In a scrubby field a powdered Redcoat sits astride a white horse. Behind him an apologetic older man dressed similarly. Suddenly there is a commotion and a wild boar darts out into the long grass pursued by a motley crowd of dogs. There is nothing to be done to stop them from killing it but Hazel rushes in and does her best. The boar is slaughtered with a mallet brought down on its head. Hazel is mortified and returns to me shaken.
I am at a party where two bags of cocaine have been delivered. We somehow know that at the end of the dream the police will find the powder easily and will go on to arrest us all. Despite this, when it is time for the police to arrive, we desperately search everywhere for a hiding place. Finally I shove it under a couch knowing full well that this is where the police are due to find it. There is a sense of inevitable fate that we race towards and are powerless to prevent.
I am scared to call in at my neighbour's flat. I am sure he has been shot dead. I know he lives on the top floor of the council block. Is it at number 150?
I am on my way out of the hospital - all my tests were negative. At the bedside of an old woman I punch the air in celebration. But where is the exit?
A blond opera performer is repeatedly put forward as my potential future bride. I am not interested. As the cast line up I know she will be at the end of the row and I try to arrest the action. I am foiled - she disappears concealed by two glittering divas who chase me into a lift. Endless velvet shutters slam shut where the lift doors should be. The scene changes abruptly and I find myself in bed with some big black creature jumping on top of me.
Five barn owls sit on top of a public school building. They belong to some dodgy teenagers with aggressive fighter dogs. I notice that two of the birds are vultures now. The boys are goading them into some kind of action. What sinister game do they have in mind?
This is a community project where we observe the process of life and death. A group of young children demonstrate eating pasta as an example of one of the first stages of the life cycle. To learn what will happen to them when they die, everyone is made to watch worms eating potatoes . "It's horrible," one man says.
Over three hours or so the level of noxious substance in my gut drains away. It is like a liquid emptying from the shell of my body.
I was sick last night - food too rich and too much on my mind. This was more like a kind of hallucination.
The government are releasing prisoners early. A billboard poster shows two of the latest to be set free - one is a man in fancy dress, the other is Sophie in a pink nylon party frock with puffed sleeves.They are not criminals, so why were they in prison? It seems absurd that anyone should have locked them up in the first place.
Two male twins from somewhere like Srylanka are down in the basement looking for a Nuffield book of plans. They haven't seen me in a long while and acknowledge me with a smile. "Is it in your space?" they ask me. "I haven't seen it," I reply, "but it's possible." The twins' eyes merge together- it is difficult to tell which one I am looking at.
The rooms are crowded with teachers and support staff. One woman is painting a huge banner with the picture of an ugly insect on it. Every year not only does she take charge of the food but she always draws the same enormous image. When she leaves the others comment on how much she takes on, "It's too much. She doesn't have any calm space to teach. You have to have that space somewhere in your life, like a big calm sea."
Johnny and I have begun a project where we walk into different people's homes and work on charcoal drawings together. The finished images act like magic spells drawing out the troubles and worries of each household.
I am compiling a list of Links for inclusion in my book or on this blogsite. As I walk from room to room I drop a few of them on the floor.
There is a vague memory of an earlier complex dream about a young man. Now we see the workings behind this dream. Two wise women vie for the strongest influence over the man's actions - both have blazing auras down the sides of their bodies, one is white, the other a lurid green.
Don't remember much. Something about drawing this image of a man holding a candlestick. In the dream my drawing was made blind and the candlestick is positioned hovering above the man's hand.
Back in the sixties, Nixon is bombing Vietnam and I have been ordered to use a machine gun to control my class in the supermarket. I refuse. I notice various men being thrown out and beaten up in the alleyway outside. I go to offer my help (after the beating) to one man. He tells me he is OK, then grins flirtatiously and says he likes how I dress like Isaac Newton. I end up taking part in a violent demonstration against the government.
I watch two 1970's comedians as young men. They are playing out a scenario where one is pretending to have learning disabilities and is dribbling his food. I find the humour uncomfortable. One of them turns and winks at me. Then, as a joke, he simulates shooting the other in the mouth. It seems the natural progression for this fashionable style of comedy.
This dream has told of a long complicated story of a couple who had been young lovers. After a tragic misunderstanding they split up. We cut abruptly to a scene where the pair are reunited in a park and are thrilled to see two previously sick older women restored to full health. I search for a connecting scene. Are we in their past, present or future? Wherever it is I know it is the right place to focus my thoughts.
