Dreams, and the end of the world

Midge

Posted: 24.02.2003, 23:28

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Sorry to be self-indulgent and random, but I just felt led to share these thoughts with you on a new thread...

As I was reading more of Douglas Coupland last night, I was struck again by his recurring angst about nuclear bombs going off, and it reminded me of a dream I had once about being killed by a nuclear bomb. It wasn't very spectacular - I was just lying on my bed, which seemed to be a bunk bed against the wall, and I just felt myself kind of fade away and vapourise. I dreamt it a very long time ago, probably in the days when there were adverts in the Radio Times for nuclear bunkers you could build and bury in your garden - for some reason there was a picture of a happy family emerging from it with the father holding up an open umbrella. The days when "Two Tribes" was in the charts. When I got a paperback book out of the local library telling you all about nuclear strikes and how the trees along the Mall had been chopped down so the Queen's aeroplane could use it as a runway for evacuation. When my mum used to wear a badge saying "Housepersons against the bomb" and collected rain water in the back garden for the national acid rain survey. That all seemed to belong to the dim and distant past, till I picked up the newspaper last week and read that George Bush was planning a new breed of mini-nukes. Suddenly it all seemed very close again. What disturbs me about that concept is that they sound so much easier to use - a nice 'precision nuke'.

My other two dreams about the end of the world were much more dramatic. The first time, I was in Boots, when suddenly everyone rushed outside. When I got outside, everyone was staring up into the sky, awe-struck, as a slow and terrifying drumbeat was pounding from the skies.

The second time, I was sitting on the pavement outside my college (the road was more like a leafy country lane), chatting to someone, who suddenly said "That's really big, isn't it!"

I thought he was talking about the building across the road, so I said "Yes, I suppose it is quite big". He replied "Yes, it's a really big volcano." Then I saw a huge spurt of lava on the horizon to the left. Then another one ahead of me. And then the whole ground started to crack up and dissolved in an orange glow. This time I wasn't terrified, I was really glad it was the end of the world. Next thing I knew everything was dark, I couldn't see anything and I was lying down. I thought "Am I in the grave, waiting to rise?" And then I realised that no, I was awake, in bed (sadly).

Has anyone else got any apocalyptic dreams / thoughts, musings or comments??? (Just be glad you haven't heard my other dreams...)

andy

Posted: 25.02.2003, 08:12

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Blimey. Scary. I went through a period a while ago of having James Bond-style dreams with all kinds of adventures and boat chases, jumping off htings, etc. It was cool.

Your dreams are cool.

Alice

Posted: 25.02.2003, 12:47

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I wouldn't say I've had any apocalyptic ones like you, but I had quite an interesting one last night - it was the most vivid dream I've had for ages. It probably won't sound that interesting, but I quite enjoyed it.

I dreamt that I was on this beautiful island, which I later found out was the Isle of Sodor from Thomas the Tank Engine. I was there with my family, and it was very sunny. Lining one side of the road, there were loads of anti-war protesters, and among them were two friends of mine. I started talking to them, and it was good. The weather was really warm and there were some beautiful views of hills and things. What was really weird was that in this dream I fancied one of my friends. In real life he is a very nice person, but he is not the kind of person I'd want to go out with, and I'm sure he wouldn't want to go out with me, so I have no idea why I fancied him in the dream. Anyway, after a while, we all started walking around the island, and I think we had a picnic or something. It was good.

Midge

Posted: 25.02.2003, 23:51

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I can kind of imagine that. I have this 'holiday' genre of dreams which involves nice weather, nice landscapes and nice moods etc. Once we were in what must've been some kind of national park. It was a long ridged peninsula stretching out ahead of us, covered in grass and some trees, with lots of sunshine and lots of happy groups of people out walking. Everything seemed so happy, maybe heaven is slightly like that.

Sometimes I dream I'm back where I grew up, where I haven't been for 8 years now, and it's all modern like it was recently planned out, but still sociable, with nice shops and nice weather, which helps. Or there's a big hill off the high street and an old castle in it. Or even if it's just got the old shops or a gloomy railway bridge in it, it still seems a nice happy place to be somehow - it's got this fun quality about it all. I suppose that's something we'll have in heaven - i.e. enjoyment of being there, with nothing to spoil the experience, like bad weather or a cold or sleepiness or bad moods or nasty traffic.

A couple of nights ago I dreamt my brother was telling me how he'd cleaned up an old CD by a technique Margaret Thatcher had told him. Apparently she'd thought about how the beats were regularly distributed on the recording. But later, when he came to show me how to do it, it just involved putting water on the CD. Maybe that's a deep metaphor for something, but more likely it's connected to that time Margaret Thatcher really did appear on TV, rubbing flour under the tap to show how it turned sticky. See, truth is just as strange as fiction...

andy

Posted: 03.03.2003, 13:29

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I dreamt I was doing an Open University exam at home (I don't do the OU) and the first section was really easy multiple chgoice but the second section just didn't make any sense. My wife and mother were there but they weren't allowed to say anything to help (very Freudian). After wasting quite a lot of time panicking I realised there was a fold-out sheet with some writing on it and the questions were comprehension questions on that writing, which was why they didn't make sense.

Basically I think it was a dream about panic.

I fact I think that a lot of my dreams are really just imagining what things feel like. E.g. for a while I dreamt about what it would feel like to witness a 9/11-style tragedy first-hand. This was before 9/11, btw.

