two owl sightings today, both logos for content I was researching.

https://www.darkowl.com/dark-owl-vision

and 

https://www.irmi.com/free-resources/white-papers/25-personal-risk-management-tips

Should I have an owl logo?
​

Another owl logo online this morning, while searching for something completely unowl-related.

Then, one or two owls hooting as I left my writing room in the evening. I love this. It feels reassuring that they are there, even though I can't see them. I realize that if someone had a phobia of owls, the fact that they can see us but we can't see them would be terrifying. Fortunately, I feel like they are mostly indifferent to us. I just like having them around.

Going through kids' old schoolwork again, since I'm clearing out a bumch* of stuff, and I came across another owl or two. Kids' exercises are full of owls. Not as popular as hens and cows and dogs and cats, but they're up there.

Went in for lunch and the girls were looking at an owl in a sewing and knitting book. They were excited because they have an owl just like it, which our neighbour made. (This is the same neighbour that we were to see the next day, so check out that entry below).

Sending a message to a friend, Facebook suggested that I invite her to join messenger. They are using an owl as their image for this.

After dinner, we watched Guardians of the Galaxy. My wife said she'd mistaken the title for "Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole"

On returning to the writing room for something, owls hooted above.

Finally my wife gave me a Natural History Museum diary. I had a flick through and January had a photograph of an owl.
​
*This was a typo, but I think it should be a word.

Today started with owls hooting around the writing room, which was a nice way to start the day!

On returning to the kitchen for breakfast, a bunch of the kids' revision books fell on the floor. The brand name/publisher for some of these books is Chouette, which is an owl.

Tidying up the old writing room to turn it into something else, I found a postcard with an owl on it.

Finally, having New Year'sEve, we had dinner with a friend, starting with Coquilles Ssaint Jacques. Being the artistic type, she was thinking of keeping the shells to make them into something. When I asked what, she suggested an owl. She once made an owl out of shells, she said, and when she was a kid there were owls all over her room. 

Owls hooting this morning and this evening. This is a common occurrence around here. Still feels special though. It's a great sound.

I'll probably keep reporting it, but feel free to dismiss it from the owl count.

Having dinner with some friends when I noticed this beauty!

Watched Bird People today. I despise trailers and there's no clip at the moment, so there's no link here. nothing. Just know that there's an owl in it. And if you've spent any time on my website or you've enjoyed my stories, you'll probably enjoy the movie. I loved it.

Stuff happened, of course. I just don't remember an owl having anything to do with it.

Watching the Sorcerer's Apprentice. The one with Nicholas Cage. If you've not seen it, it's a great family film, by which I mean nobody watching falls asleep. It's funny. And I think the magic is Barker-esque as you'll see from the clip. If you can get through the interminable opening narration (just keep your eyes on Monica Bellucci and Alice Krige), you'll probably like this.

8 mins in, there's a stuffed owl in a shop. Owls and magic, eh?

Come for the owls, stay for the evil magicians in a Russian doll.

Owl coloured by my friend's daughter.

One of them made an owl noise during our get-together and they discussed a scene with owls in a movie they love. They said they often see owls on their way home.

Checked out an app for making animations. Flipaclip. One example was an owl that exploded into birds that flew away.

I also noted the owl on a case of sketching pencils.

My daughter lost her handwarmer. Guess who found it?

There are no fewer than four owls in Rango. They are the chorus.

My daughters recently got into videos about unlikely animal friends. Today, they really wanted to watch the one about the owl and the cat.

Downloaded some story-reading apps today, including chat stories. Hooked Chat stories and Tap Chat stories both had owls for their logos. Owls have eyes and stay up late reading fiction I guess.

I also downloaded something called Remente self improvement, which is a goal setting, journal keeping, mood tracking app with an owl on it. Too interesting to uninstall. 

• Owls are a pretty good dream sign in the sense that I see them or hear them in some fashion everyday. They trigger me to consider lucidity several times per day, which is helpful for attaining lucidity as one of several activities. But I could do better. 
  
