Dreams of what lie beneath

Like most people, I occasionally have vivid and extraordinary dreams that once I’ve awakened from stay with me for days afterwards, dwelling in my consciousness for repeated dissection and scrutiny. Now whether Freud and Jung would be so interested in my ‘mind-doodles’ is debatable as neither religious iconography nor sexual deviancy is really prevalent within my skull at the best of times! So, in the hope of resolving the many psychoanalytical elements which have broke on through from my dreamscape world, I’ve decided to input my latest example into this blog: perhaps someone will feel an affinity with me due to being as obviously confused as I or maybe I’m opening up too much for experts to discover a deep-seated Oedipus complex I was never aware of. Either way, allow me now to take you on a journey into the latest delusional thought process of your author...

The beginning is a little murky as all recalled dreams tend to be and seemed to involve walking along a street with high-sided terraced buildings with an ex-girlfriend from my distant past. The person in question though is someone I absolutely despise with a vengeance (and this vengeance will no doubt be explored more thoroughly in a future blog entry) and for some reason we were getting on fine, laughing and joking as we strolled beneath the long shadows being cast by the buildings towering above us. I even think there may have been hand-to-hand contact going on, though I’m aghast to even contemplate this physical occurrence actually happening with such a vacuous twat as her and so thankfully, this part of the dream is a convenient blur.

Anyway, the next part of this sleepy flight of fancy had me kitted out in a khaki padded jacket and boots with a rucksack slung across my back, attempting to clamber up a vast scree slope at the base of a cliff surrounded by mountain peaks. As I trudged upwards and my feet struggled to gain purchase on the flakes of rock, I can recall my lungs straining for air as I lent forwards and used my grasping hands to ease my ascent. Finally reaching the top of the scree gradient, I peered above where I now stood, squinting in the grey daylight: stretching onwards was a vertical limestone cliff, interjected with grass-tufted ledges of differing sizes and all appearing softened through erosion. Wasting no time, my cliff climb began in earnest; with grabbed handfuls of grasses for stability where possible and handholds of dusty grips everywhere else, I progressed carefully towards the cliff’s zenith in the distance. The longer that I climbed, I could feel my fingertips turning numb, then starting to split and bleed as I fumbled for a grasp or a just a pinch of safety in order for me to continue with my rise to the top of the mountain.

Eventually I found myself on the last available ledge, clinging to its powdery surface with no way of progressing up the vertical precipice before me, although on either side of my position there appeared ways I might continue. Off to the right, about twenty feet away from where I now crouched, I could see there was a huge dam holding back the water of a glacial lake and it continued downwards and disappeared into nothingness. A closer examination revealed a couple of interesting things: the dam’s wall was made of thick glass, crisscrossed with heavy riveted bands of rusting iron for support and the water appeared a murky brown-biege. Also, as I was looking down onto the lake due to the ledge’s height being slightly above, I could see dark shapes emerging from its foggy depths and into the lighter sand-coloured surface. They looked like huge Trout, although again their definition was vague beneath the overcast mountain sky and once I realised I had no way of progressing in that direction, I turned to study my other option.

Lying off to my left-hand side was a second dam wall with another gaping chasm, although at least I could see the bottom many hundreds of feet below me and was actually level with its flattened top. Now, the top of this dam consisted of an overflowing, grated metal weir that stretched for about 20 feet across the void to the other side and appeared to be an extension of the ledge I was stuck upon. This weir was only about two feet wide but the water on the other side was virtually level with its height, so a thin coating of fast-moving water skimmed across its top and cascaded down the other side in a waterfall of sorts. The water side of the dam revealed the glacial lake to be the same sandy colour as its neighbour and once again, darkened fish shapes flitted around below the water’s surface, indistinct and fuzzy in the murk.

I was contemplating crossing the weir as there wasn’t any other option and judged that with just a couple of long steps (and luck!) I could be across to the opposite bank, so I popped a foot onto the top of the metal grate to check the power of the overflowing water. An electric shock fired up my leg with the water’s freezing temperature and I pulled my sodden boot out almost immediately: in a split second of my foot leaving the water, a huge Eel about six feet in length arose towards where I had stepped, its jaws snapping and cold, dead eyes fixated upon a terrified me. The problem for this slimy customer now was that I’d moved my leg out of the way, so I watched with glee as the Eel continued over the top of the weir and cascaded wriggling towards a splatter-filled death on the rocks below. I could feel panic begin to rise within me now and glancing around to the partly-crumbled sandstone ledges I’d used to transverse my way up, I knew there was only one way forward and that was across the treacherous-looking weir. Then, the sun broke through the clouds and flashed away the Tea-strained surface shine of the water: the fish shapes were now revealed to be scores of serpent-shaped Eels, curling and rolling just beyond the lip of the dam’s weir.