My hands appear much broader than in my waking life. They are hardy and reliable and have known physical labour. I realise good dreams are like these hands. If you work with them, they too become a source of strength.
Using two thin paintbrushes bound together I am inscribing a word in the air just above ground level. Tony S (a childhood friend I have not seen in 40 years) takes my camera and begins to photograph the invisible letters. I point out that you need to use Spray Mount to make the word show up in the photo.
Again hardly remembered anything , just two sheets of paper - one blank, one with words printed on it.
Can't remember anything apart from a very distant image of Gordon Brown.
As I wander around a sun drenched Spanish city I come across a square of modern architecture. Here two mechanised statues lead me into doorways to the tourist attractions. They are supposed to be fun but are a bit irritating. I enter one building and find a huge photograph of a wall of ancient rocks with a hole in the centre. The image suggests something pagan and mysterious.
I am on holiday with the family in the Algarve. Mum sits at the top of a steep bank crowded with sandy towels. Dad has already gone for a swim. I leave my towel with her but realise I have no trunks so need to go and buy some. The water is brown like the Thames and although we are by the sea we are also at the start of a long river.
I am back on my MA drawing course for a term but have not been attending so do not know what is planned. A meeting is being held in my flat. How did everyone get in? No-one has a key. I notice the printer has been left on and has printed endless pages of numbers and letters.
Princess Diana's funeral cortege is parading outside a grand old house. I step to one side: I have priorities elsewhere - I am carrying parts of an unhewn cello that I am supposed to play in a concert. I have never played before but there is no other cellist around. Music emerges from different rooms inside the house. I look in at a group of primary school children using charcoal to draw an animated oboeist.
I am setting up the opening sequence to a film or game I have made with X, one of my severely disabled students. He has painted the title THE RATS or THE REBELS on banners. Two divers drag them under water alongside a submarine for a video promotion. Someone bundles up the banners and tells X to stop making a mess.
Encased inside a cardboard puppet C performs a mesmerising tightrope trick. Although you can see into each cardboard compartment he is nowhere to be seen. Everyone is baffled. He tells no-one his secret not even me. When I tell him how good it is he says nonchalantly yes I should give up the daily job and do this full time. I fall back to sleep and am woken sharply as half of the cardboard puppet explodes with a bang. This is C's finale - he is of course safe within the other half.
I am leaning into the corner of a small hall where evensong is taking place. The congregation consists of white haired women and young children. The music is substandard and slow, "Get a move on", one of the kids mutters. Two women limp out. The organist, an old man with Downs' Syndrome turns and says, "It's not working." Someone tries the keys - the organ has broken down.
We are interviewing for a new support worker. All the candidates are quite impressive - I am sure this woman would be excellent. Unfortunately I can't hear anything she says because the traffic is so loud outside.
I've just been let into the cinema with Ivan for free. I quickly go to the loo before the film starts. A string of grubby white porcelain urinals are squeezed behind a row of metal lockers. Parallel to that is a long supermarket aisle of sweets and beyond that, along the far wall, is a line of bank cashiers.
Five young men of different heights are staging a musical. I stare up at the stage getting a preview of the show. They are all stripped to the waist and have impressive firm six packs. They obviously worked hard for those. I tell myself I should start exercising a bit more to be like them.
Walking back from a trip to a country museum, the rain starts to pour down, and my shoes are not waterproof. I see a group of people crowding round the edge of a waterfall. In the clear water below at least three old women are drowning. There is no struggle - they sink slowly and I am too scared to save them.
A business tycoon with obscene amounts of money has booked a hotel suite with a sulky blonde. He swigs from a bottle of champagne so heavy he can scarcely hold it to his lips. Musak plays in the background on the radio.Meanwhile a film of W H Auden's Night Mail is projected directed by Picasso. In it dancers hurl themselves over and under each other like letters being sorted by 1930's machinery. The sound of the poem dominates the space showing up the real poverty of the first man.
I am in a big warehouse painting skirting boards and door frames a gun metal grey. The hastily constructed stairs do not quite lead to the right places, so I can't reach everywhere I need to. A young artist asks me to work on her harebrained project, painting portraits of visitors on the walls engaged in intimate activities. I tell her I am not able to help so she will have to find someone else. "Don't mess up my paintwork," I tell her. "Oh we will have to..." she says casually.