• Owls make a cool dream sign. They're beautiful animals. And it's been fun noticing them. But since one of the main points of doing this dream sign experiment was to achieve more lucidity, it probably wasn't the best choice. On looking back at my dream journal over the last couple of months, I haven't dreamt about owls once! I've dreamt about birds a few times; a couple of dreams about gulls.
  
• The initial dream that prompted all this featured a bird that was part owl, but also part eagle, part vulture. It was a bird of prey. So I'm thinking that perhaps I could extend the dream sign to being birds of prey. There are plenty here and that would mean more natural triggers for reality checks. They're also cool. But the best source - perhaps the only source of dream signs - is my dreams.
• What have I actually been dreaming about?
  * Kids
  * Animals that are not owls (bears, wolves, monkeys, dogs, seagulls)
  * People I used to know but am no longer in touch with,
  * Homelessness
  These things might make better dream signs and could be used to inform future stories too, while I'm at it, since this is what preoccupies my sleeping brain.
  

​The bus brakes suddenly. A moment later, there is a shockwave, people turn, and screams come from behind us. I run toward the screams and meet my colleagues there. 

Later, I see people in poverty, enslaved on an alien spacecraft. They tell me their stories of being tricked.

I start the dream again and try to save them.

This time, when the bus brakes, I'm already watching carefully. This time, when people scream, I run the other way.

​The explosion, causing the screams, was a diversion. I see a big car speeding across the grass and I jump in front of it, thinking that it would be good if I had a gun. The car doesn't stop (the windows are blacked out and I can't see anyone inside), but fortunately a car full of civilians rams it from the side, saving me.

"Get in!" they scream.

I jump in.

I end up hearing similar tales of woe as before. "The aliens are coming." "They are enslaving us." "They don't care about human life."

All the while, my mind is working on how to save everyone.

A Stephen King novel meets A Game of Thrones. A cold fog is sweeping through the town. Anyone it touches, anyone who walks into it, is taken by the cold and they cannot ever leave. They can only move within the confines of the ever-expanding, cold fog.

Vans and removal trucks speed along the street. They growl and swerve as they race to get out of town.

I am in a position of responsibility, perhaps the sheriff. In my attempts to protect people, I end up standing in the street with the fog approaching. I end up walking into it. Just a few feet.

An unseen wind blows through me. It chills my ribs and my spine. I imagine leaves and dust blowing between my bones. My flesh feels as insubstantial as air.

I look back at my team and other onlookers.

"Get back!" I say as the fog continues to creep toward them.

After a few more seconds, the fog stops. It roils, but doesn't advance any further.

In the mist, like the white walkers in A Game of Thrones, trapped people wonder within the fog. They are wearing what they were wearing when it enveloped them.

I'm in uniform. That's me in uniform forever. 

I don't feel like I'm losing my mind yet. The others, however, look gone mentally. I wonder how long that takes. I wonder what that feels like.

A man straight out of a Stephen King novel approaches through the fog. He is wearing brown, leather boots. Something about me being captured has changed things and, talking to the people outside the fog, he offers a truce between his fog and the rest of the world.

As long as no-one tries to get anyone out of the fog, he says, he'll let the rest of the world survive. Anyone who enters the fog of their own volition, however, will be his.

"How come you can turn into a werewolf AND other things?" someone asks. It seems impertinent, like, unnecessary right now.

"I shapeshift into a wolf," he answers quickly. "From my wolf form, I can shapeshift into many things."

He moves on quickly, physically, as if to avoid questioning. It seems like we've found a plot hole in the story and he wants to gloss over it.

Gone, the evil man lets us mull over his deal.

I consider my life in the cold.

It's not as cold as I thought it would be.

But it does look like forever.

Those in the fog have given up, but those on the other side are trying to think of solutions. I admire them and I think I might be in a unique position to help from here.

In a camp of survivors, I'm having a laugh with three soldiers when I realize that the leader is watching.