Suddenly, with this being a dream, I was holding a walkie-talkie and was listening to my ex-girlfriend’s banal gibberish, informing me she was watching my progress from afar through binoculars and wanted to know why I’d stopped moving. I explained about the crumbled ledges below me, the sheer rock face in front of me, the impassable glass dam wall to my right and the savagery of the Eels to my left. Off she went on a rant and I remember thinking “The bitch is on my back again and we’re not even together anymore!” as all that was emanating from her trap was ridicule and scorn. Quickly, she barked at me to shimmy across the metal grate of the weir on my arse, dangling my legs on either side as I went; a quick peek told me the Eels had dropped into deeper water, so I told her I’d give her suggestion a try. I lowered myself down to the edge of my ledge and slowly dropped my right-hand foot into the water but straight away spotted a shadow moving up to the surface, so leapt to my feet. This time, the head of a massive graphite and pitch Eel crashed into the side of the weir’s grate just where my foot had been: the size of this thing was terrifying, much bigger than the other; its eye was the size of a Pool ball and its teeth flashed like a rotating band saw as flapping gills boiled the water’s surface.

At this point, I must have been tossing and turning in my sleep as things began to speed up, a precursor usually to waking in a darkened room, covered in sweat and confused beyond belief. Anyway, I informed my ex-cretinous one that there was no option for shimmying across the weir and the only possible way appeared to be with a leap of faith onto the metal grate with a couple of well-placed steps to carry me over. There was no answer back. I tried again but all I received was static as a reply. I was now thankfully on my own. Then, I noticed that the walkie-talkie had an ear-piece attached to it by a long wire and in a eureka moment, I was convinced I’d discovered the way out of my troubling predicament: I could use the walkie-talkie as a grappling hook and walk myself across the weir by pulling upon the ear-piece wire as extra security.

Spinning the walkie-talkie to a blur, I let go at the optimum time and watched as it sailed across the gap, lodging behind an outcrop of sandstone rocks on the other side of the dam’s weir. I was surprised at the extended length of the ear-piece wire, although I suppose it was my dream and if I wanted a long length, I could have one (Oh-er!). Pulling to check it was secured on the other side, I edged out onto the weir and felt the strength and icy chill of the water as it cascaded against my boots, attempting to push me off into the beyond. I nervously peered down into the dark water at the side of the dam and could see the shapes of the numerous Eels readying themselves beneath my shadow, lining up to take advantage of an easy meal. I stepped on to the dam.

My breath started getting faster and shallower with each step further from safety. My shaking hands started to bleed as the tight wrapped wire cut into them through my mounting fear. The soles of my boots began to slip on algae growing beneath the water on top of the weir’s steel grate.

A fall to the left meant a tumble to my death hundreds of feet below and a fall to my right meant being torn to shreds by a shoal of enormous Eels.

I felt myself freezing up. My joints began seizing halfway across the torturous trek along the top of the dam. Drips of blood from my cut hands fell into the water. But I was going to make it.

The other side beckoned me but with each shuffled step, everything slowed to an agonising crawl. A blinding light enveloped my sight. My heart beat filled my hearing completely.

Then...

I woke up.

I was clammy, out of breath and had to double-check under my bed to make sure there were no huge serpentine fish slithering around beneath.

There’s no need for me to start analysing this dream and its many meanings as I’m fairly sure the subtexts are blatantly obvious, but below are just a few of the major points that have baffled me during my waking hours:

• An odious ex-girlfriend interfering in my present life - albeit in my imagination - and regardless of whether she was trying to save my life or not (I’d rather have been f**king eaten by the giant ‘Black Wangers’!);

• The amalgam of murky water and shadowy fish shapes that morphed into terrifying Eels, all squirming just below the surface as they sought to snaffle me;

• I’d failed to complete my “Quest” due to waking up and so was unable to overcome the metaphorical peril that crossing the dam wall’s weir represented in my every day, waking life.

One thing is for certain and that’s I’d like to share this vivid experience in the hope other people can relate to my almost psychedelic, night-time hallucination and perhaps find some common ground within their own flight of fancy. However, I’m pretty sure I’m going to be on my own regarding the obscure theme of avoiding ravenous Conger assassins from the depths of the deep; if I’m not alone in dreaming of this bizarre theme by any chance, then thank God I’m not the only f**k-up walking this Earth!