I have not been sleeping at all lately, not for any reason in particular but I find myself lying in bed daydreaming for hours when I should just be normal-dreaming. Dreams are bizarre. In my psychological studies we looked at a lot of theories about sleep and dreaming but, really, the only plausible conclusion is that they’re just nonsensical images put there by our brains to confuse us. It’s like a challenge ‘try to make sense of that you great big pleb’ your brain is saying.
I like to try and remember my dreams and although my friend Aaron once pointed out ‘there’s nothing more boring than hearing about other peoples’ dreams’, I sort of disagree, and now I’m going to ignore Aaron and tell you about a funny dream I had... Occasionally after a particularly odd dream I wake up and write down what I can remember. One day I woke up to find the following note at my bedside
“Explore things from your childhood- try growing a garden on the back of a tortoise”
Totally bizarre, but I remember, at the time it made perfect sense, it even seemed like quite a profound statement as I was writing it down at stupid ‘o’ clock in the morning.
I prefer daydreams. You can make up stories and scenarios in your head and they can be as nonsensical or as mundane as you like. They’re just altogether nicer. However I do blame daydreaming for my lack of ability to sleep at the moment.
As I’ve mentioned before, I am incredibly impatient. One of my most hated scenarios is waiting for trains or buses in the cold. This morning, after having a final slumber party with Rachel (I’m sorry but there were no naked pillow fights- we mainly watched Friends and sang along to the theme tune. Our vocal performances were very much lacking in enthusiasm by the fourth episode)... that was a long sentence for brackets wasn’t it? I’ll start again. After this slumber party I walked into town to catch my bus. I hate bank holidays, because they’re like Sundays and I also hate Sundays. I walked through Derby in the drizzle, I’m sure that no city can look quite as depressing as Derby in the rain. I then had to sit in a freezing cold bus station for over an hour and still managed to miss a bus, thus causing me to wait for another FIFTEEN WHOLE MINUTES for another one. In short, this whole thing has put me in a bit of a mood.
I’m still cold from waiting in that place and am pitifully cradling a cup of tea as if it was the only thing in the entire world that could make me feel better. I don’t often feel melancholy. I use the word ‘melancholy’ rather than ‘sad’ because I have quite a Victorian and melodramatic opinion on emotion. Some days you just can’t shift the melancholy, so why not wallow in it a little bit? There’s something quite lovely and self-indulgent in just saying ‘well today I’m feeling pretty melancholy so I’m going to sit around listening to the Smiths and just let the mood wash over me’. It sounds odd to say I enjoy these days. But I do in a lot of ways. I think a gentle acceptance of how you’re honestly feeling is quite healthy. And I know by tomorrow I’ll be back to my cheery self.
As I was wandering through the drizzle in a bad mood I started thinking about the simple pleasures of childhood. I remember quite vividly playing for hours in my garden, lost in an entirely made-up world. I wish, more than anything, on days like this my imagination was still so vibrant. I could be doing anything right now! Scaling the heady heights of an imaginary mountain or perhaps (as when I was little) collecting snails from around the garden and making them a little hotel, imaginatively called ‘The Snail Hotel’.
Also there was a time in my adolescence where I was thoroughly convinced that I was a witch. I had spell books and everything. My friends and I formed a little coven and my cat Ozzie became my familiar, he was a pretty rubbish familiar because his favourite things were sleeping and being cuddled- not very supernatural (I've added a picture of him for your amusement). We all honestly and truly believed that we had magical powers. It sounds silly now, but it all seemed very real at the time. But now, in adulthood, all we have is tax returns and mortgages.
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