The soldiers have become fat and soft over the last few months, but this will not do. I turn nasty on them, but they think my yelling and admonishments are part of the joke. I try to whisper to them that this is just for show and that they need to play along, but they only laugh at me. Until I hit one of them.

They look upset. I'm upset. They stand up straight.

*

Later, during a military training exercise, the leader takes his large army bag and I know he's leaving. He looks like the guy who used to do The Daily Show. He hugs me and then he's gone.

*

Later still, people realize the washing still needs doing. 

I organise the taking down and folding of half a load of washing. My friend folds with me.

Downstairs, I hear a tape recording. A deep voice booms: 

"Don't forget your keys."

"Don't close the door."

"Take your keys with you."

"The door locks automatically."

On cue, I hear a loud CLICK and then a guy yells: "Shit! Fuck! Fucking fuu-ck!"

My old flatmate stomps up the stairs, cursing under his breath. He turns on heavy metal music. I don't know whether this is to calm him down or to help him think.

Outside, I'm impressed by this workplace/living area.

We are on communal land, owned by a rich, young visionary; on a hill, with an exceptional view. 

The main house is all dark glass at the front, on three floors. Modular buildings stand In a rough semi-circle on the land in front. Each unique building has its own character and looks as if it were designed by an architect. Each is owned by a different group and is overseen by the main house.

A woman in a leather apron stands outside her workshop, a one-story building with a pink, sloping roof.

This is beautiful. I want to stay.

Kevin Spacey is a lighting salesman.

My two friends - a man and a woman - and I are close enough to talk to each other without looking at each other and to have some witty banter with some gentle mockery,

The man tests some of the lights as he walks around the store. He hits upon one that has various attachments. It changes from a downcast light to uplighting that illuminates the corner of the massive showroom in a weird way.

Large, leafy plants in the corner suddenly glow, alien-like. Changing the switch of this light is like having the room re-interpreted by a different artist.

I ask Spacey how much it costs. He says the words, but there is so much excitement that I don't hear him the first time. On asking him to repeat himself, I brace myself, and he says:

"Three thousand three hundred pounds," with a straight face, with no expression at all.

My friends make some mocking noises, but I keep playing with the light.

It's the one. It's perfect.

I begin to tell them that I have an idea about a dream home, and while I can't afford this today, maybe one day ... but I know that voicing that is the ideal way to kill the dream. Instead, I look around and wonder if a place like this ever has a half-price clearance sale, in which case ...

On the way out, I thank Kevin Spacey and I reach into my silver business card case. My cards (IRL and ITD) are deliberately sparse, but I've pre-annotated the first one (IRL and ITD) with my full contact details. I start pulling it out but hesitate.

I realize that if Kevin Spacey is serving me, then I must be in a movie. And if I'm in a movie with Kevin Spacey, I probably don't want to be giving the Kevin Spacey character my full contact details.

Unable to hide what I'm doing, I switch cards for a sparse one that just has one phone number and an email address.

He takes it the way a man takes a business card when he has a courtesy case full of business cards at that which he never looks.

He watches us go with that empty expression. The alien leaves glow in the background.

A little boy is in a room with several other kids. They ask me to wait until he's outside, and then I can escort him to the bathroom. 

As a joke, I sing to him through the keyhole. My voice is high and ethereal, but I can't hit a note.

I decide to take out my tablet and load up Etherpad, but there's a box of stuff on top of it. I have to excavate the junk to get to it. Fortunately, the screen is intact.

I talk to the guy next to me about Etherpad. He's retirement age and he's not that interested until I start playing. Then, he raises his eyebrows and watches.

My playing is interupted, however, by a video. 

In the video, people (pedestriants, commuters, sightseers) are sleeping on an interactive 911 monument in London. The monument is made of leather cushions the size of small sofas with several gigantic blankets thrown over them.

The person  videoing the scene pulls a blanket off someone. The guy who was disturbed quickly covers himself back up, irritated. Hilarious.

When the video ends, I close the window and play some more Etherpad, but I fall asleep waiting for the boy to come out.

On waking, the boy is gone. His mother took him home. The man next to me is gone too.