A kitsch clock in pastel glazes depicts the childhood scenes of Christ, viewed through a misty romantic haze. Each little figure has white porcelain skin and moving parts, the whole thing topped by a grownup Jesus waving one hand cheerily. Our point of view pans around like a promotion on a shopping channel.
Distant image of a book.
I have moved into a large squat. An old schoolfriend who I have not seen in thirty years is living there (alongside a diamante clad Carol Smiley). When he sees me he hardly reacts, "So you never kept up contact," he says. I mumble excuses. "You never really made the effort. You are not even being frank with me now." "OK," I reply, " We were friends at school but somehow we drifted apart." "You were a moody sod even then. Always moaning. " "I still am," I acknowledge. "Yes well," he continues, "my brother is coming to visit tonight. You'd best keep out the way." And he walks off leaving me crushed and unable to work.
Jerry Hall tells of her first major row with Mick Jagger, "That's when I should have got rid of him permanently. Instead, I stuffed him into my holdall and have been carrying him around like that all this time."
"You think I'm mad don't you?" I ask this young woman. She laughs and nods. I am projecting a slide of a city scene onto a wall. As I stare at it, it seems to spring to life like watching an image in a Camera Obscura where the most bland scene becomes enchanting. "If you concentrate, the same thing will happen for you," I say. She shrugs and laughs again. She's not really interested.
I am about to go on stage to open the play. I have the leading role and although I know my part reasonably well, I have a terrible habit of feeding the wrong cues to the rest of the cast. With one minute to go I decide I am going to have to keep a script on me throughout. I frantically search the dressing room but can't find a copy of it anywhere.
Sal and I are in a forest. We have been instructed to shoot a deer as part of our training programme. I concede that I do eat the occasional venison sausage so we should not baulk at the task. A fawn is trapped behind a wooden gate. I load my gun and shoot straight for the heart. Nothing happens. I try again - still nothing. By my third attempt I say, "No, I can't do this. We are just frightening this beautiful creature - we have no real need to kill it." We set it free vowing never to eat venison again.
A friend and I are on a massive sailing contraption, hurtling towards the Thames barrier. It slows down just at the last minute and then swings round heading back so fast that the scenery disappears into a blur. The speed is exhilerating. When we come to a stop I calculate that we covered a mile every 1.25 seconds. A passenger from a previous ride is being hoisted by a body harness having broken his leg from the pressure.
My learning disabilities group has moved into a mansion. Everyone is excited. X asks to see all the rooms. He can't stop smiling, his face full of wonder. Already his vocabulary has expanded and he seems much more alert. "You will be a changed man here, " I tell him.
Marlene has been robbed and is now being blackmailed by the woman police officer. I am mad when I find that Marlene has handed over an envelope containing cash and a letter begging to be left alone. I let the WPC know I am onto her game and she will not get away with it. She replies that she expected me to come out with something like this and that she has already reported me for suspicious behaviour and I am number one suspect for the robbery. I am shocked that anyone can be so evil.
This was a joke I think. A man with two walking stick contraptions each with four feet and smoking tin cans attached. I remember I didn't find it very funny.
After an increase in terrorist attacks on England has been predicted, a bomb goes off in Murder Street in London. Our city is becoming like Iraq. Five people are killed and there is panic in the air. What has our government led us into? "The panic you feel is just shapes in your head," someone tries to reassure me.
A line of young models stand in a line on stage in an empty auditorium. They are practising handing out prizes for an award ceremony, their jokey chat stilted and embarrassing. A TV programme maker's name is announced and a woman in absurdly high heels staggers down the steps to present the winner with a box of Maltesers.
In a smoky bar the customers are transfixed by a very ordinary looking man who is singing a heart rending love song. He leans against a pencil smudged pillar dragging his fingers through the graphite surface. As the song grows in intensity his whole body creates a drawing of marks left behind by the unexpected twists of his limbs. He slides down across the floor and ends on a clear high note, "If you feel that love, can't you beam it up here..." The audience hoist him up and carry him outside.
Fourteen years after his death Kev is about to die again. I don't cry. I feel nothing. As he pushes forward into an endless stack of brown bottles, Chris tells him, "You will come out the other side." I know he won't. I can see he can't push much more.
