Despite the fact that the elusive group of people who try to sell you stuff are using The Molloys to try and make me buy Richmond sausages, thus switching allegiance from the Sainsbury's Basics frozen "I can't believe it's not meat" camp, I'm a bit obsessed with the song. If you've not heard it, look up Meet Me There.
It kind of sums up easy listening, long hot afternoons and relaxing in the moment not having to worry about anything, which is great for me at the minute. The heady, slightly hazy feeling that memories of early evening barbeques and being able to just wear shorts conjure up is embodied, for me, by this song.
Which brings me on to today's topic, class. Dreaming.
Last night, I had a dream. This in itself, whenever anyone says it to me, forces me to switch off. They might have had dinner with Noel Edmunds in front of a volcano, but dreams have that unique and intangible quality that means I couldn't care less no matter how you felt; it is inexplicable. I could understand perfectly if you read the first sentence of this paragraph and switched off. Please stick with it, though. I'm not going to describe the dream in great detail, and I'm not going to force you to tell me how interesting it was.
The main thing I'm interested in is the fact that I can remember it.
It's the first time in absolutely ages that I can safely say I had a dream last night. I generally either don't dream at all or, more likely, I never remember them when I wake up. I'm assuming it's the latter, as it's pretty reasonable to assume I dream.
The liltingly acoustic song which conjures meadows amd riverside picnics, which it should be noted I have never taken part in, leaves me feeling the same as I did this morning when I awoke well rested and somehow fuzzily happy that I could remember dreaming. I've had issues with sleep for a long time; I flicker between going months with not enough and then spiking and having a day or two where I seem to do nothing but. But with actual sleep being the priority, I guess my brain just forgets to hit the record button.
Mr Sandman hasn't visited me in ages; and given he's a geriatric who breaks into children's rooms when they're sleeping, I'm sort of glad.
As part of my course I'm studying a module on the Literature of Sleep. It's easily the most intriguing topic we've looked at, coming towards the end of three years at university. And dreams, it seems, are a funny business.
The book I'm reading at the minute, Jenny Diski's The Dream Mistress, is prefaced by a single line. I'm assuming it's from The Interpretation of Dreams, as it is accredited to Sigmund Freud., and it reads thus:
"... those dreams best fulfil their function about which one knows nothing after waking."
Which means what, exactly? That for ages my brain's not been too tired to throw up a quick screen saver while asleep, but has in fact been treating itself luxuriously and so I can't remember anything about whatever visions of my psyche swam out of the depths? I like the idea, sort of, that I haven't remembered dreams for ages because they were the best kind, not because they've been unnotable and mundane. And when you think about it, it can ring true. The most vivid dreams are either the ones that you think have actually happened when you wake up, leaving a dazed and disorientated waker to stumble upon the truth gradually and spend their morning shedding the surreal filter that's been put over their senses, or the nightmare which terrifies you so much that it physically and psychologically kicks you out of sleep.
There's a reason he'll remember this one.
Neither of these seem like the dream I, personally, would choose if I could select what to view as I rested.
The details of last night's dream would bore you, and probably reveal more about myself than I'd like should someone care to analyse them. The gist of it was that somehow someone, I think a really close friend, had convinced me to do stand-up, and because this was dreamland I was ushered straight onto a huge comedy gala, where I performed really funny material really well but, being a dream audience in front of me, I bombed and was miserable, but oddly happy that I'd tried it.
There's nothing really to tell there, except that there must be. For some reason, instead of the luxury of an unremembered dream as is my norm, something was negative enough about it, or subpar enough, that meant I remembered it being performed. And it wasn't as though it wasn't good sleep.
I felt well enough rested. More well rested than some non-dreaming nights. Which is odd. But then again, I suppose it proves the only constant thing that comes up in my Thursday seminar for Literature of Sleep. We might cover Freud, and twentieth-century short stories, and poems by Keats, and films by Nolan, but in all of them the constant truth is that dreams are fucked up places, a shifting topic, and never do what they're supposed to.
Now I'm off to nap.
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