Midge

Posted: 03.03.2003, 23:39

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On Saturday night my pastor dreamt that he turned up for the service and as he was about to preach the sermon, he realised he'd forgotten his sermon notes. So after he'd woken up, he did fine remembering to bring his sermon notes to the morning service, but when it came to the evening service he did forget them after all!! And the sermon was on God's foreknowledge!!!

davidb

Posted: 03.03.2003, 23:59

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Last night I dreamed that I was approached by a Palestinian Liberation group, who asked me to sign a petition - "We've got two different ones for you to choose from," they told me. I agreed, but found to my dismay that the petition I'd chosen to sign was full of clauses pointing out apparent unpleasantnesses in Leviticus and Deuteronomy.

darkly

Posted: 05.03.2003, 01:52

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I had a dream the night before last in which my girlfriend was seduced by this rich handsome guy and he took her virginity. She knew it was wrong at the time but felt she wanted to do it all the same. She was very sorry after the event and a woke up before we got round the whether I had forgiven her.

The feeling I had when I woke reminded my of the way 'Jack' in 'Jank and Sarah' describes the loss of his wife. He says something along the lines of "you know when you have forgotten to do someting really important and then you remember you haven't done it and you get a tightness rising in your stomach". It took me a good hour and a half to get back to sleep that night.

Analyse That

D4rk|y

andy

Posted: 10.04.2003, 11:30

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Quite often my dreams seem to be about "I wonder how I would feel if..." It must be quite useful for the mind to prepare itself by practicing like this.

Posted: 21.04.2003, 09:57

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Mine have now stopped being about having to wear the bridesmaid dress I had to wear last week.

I'm glad about that.

I wasn't getting enough sleep cos I was too worried about it.

andy

Posted: 25.04.2003, 08:57

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Been trying to buy a Lotus Elise recently.

*WOW*, by the way.

It's extremely stressful, even though it should be fun!

They are the coolest thing _ever_.

So my sleep has been disturbed, but you can't really complain about that, can you?

davidb

Posted: 25.04.2003, 14:32

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WOW, lucky boy!

darkly

Posted: 26.04.2003, 02:47

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Have to admit, although they are a drivers car, I don't really rate them. I think this may be the first time Andy and I really disagree...

D4rk|y

andy

Posted: 28.04.2003, 09:03

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Wait until I give you a ride in it.

That'll wipe the smile off your face.

darkly

Posted: 28.04.2003, 16:01

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Get this - I have just hacked a library catalogue terminal to enable me web access. How cool is that!!! I'm stood at a supposidly (SP?) locked station for book catalogue queries and due to the wonderous programming of Micro$oft here I am on GE.

I'm not sure I would feel 100% safe in a car like that with you. Not just you, I'm a bit of a control freak. Now if you let _me_ drive...

D4rk|y

andy

Posted: 29.04.2003, 08:34

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>>Get this - I have just hacked a library catalogue terminal to enable me web access. How cool is that!!! I'm stood at a supposidly (SP?) locked station for book catalogue queries and due to the wonderous programming of Micro$oft here I am on GE.

Sounds like a good way to get chucked out of uni, and simultaneously prove that actually you _are_ more of a geek than me.

>>I'm not sure I would feel 100% safe in a car like that with you.

That would be the idea

> Not just you, I'm a bit of a control freak. Now if you let _me_ drive...

Monkeys might fly out my butt.

darkly

Posted: 29.04.2003, 19:09

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>>Monkeys might fly out my butt.

So you are saying there is a chance...

D4rk|y

andy

Posted: 01.05.2003, 11:28

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Exsqueeze me? Baking Powder?

darkly

Posted: 02.05.2003, 00:29

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*Darkly sits rocking in the corner and reminds himself, "It's just a car, it's just a car..."

D4rk|y

Midge

Posted: 12.02.2004, 18:59

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Just to say I had another dream last week: I dreamt I read in a magazine that Al Qaeda were just about to drop a nuclear bomb on London that they'd got from North Korea (probably cos I'd watched that documentary about North Korea). I felt very scared that it was imminently about to happen, although if I was reading it in a weekly magazine it couldn't be right then. Then I heard a big bang outside, but nothing else happened, so I thought "Oh - that wasn't it - the bomb's still coming". Then I woke up and realised with some relief that I was in Birmingham. Though on reflection, if a nuclear bomb was dropped on London, I'd rather be there than in Birmingham.

Then a couple of days later, over breakfast, I was looking at a paperback book called "The structure of matter" and there was a drawing showing the different levels of the atmosphere. At 3 miles it says "Airliners fly at this altitude". There's a drawing of a mountain that peaks at 6 miles, and it says that's the summit of Mount Everest and the height of cirrus clouds. Then I looked up to the top of the page and there was the top of a mushroom cloud at 24 miles and it said "Peak of hydrogen bomb". I was suddenly hit by the hugeness of it. And I thought Douglas Coupland said it was small??

andy

Posted: 18.02.2004, 22:51

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>>*Darkly sits rocking in the corner and reminds himself, "It's just a car, it's just a car..."

After the latest service bill, we're going to sell it. We've had our fun, now we need to recover some capital.

davidb

Posted: 19.02.2004, 13:52

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Can I have it for ten pounds?

darkly

Posted: 20.02.2004, 19:08

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I'll give you �15. What you need is a nice practical car - like a Volvo...

D4rk|y

andy

Posted: 21.02.2004, 12:39

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%$^$"�$"%$�"

Midge

Posted: 03.08.2004, 23:26

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On the topic of the end of the world, rather than dreams, after I watched 'Fahrenheit 9/11' yesterday my mind was cast back to the nuclear bunker which used to be behind my local Sainsbury's when I was younger:

http://www.subbrit.org.uk/rsg/sites/c/cheam/index.html

Actually, I've just remembered another nuclear dream I had a long time ago - about tiny bombs which only had mushrooms a couple of inches high, that you could let off on top of the piano... one of my dreams of horribly out-of-scale proportions...

And there's more... to cheer you up:

http://www.cybertrn.demon.co.uk/atomic/