20/10/10

20/10/10

I had a random work related dream where the lab had been re arranged. I don’t remember much more.

2/10/10

2/10/10
This dream was definitely work related. I was being shown the DSS test (Direct Simple Shear) by Phil because he has no choice (he definitely wouldn’t show me how to do the test OR the processing given the choice. It’s very clique-ey in the effective stress/advanced lab. Hell, he didn’t want me to learn how to process CRS (constant rate of strain) Oedometers (a compression test) because ‘I didn’t know what I was doing’ – this despite the fact I pretty much RAN the normal (non advanced) oedometer lab for a good three months while my line manager was ill with lung cancer (he’s in remission now :D) Anyway, I end up cleaning the benches and all the machines which are offline because of the re jigging/renovations of the lab (which aren’t happening until next year) and Phil is showing me how to start a DSS – on the odd (and old) machine next to where I do data processing.

In the second dream I am at dads in Pembroke, which appears to be a modern house on the East Gate wall. It is apparently prone to flooding, this despite being up high (unless it’s got a basement or something) It has a library. We go out to the beach to do something. I see fields with reddish plants and spikes, plus lots of wild garlic and a wall broken down and all crumbled (it’s a dry stone wall). Coming back to dads via a tunnel and the lower entrance (the one that floods) I meet nanny and granddad. Granad tells me what to do with some pictures and notes that we have taken. Some of the photos are of family. He seems disoriented and apologises for his confusion. It’s not like granddad. It upsets me. I go upstairs to library after he and nanny leave.

In the third dream of the night I am leaving a health spa with mum. It apparently has a garden centre attached. We go into a garden shop after mum has driven us around for a bit. The road surface changes every time we turn a corner, one minute it’s a dirt track, the next tarmack, the next grass, then stone then tile, then sand etc…we even drive up steps at one point – and it was roa and not a footpath! The garden shop is not selling plants – only gifts and bags and stuff. Mum suggests we try Ragdale Hall (a really good health spa by the way). Then I woke up.

30/9/10

30/9/2010

I had another slightly odd dream last night. I was probably processing my first day back at work. So there was me processing data and stuff when I decide I need to go and see the other end (classifications lab). They are all sat around this cupboard nattering away. Rheo is the only one actually doing any work, and at that it’s only a plastic index. On the way there I see Roger the lab manager fiddling around with one of the pieces of advanced equipment – which he never does. I show him I am preparing for my safety talk with a follow on from the management one (which was all about safety in wintery conditions – snow/ice/fog/flood etc. I will be doing one on protecting your skin in snowy conditions – which would have been topical, if Didcot had had any snow left this evening. If I had had to give the talk today it would have been great. Tomorrow, there will probably be no snow left. Such is my luck. I have been in the least snowy area of the country ever since this cold snap started last week. My brother in Durham had it ankle deep before he left to work in Thailand for three months on Friday. I have no doubts that they will have had MUCH more since. Tyler must be loving it!

So I chat to Rheo and the group for a bit – not sure what on, but I did chat for a while, but then Roger turned up, so I left – supposedly to get back to work. After I left Rheo and the guys down in the classifications lab (Roger started nattering to them). I went off up to the kitchen – probably decided that I needed a drink or something. Gareth was in there with Adrian and someone else, and then the others come in and it becomes an impromptu staff update as Roger and Kevin walk in. Either that or Kevin was already there, but wherever he was, he looks ANCIENT – all fine lines and deep grooves and his hair is grey. Roger starts the impromptu meeting by telling Kevin he knows he has had a lot on his plate and then takes a TV remote from his pocket, points it at the TV screen in the back corner of the room (when did the kitchen get a TV??), which shows a young lad, mid twenties with dark brown hair, who he introduces as Kevin’s new assistant. There is more discussed which I don’t remember properly before I or several of us troop over to the main building (possibly for lunch or a real staff briefing (it’s a bit fuzzy here).

So we are over in the main building and then head back, only there’s this chonging big new building right next to the lab warehouse. No idea where it has appeared from, but I get the impression it’s a hospital of some sort. I accidentally go into this new building. The floor is hospital lino in a terracotta colour and its all very hospital like in the entrance. I leave straight after this and walk out of the building, which has a little cupola bit where there is a load of really gorgeous artwork in a screen. I remember thinking about a recent Blog post made by Ursula Vernon about dreaming about amazing art – and not being able to either remember or re-create it once awake. I really liked these pieces. They were solid colour – a really gorgeous blue one I can’t remember and one with trees. The solid colour blocks were lined with paler or darker colours and there was scrolling inside too. And looking head on it was flat, as I walked past it to get back into work, it became layers in three dimensions – really amazing stuff. Wish I could remember the details to jot it down. Anyway, I walk back into our building and that’s the end of that dream. I woke up in the middle of the night to find Chloe the cat draped over my feet.