Now it's just me and the tablet and the remaining kids, sleeping.

I play Etherpad some more.

About "Sleep" by Max Richter - Article from the New York Times

A video of Etherpad, also/now known as EtherSurface

I'm having a nap in my writing room. I feel a bit weird. I'm exhausted and maybe dehydrated. A glass of water and orange is on the other side of the room. It's within reach, yet it seems so far away.

Falling asleep, I find myself sitting on a bench in a small tent.

The sloping canvas roof of the tent keeps slapping against my head and face. It's white and light pushes through it. It bulges inwards with the wind, as though an animal is shoving it from the other side, but I know it's just the wind. 

Still, I swat at it, as if there is some sentience behind it.

Meanwhile, although I see nothing, I feel things like large spiders crawl up my leg and into my lap. I try to get used to the feeling, because it would be nice not to be bothered by such things. All they are going to do, if they are real, is touch me, I reason. They won't even touch me; only my clothes.

After less than half a minute, I can't take it anymore and I'm swatting at them. This means, therefore, that I'm swatting at nothing and I know it.

Outside, footsteps. 

My friend: "'Ello, mate. Can I come in?"

In my writing room, my hood is over my face. I get up and stagger to the door, holding onto things to steady my way.

There's no-one there.

I flop back down and drink that glass of water and orange.

Later, I ask my friend if he called out to me earlier.

He says no.

​I'm driving a taxi to earn some extra cash. My friend yells at me for not switching on the fare computer.

My very first turn as a taxi driver - left - is wrong.

My passengers are worried about being shot down.

Yep. That could happen.

A woman in white is laughing, but she's in another dream. 

I land the car and help a naked fairy. She was tortured and stripped. I clothe her and we jump to freedom. She lands beautifully, but I land some way off. The distance frees me from her spell and I realize that she is using me. 

The fairy is dictating a blog post as she steals my car. I could run and get in, but I don't want to. 

That woman in white is still laughing, but she's still in the wrong dream.

A young man has worked out how to talk to evil spirits. You have to use a raspy voice, high in the hertz.

He screws his face up as he demonstrates. Listening to his voice, I feel the world change a little, like something new is looking our way, the way a bear might look at ripe fruit hanging high in a tree. Or it's like a window has been pushed open a few inches and a distant wind blows through our world.

As I hang up washing, I hear someone complaining about me. They are saying that I am evil. 

I finish hanging the washing.

Thought I'd see if I could capture my dreams through drawing and painting. This one's a bit ambitious. Not recognisably Jackie, but I'll get there!

If I dream of a bowl of fruit by next Wednesday, I'll have a more recognisable drawing to post..

​Here's the dream:

I couldn't find a good clip of the exact fight scene that this dream reminds me of. But here is a trailer for the film it's from, Police Story, and it's sequel, Police Story 2.

I sidestep from wakefulness into a lucid dream in which I'm outside, on a hill, on a bike;. Stationary, but balancing on two wheels, I hop and make the bike clear the ground by a foot.

I do it again.  Two feet.

Again. Three feet. 

On descent, I feel my stomach rising, that thrilling sensation of falling. I find it unpleasant, but there's something compelling about bouncing,

I bounce onto an old stony wall that separates the garden I was in from the rest of the world. The rest of the world is no less green or lush, but it goes on further. The land slopes downward for a long way and ahead I can see the bottom of the valley and then another mound of earth rising in a great hill, not quite a mountain, on the other side. 

Still on the stationary bike, I hop down to the ground, landing on the "rest of the world" side. My stomach rises into my chest, giving me butterflies.

The sky is red. Beautiful. It looks like something somewhere is on fire and the sky is gradually reflecting the colour and movement of flames. The clouds are slow, black shadows. In the distance, trees are silhouettes.
.
I bounce higher so I can see more.

I bounce higher, to see how high I can bounce.

The butterfly sensation becomes so intense that I can't stand it anymore

I wake up.

