DREAM TROUBLE

I dreamt this last night. I am on a tube train at 11pm heading into the city centre, even though I know I have work the next morning. I have two guitars and a suitcase with me - overloaded. I meet a colleague from work who has very interesting things to say, but I decide to cut my journey short and get off at the next stop. It's too much trouble and doesn't make much sense since I'm also very vague about the original reason for going.

Back home, in bed, I notice someone has left a sinister toy lying in my room. It's a demon-doll made of garish pink, green and yellow foam. It either says to me (or sends me the thought) "I'm going to get you." I reach over to pick it up. It's very unpleasant so I decide to get rid of it by scrunching it up; it becomes a ring with a little green skull mask on top, which I conceal in a drawer. Good riddance, I think.

I walk through to the living room, where my mother is having an anxiety attack about the political situation. The signal of the TV she's watching is erratic and a man is walking up and down the street outside selling gas masks. This is because things have deteriorated so badly that there is going to be a nuclear war. (I haven't had a nuclear war dream since Gorbachev, but I was reading about some Bomb scenarios in Douglas Coupland's Life After God at the weekend.) In another room, people are getting ready their last full English breakfast ever. I ask people how long we'll have to stay in the shelter -weeks or months probably. But we're only allowed to bring a small rucksack of supplies. I think about how smelly we're all going to be without enough clean underwear.

Back in the living room, Blair is making a speech trying to make the situation seem reasonable - but he knows it's out of control. You can tell he's scared; his voice is strained and he's being apologetic too. I shoo some plated armadillo-like prehistoric animals out of the room through patio doors where the windows should be.

None of this makes much sense to me, although it could be about abandoning a current plan, denying something nasty, and coping in the face of an imminent disaster.