In the second dream I am with Katie Preece from my university geology group and Rheo from work. We are out mountaineering. Its snowy and we are climbing a steep area. I have a book in my hands that I have get to read. I get the impression it’s one I bought the other day – a Dragon riders of Pern novel. Dragon Girl I think. Anyway, we have gotten to a really tricky bit, so I ask Katie to hold the book so I don’t drop it while I am climbing. I can’t think why I didn’t just put it in my back pack. But never mind that’s dreams for you. I start climbing, and Katie is next to me. We get half way up and she only goes and drops the book. It doesn’t quite end up in the stream however, which I was worried it would because it would have been ruined. I think ‘at least I can pick it up later’, only I don’t. Me and my friends make it to the top of the rock (not actually all that high or steep as it first appeared, only to find this guy arranging a hiking tour of striding edge in the Lake District (I can blame Steve Banham (also old uni colleague) for this and a Facebook post of his. We get on a minibus to get to the place. Mum meets me there – my friends have disappeared by now.

I see the view as we come down the mountain. There is a whole row of hills/mountains with sharp peaked edges that dipped down to the valley before sloping back up to the sharp ridge that people walked along. I got the impression that the trek was a couple of hundred miles long, all like this and this was the striding edge – and the only route through, except the valley floor looked very passable – perhaps it was all bog?

We go into the valley to a small hut where we have a briefing on the route and safety and other things. It mustn’t have been interesting or I wouldn’t have fallen asleep – but both mum and I do. We wake up after the group has set off and so we are left at the hut – annoyed they didn’t wake us so we could go with them. It feels like the trip over the ridges is some sort of pilgrimage – there are man groups travelling it. I woke up however before we could join with one of these groups.

10/9/10

10/9/10

I had two dreams last night, both of them work related. The first was set at my current work place. I had been processing data in the office and for some reason I go out into the effective stress lab. There’s a crowd of people around the sample preparation bench. Andy is preparing one of the samples in the normal manner and there is a big block of soil (looks like the modeling clay straight from the bag with its edges trimmed off). Michael comes up with a tray of drinks (tea coffee etc) and puts it down on the workspace just in front of the big clay specimen. Andy promptly starts to tell Michael off for being so careless – he could have disturbed the sample (even though it really doesn’t look all that delicate to me). Phil and Nick meanwhile are preparing another sample on the floor of all places. Nick is doing the trimming on his knees (and he is behind the bench so I can’t see him from my perspective) while Phil stands over him, directing/watching what he is doing and making suggestions. The Roger walks out of his office on the way to the advanced lab for some reason, and I ask him what the test is about (as I have never seen a test on such a weird (and large) specimen.). Roger explains it to me very convincingly (I can even hear his tone of voice in the dream) and then goes off to do whatever he was going to do (he is holding onto some papers) while my response was, “Huh”.

The second dream was based in Preston and centered around my old job of care assistant. For some reason I was up in Preston (probably visiting mum as per my usual reason for being up there) and Apex has convinced me to do a shift (they must have been utterly desperate). So I have gone to this place (it looks like it’s where nanny’s old care home is sited – and we are going into a house that is what I would call the ‘gatehouse’ that is to the side of it to an assisted living accommodation. I have gotten a lift or am driving a car very much like mum’s and I have Chloe the cat with me. No idea why I had brought her up north with me. Anyway, mum turns up and she has Will (her house rabbit) with her (hutch and all). We therefore decide to introduce them. Interesting thing about it. It isn’t Chloe (who has proved herself a cold hard killer of all things rodent and avian) who attacked. Will bit her on the nose! She kept wanting to make friends, and he kept attacking her. Then I notice how odd the weather is getting. There has been a storm building for a while with dark grey clouds and wind etc…now I notice that there’s what looks like the funnel of a twister coming down from the clouds . It is BIG and very threatening looking and I can still /see/ the twisting vortex of the water vapour in the twisting wind. It keeps trying to set down, but never quite reaches the ground. But the clouds above are getting ever blacker and there are some curious black sparkles in it that I /think/ are stars – as if the storm is peeling back the atmosphere and revealing the utter black of space, punctuated by the stars (either that or it was dead black cloud (I mean it was so black it could have been sapping the light from the surroundings) with tiny lightning globs at random points. I keep thinking it would be a good idea to get in the car – or in the building, but the sight is really mesmerizing…and then I got woke up by Chloe using me as a springboard.