"LEAVING"

There's a beautiful woman at work. She might be Iranian. She's tall and sullen. We've never seen eye to eye, I don't know why, but when I see a crowd around her and I hear her saying googbye to people, I go over.

She's wearing a denim dress with a short jacket. Her hair is naturally brown and blonde, very short and curly.

When I'm near enough for us to hear each other and we make eye contact, I say:

"It sounds like you're leaving for a long time."

"I'm fired," she says with no hint of emotion.

"Oh," I say. "Look, I'm sorry we didn't talk more, but ..."

She raises one hand, like a police officer stopping traffic.

She moves on to the next conversation with the next person.

Delighted by my humiliation, my boss smiles at me from her podium.

"​ANIMALS"

I check on the animals. They are in a field, penned into a small area by electric fence wire. 

The goat has a great capacity for kicking things and is currently kicking a bail of hay over the fence line so that the animals can't eat. 

"Why are animals such assholes?" I ask myself.

Later, the goat challenges the bull to a fight. The goat soon charges, but instead of butting heads, it jumps, runs over the bull's back and jumps off the other side.

"BACK IN THE OFFICE"
​
I try to get on with my work. I fix a computer screen. I chat to an old friend I used to work with IRL; she too is spiky and uncommunicative, as if she is upset with me. 

Later, a female colleague I don't know sidles closer and closer until she is clinging to my arm. A man is staring at us, distressed. 

"If you want to break up with him," I suggest to the woman, "you should probably be more direct."

After thinking it over, she relinquishes my arm and breaks into song. She sings to her partner about how she feels. Trapped. Like he doesn't appreciate her. 

He sings back, operatically. He loves her really. He just doesn't know how to show it.

"That was great," I say.

They look at me blankly, until I sing something like:

"That was great
what you said;
put the past
in its bed."

The happy couple beam at me.

"BREAK"

In the toilets, a white, enamel sink that stretches the length of the room. By the chrome-plated taps, there is a 6-octave piano. 

I don't even pee. I just wash my hands and play the piano. Everything I play on this piano sounds beautiful. The sound reverberates and swells, pushed around by the dank, grey-brown walls.

I play a sad song with deep, sorrowful chords and a wistful, heart-rending melody.

​I worry that anyone hearing this outside the toilet will worry about my mental state, but I'm ok. I just need some time.

A prophecy says the Hound can only be killed on Valyrian soil. When he stops a caravan on its way to Highgarden and demands that the occupants come out, therefore, he thinks he is safe.

From inside the caravan, Ser Loras Tyrell fires two arrows. 

The first arrow merely pierces the wall and sprays the Hound with dust. 

The Hound looks at his already soiled cloak and realizes that this new dust is from Valyria.
"Oh, fffuck!" he says, more pissed off and disgusted than afraid, though he knows what is coming.

A second arrow pierces his armor and thumps into his chest.

He drops to his knees.

The ground drinks his blood.

Dee from Battlestar Galactica is on a date with an astronaut.

He underestimates her, like everyone else. She tells a witty joke about opening the emergency door on a space shuttle, but her heart isn't in the conversation.

She ends up alone, at a table in the middle of the bar, tapping on her forehead with a pen.

I'm writing the scene, putting words in her mouth and mind. I too am tapping my forehead with the end of my Biro.

They find me in my tent, tending a long, slow fire, dozing.
"It's warm in here," the boy remarks.
I glare up at him, but the whole world seems upside down.

*

Later, at dinner, the truth of my thoughts drifts back to me.
"You look like you're very far away," the maester notes.
"Not me," I say. "We're fine. It's the world that's gone."
"Gone," he chuckles, his blue eyes twinkling. "Gone where?"
"I don't know," I reply thoughtfully as I push the grey meat around my plate. "But I know we're dreaming."
I look up at him to pierce him with the accusation. He seems shocked. Whether it's because I found out his secret or because he doesn't know himself, I don't know. But I will.
I go back to mopping up bloody gravy with mashed potato. He goes back to pretending I'm a silly little girl.

A giant elephant rampages in the shadowy garden. 

