As I head along the motorway my dog is tagging along behind halfheartedly. He is so far away he has become little more than a black dot in the distance. I have to believe in this relationship and that he will return without my insisting that he sticks by me at all times. So I walk on, miles ahead. Will he follow like a good sheepdog? Have I made a mistake? I so want to see him again.
I am in a public building - maybe a community arts place - trying to get my old drawings into some kind of order. In the kitchen antique crockery is piled on the dark shelves. There has been an attempt to place everything neatly but there are too many things and so the overall sense is of chaos.
.
A tall black guy was organising some kind of cycle event but has since abandoned it. I am determined to do it so I seek him out. He is working at his regular job as a gardener in a large private house. He tells me how he had a road accident and has been nervous about getting back on the roads. "Come with me," I say , "I'll look after you."
I need to leave. I've got so much to do. A TV presenter dressed in yellow is delivering a talk on organising your self and your home. I am interested - I need it - but she comes in with sheaves of untidily written notes and she's so young that I can't trust anything she says. She starts to lose peoples' interest, and two young women, either high on drugs or with mental problems, are charging around the room jumping up on the chairs. "I'm waiting!" she threatens like a school ma'am very ineffectually. All the time I am thinking - I have to go, I've got other things to do...
The comedy actress Jessica Stevenson is a visual artist in this dream. She has made a small black lacquered folding box with I think gold or brass hinges. There is something painted inside. It's a bit like a Chinese puzzle box only not quite so complex. I really want her to like me, but I don't quite get what her work is about and she sees that and so has little time for me.
Three dog owners - one of them Sporty Spice - take their untrained dogs for a walk on Streatham Common. Sporty Spice lets hers off the leash and he dashes down a foxhole dragging out ten snails. He then heads down another hole and fishes out a freshly killed plucked bird with pale spots on its skin.
(What's with all these dogs??!)
A police officer recalls a nocturnal police raid where a golden Labrador police dog charged into the bushes in search of the criminal. The dog returned after a "snap!" was heard. In its mouth was the severed head of a black Labrador. The P.O. says he will never forget it and swings a long wire around at ankle level to catch the criminal.
Keep on getting things happening around the ankles in my dreams...
It is the end of a conference in a large European city. I am with redhaired Alma and a large friendly man. I am keen to say goodbye to blonde Alma with whom I have spent a lot of time. She tells me I have some red hot issues to deal with here because I am still in love with X. She gives me a book of short stories she has written - one is particularly relevant. I return to the others."Look Blonde Alma gave me her book," I say. "Or did you write it?" I ask Red Alma. The man laughs - "I wrote it!" "But it has to be written by a woman and its all about Alma - look at the bit about Alma pudding! and all that stuff about her young lover!" "So happy you liked it," he says.(had completely forgotten I had any knowledge at all of Alma pudding but there it is in Mrs Beeton's cookbook)
I am in bed with a skinny man who reminds me a little of Steve Coogan. I had thought there was going to be a real meeting of minds and bodies but realise very soon that is not the case: he is so awkward that his head is on upside down. His teeth seem somehow back to front, the front top row short with pronounced incisors. He tells jokes incessantly. I wonder how I am going to get away from him.
I have been working in this Elisabethan garage for a few weeks and have produced a book of dreams. Outside on the ground I find what appears to be an old fossil which turns out to have some kind of SS connection.
An image of lots of small cards, each depicting one small fraction of a part of the body. One pile when assembled in three dimensions forms an arm , another pile a leg. I understand that each card represents one dream and that all the cards will eventually make a whole body.
Some ghastly competition for the best band is taking place - something like Pop Idol with its waspish producers. We watch overworked kids full of hope - some angelic voices and crazy dance routines. Seems to be set somewhere in East Europe - everything a tad rough round the edges. At one point I make a suggestion about everyone getting together to create one group. But I know no-one is going to listen to that.
A woman walks down a country lane. She is wearing something reminiscent of a Chinese tunic. An almost invisible vertical line is drawn through the middle of her whole body. Her left and right side mirror each other although you can scarcely tell. Her face looks odd because each side is a reflection of the other.
A small crisp bag with the symbol of an eye on the outside and a silver coating within, is seen running along on wheels. It is empty but open as if waiting for something to be placed inside.
I live on the top floor of a big squat. I have persuaded a young woman to pose for me and the small drawings I have made I place in a small container, like a Japanese poetry box. After a group of people enter the room I fall asleep and later wake to find three are sitting round a table smoking dope. A light is on downstairs illuminating everything on the floor through the cracks between the floorboards.
An early crude cartoon - centuries old - maybe something from Lincoln Cathedral. Or perhaps an ancient drawing of a lion or a dog.
Everyone receives a document to be completed for every dream. Within this paper are spaces where the dreamer is asked to supply extra information - with particular emphasis on colour - even though the final drawings will be in grey tones.
I look across the busy road at a man in a gorilla outfit jumping over a two storey building. Some awestruck teenagers run over the viaduct to join me. Now a gang of overdressed girls clamber over the house fearlessly. They are all dressed colourfully. "Hey you girls are dressed like Bratz!" I say. "Yeh we love them!" they answer enthusiastically. I secretly think they look a bit ridiculous but I like them and tell them they look great.
Military planes fly in formation above a field just outside the town. As part of a "friendly fire " exercise they begin to drop bombs - the idea being to see how much damage will be wrought by such a bomb attack. In a built-up area the damage would be devastating. Now a plane load of refugees from Poland arrive, about 60 or 70 of them, led by a grandmother and her grandchild. I am moved to tears by these proud stoical people as they are reunited with relatives. There are so many more we have left behind.
Oggy, a young terrier, is charging about on a busy main road. I run after him and see him disappear under two lorries. I manage to stop the traffic and he dives into a local school pursued by little kids. Stepping over a ground covered with scorpion fossils, I finally catch him and now he seems even younger, he has no teeth. He is so hungry, desperate to eat anything. I should probably return him but I have a strong feeling I want to keep him.