21/7/10

21/7/10

Last night I dreamt about work. Boring life that I am leading at the moment. I was at work doing data processing, as I have been for the past few weeks. Only the location I was working was different.. it felt more like a lower level of a hotel, with creamy, plastered walls, wooden furniture and a balcony with a lot of greenery outside my ‘office’ area. It was dim inside, and raining outside. I was suggesting an improvement to something at work and Adrian (my line manager) was approving it.

16/7/10

16/7/10

I had several dreams last night, mostly about my week at work processing test data, and therefore not really worth relating given how boring it is, though I am fairly certain it was more focussed on interacting and conversations with the staff at work. One dream last night that I do remember was about a beach. I was familiar with it though I don’t recognise it from real life. There was a map and I was searching for something, possibly something dangerous. The beach is in a U shaped valley, rising gently (with sharp brownish red rocks on either side) with creamy sand between them. I know the water gets deep /really/ fast as soon as you go off the sand. There is a large upthrust of rock in the middle of the beach which is high and wide and which the tide when high surrounds with vicious waves when high. The rock is egg shaped, pointy end out to sea. It has a steep, flat slope to the top from land, and is rocky and shallow going into the water. There is a depression and vegetation at the top. There is a way up onto the rock when the tide is low and I climb it to see into the depression up top. I think I thought there was something hidden up there. I also remember there being a garden and a house further up the valley near the edge of a cliff that I explore too. I don’t remember much more of the dream.

16/4/10

Last night I had one of the most disturbing and upsetting dreams I have ever had. I have had many dreams that were weird and disturbing, but have never been properly upset by one. Give me alien invasions and nasty dangerous oily creatures that can rip you apart any day, but I don’t ever want a repeat of THIS dream.

Ok, it starts off at work, everyone in the company is congregated in the warehouse to attend a memorial service for a colleague who has recently lost her battle with liver cancer (Hardly anyone even knew she was sick – I had only seen her a week or so before and she looked fine. Major shock to all. She ‘didn’t want to make a fuss’ apparently) All very sad, and this was obviously part of my brain’s way of processing Annette’s death.

Then I get pulled out of the service. I am not sure whether someone came to get me or I got a phone call. Either way, the dream starts going waaay down hill for me emotionally from this point. I find out someone has died, and I have to get back up to Preston (My brain is telling me that mum has died – naturally I was utterly devastated by that – but mum is fine (I was that upset I phoned her when I woke up), nanny is the one family member up north who is in a poor enough state of health for me to worry about her dying. Anyway, my brain is telling me that mum is dead, and I have to get up to Preston. I have to arrange the funeral, see the body (a thing I have a problem with. I am not good around bodies – make it a loved one’s body and I would totally freak – which is why I refused to see Granddad after he had died – it wasn’t /him/ any more. I didn’t get the choice with grandpa – I was too young at the time. Anyway. After getting given this news I end up crying my eyes out in my dream, sobbing and it’s really emotionally laden. I translate in my dream state to Preston. And mum’s there, only I know she is dead or going to die on a given date and it’s horrible. Then I realise that Tom doesn’t know and I have to tell him (this is like halfway through preparing for the funeral and days after ‘mum’ had died. That wasn’t pleasant either and I remember dreading it. Then I have to go to the funeral. Mum hugs me outside and we make a really tearful farewell – as if she were a ghost and she can’t come into the service and will be gone by the end of it. It was the worst bit and I am tearing up at the thought right now. I woke up and felt awful. It was too early to get ready for work or to phone mum and so I went to the loo, had a bit of a cry and then tried getting back to sleep – successfully I might add, and this one wasn’t half as bad. It took me a good few hours to recover from the shock of the first dream today though.

In the second dream, which wasn’t all that vivid I was on a fieldtrip to this hotel with beautiful gardens. There is a river running through it that you can swim in or get to via a terrace (and I with my shadowy companion did both) then there is a trip through a city to grandma’s house and here is another garden – only it isn’t the garden grandma has in real life – it’s bigger, very English country garden. I honestly don’t remember much after that except that I was supposed to be moving in and that I did have some conversation with grandma and the shadowy guy.

So yeah, bad dreams followed by slightly more normal dreams, but still emotionally charged and I was still reeling from the first at gone 10am this morning.