It's not just an elephant, but a giant elephant. 

It bats trees out of the way like twigs, thunders in and out of the darkness, devastating the stillness. 

My friend suggests putting it on a lead.

"It'll be fine," he says, running alongside her with the rope..

Trembling inside the relative but not absolute safety of the stone house, I become #lucid. 

I float for a better perspective, but get

d
i
s
t
r
a
c
t
e
d

when I pass through the ceiling into the attic. 

Dusty material. Cardboard boxes. Corridors. 

Unknown people in casual clothes perform science experiments in converted classrooms.

A strange-looking woman mistakes me for someone else, hugs me, and tells me she'll be right back, but this is a dream; real as it seemed to her, as real as I seemed, her entire world is gone before she returns.

​Almost in silhouette, I see Winona Ryder stomping across a hilltop towards our barn. She is wearing a long, black dress and boots. I hear her furious thoughts.

"I HATE it when he hides in the other room," she thinks, "and pretends I've discovered him doing something!"

When Winona enters the barn, I make sure to stumble into view, looking harried.

"Sorry," I say, breathless. "I was just in the other room."

I gesticulate towards the other room, 

On the other side of the room is an open door, which, even now, is closing its secrets to us - to her -  in a slow arc.

Winona smiles warmly.

I’m falling asleep and see a large red sky, gently swirling. In the process of watching, I realize that I’m dreaming and I jump into the dream, like a bird taking flight.


I hang in the sky, sort of sliding along, carried by the sky. Ahead of me is a sharp image, like a mandala. It contains many hexagons. In each hexagon is an icon. The floating mandala thing spins and slides away from me just as fast as I slide towards it.


Between you and me, I’m a bit disappointed by this.


The sky is red. The ground is green. The world is blurred, except for the mandala.


Physically uncomfortable, I open my eyes briefly, shift in my seat and lose the dream. I shut my eyes again and try to get back into the dream.


This time the blurred sky is grey-blue. I jump into it again and hang there, floating like before, but the mandala is gone. The world is still blurred.


I then dream about living in a rustic commune and sharing responsibilities and facilities, including a cooker that has its symbols drawn on in pen and if you rub your finger over it the symbols disappear, which complicates things for people who don’t know how to use the cooker.


I rub one mark away with my thumb and it disappears as cleanly as if it were never there.


I should come back and redraw them, I think.


I won’t.

I’m playing a game where I get to choose a vampire from a range of contestants. I have them walking around in the dark like they are sharks.


In this round, I eliminate almost everyone.


Four remain.


The dark is gloopy. It has grey, yellow streaks in it. Although they are above ground, it’s like they are underwater, in the depths of the ocean.


Two remain.


Two women circle. One of them is young, goth pale, and dressed in black. She has large, dark, dead eyes. They don’t seem to focus on anything.


She keeps her mouth open, like she’s filtering water. Or, again, like she’s dead. She makes big circles.


She’s going to make a fantastic vampire.

Later, we break into somebody's apartment.

I'm with a my friend's boyfriend, a flat-nosed, orange-skinned gangster.

We enjoy the stuff in the apartment, like we are in "The Bling Ring." There's a modern, brown, leather armchair that looks like it belongs in a museum. Even its shadow is beautiful.

I'm rolling a cigarette when I spot the shared bathroom. It is shared by other apartments. Across an acre of wet tile floor, black grills and plugholes. In the distance, there is a portly young man in a towel. Unsurprisingly, he looks surprised to see me.

I shut the door.

It's too late. Within a minute, there are people at every door, either banging for us to open up or preventing us from leaving, demanding to know who we are.

Angry faces everywhere. They chatter at us, at each other.

Thus cornered, I wake myself

u

p

.


I'm scared.

Lying in the dark, scared of the consequences of breaking and entering.

I shouldn't have done it.

But then I realize it's over.

Which means that I managed to wake up.

Which means it really was a dream.

And now I feel like a wimp.

So

 I try

to return

to the dream.



In a shared room, now, with bunk beds and friends. An orthodox Jew is making us watch TV.

A young boy of about eight years old, his personal student, is looking up at him and asking questions.

The old Jew answers, but always in a way that is derogatory to me and my friends.

"Would you like my chair," I ask the old man, standing, conciliatory, "so you can be more comfortable?"

He accepts, but in a way that suggests any discomfort, therefore, was directly my fault.

Although I'm burning with anger, I move away from the chair. I don't want my friends to see how furious I am. I want them to see the best in people. I want to set the example.

"What does that word mean?" the boy says, pointing to a page in his book.

"That means: 'two things helping each other,'" the old man replies, and he gives the boy a loving smile.

"It's the opposite of internecine," I spit, "which is where two things destroy each other."

"Yes," I think, glaring at them. "I'm implying that you're going to destroy each other."

They just look at me, like I've walked in on them in the middle of something.

A girl takes me to her apartment in Japan. Her apartment has an anti-gravity setting.

She and her roommate clamber over the walls and ceiling. It's like the dorm is turning slowly, like in an 80s music video, but I can attest that it's not. I'm on the ground and the room is not moving at all.

She turns the setting to neutral to make breakfast. Toast.

Meanwhile, she listens to her favorite song, which is backwards.

After two bars, I guess the track.

I can see from her shocked face that I'm correct.

"Are you not impressed?" I ask. "I got the right answer. After two bars!"

Download the track. Guess the song. You can tweet, DM, or email me for the answer. Or a clue.

The movie projectionist keeps moving the image on the screen. He makes it larger. Centres it. Pulls out. Moves to another area.

Refocuses.

The audience groans.

Finally, the film starts.

Young US college kids are joking around. They jump into the sea.

Under the water, they cling to each other and kick and finally jump as one to break the surface again.

Then they're in a bar. Chatting.

I'm with them, in the movie. They requested audience participation and I'm it.

The college kids are joking around. There's an edge to it though. Jibes. Taunts. Not a sentence is said without it being at someone else's expense.

They dive into the sea.

They kick. Bubbles.

As one, they attempt to break the surface, but this time they can't manage it without a boost.

I wade into the beautiful, cold water to help.   

Chatting in the bar, I'm smiling at the college kids' jokes.

There's a man there, drinking himself to death. He has about sixteen glasses of various kinds of alcohol lined up in front of him, taking over the bar.

He's pissing off the kids and they're pissing him off.

To cool off, the kids jump/fall into the beautiful, blue water and it's all white bubbles and thrashing legs and shorts billowing out like jellyfish, red and blue and white.

Underwater, it's all grimaces and silent screams.

They scrabble and push for the surface, hampering one another, like a bait ball inviting destruction not protection.

The boys finally break the surface, gasping.

In the bar, the guys are chatting while trying to put an elastic band around a lightbulb.

I start to join in with the conversation. I don't know if I'm meant to talk or not. If I talk, and go off script, will they improvise around me? Am I supposed to say something to break the cycle of drowning and drinking? There are no instructions. So perhaps I'm supposed to ask questions.

I open my mouth to speak and the camera moves away from me.

The alcoholic is no longer at the bar.

He is in the audience.

The woman sitting in the row behind him is stuffing a plastic bag into his mouth and he is trying to spit it out to scream.

A guy next to him is spraying his face with water through a straw, effecting a bizarre cinema water boarding incident.

Everyone but one woman ignores this, because they are watching the movie. They've not noticed that the alcoholic from the movie has stepped from the screen into their reality.

I watch from the screen as the woman gets up to save the alcoholic.

I leave my scene and cycle up a hill where there is a remote house built by a survivalist.

I cross the impressive green grounds where vegetables should really be growing, but instead it's all lawn.

There is a steep drop off one side, which I avoid.

In the modern house, which is grey and square, like blocks placed randomly beside each other and on top of each other, I examine the kitchen and storage areas.

A survival expert enters to help. He gives me advice about the granite sink, surfaces, and storage units.

He is unimpressed, but he says:

"We can make this work."