The stories that nobody likes
Other people’s dreams are tedious. No one wants to listen to you explain something that matters to you only. And rightly so. You don’t, nor should you, care to hear about the time my girlfriend stopped talking for me for a day because in my sleep I said to her ‘We need those Geography tables right now, and no, of course I don’t think you look like Homer Simpson’. She didn’t care to hear it either. That relationship ended when we had an argument about how much of an onion is too much to throw away when peeling it, but, as an aside, to this day I can’t help but think of her whenever I hear Shed Seven’s ‘She Left Me On Friday’. Not because she left me on a Friday, but although she truly didn’t look like Homer Simpson, she did bear a striking resemblance to Rick Witter. I also can’t help but think of her when I throw away onion peel. I’ll throw away as much as I see fit, Sarah!
Be honest, you also don’t much want to hear about that time my subconscious turned inexplicably racist and I woke myself up laughing because I had dreamt I was in Dublin and I was walking around greeting every person I saw with a raised hand and a hale and hearty cry of ‘POTATO!’. I blame Father Ted. And I’m sorry, Dublin. Truly.
Why would you care that there was the time I dreamt I was watching New Order, but instead of Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook, the singer and bassist were Jamie Redknapp and Steve McMannaman. There was also that one where I was watching the 6 o’clock news about a horrific rail crash somewhere in Scotland, but the newscasters were Jamie Redknapp and Steve McMannaman. And when I was trying to return some clothes to a shop and got in an argument with the two shop assistants who were…well…Jamie Redknapp and Steve McMannaman. Look, Liverpool were on the telly a lot that month, OK?
I’m sure I’m the only one who finds it interesting that I once dreamt of an improv festival on the East Coast of The Lake District (yes, the previously unknown to all humanity ‘East’ Coast of The Lake District). Where the award for the best show was called the ‘Palm D’O RLY?’, although I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I am still extremely proud of that award name to this day. But still, other people’s dreams are boring. I’m the only one who can be interested in that time my mind freely created a whole intricately plotted episode of the show Sherlock, centred around a missing pack of Fruit Pastilles from the vending machine where the culprit turned out to be Irene Adler who took them because, as she said ‘I chew what I want’. It made no sense, but I got to dream of Lara Pulver, so who cares. You don’t, that’s for sure.
Some dreams, you just can’t tell people, even if they might not find them boring, like the week where I couldn’t look a poor colleague in the eye because I’d had a particularly wild and torrid sex dream about her and the embarrassment carried over to real life. Mind you, I miss those days now I’m past middle age, at least when I was younger my sex dreams were worthy of the use of that word, torrid. Earlier in my 40s I had a dream where I was at an orgy with some very famous people, but I was just stood to the side, holding their coats.
So, yeah, other people’s dreams are dull. No one wants to hear them. Not even the one where while my Granddad was lying ill in a hospice nearing the end, and I dreamt I stood alongside him looking on in horror as a plane crashed directly onto his house, destroying the place of a childhood full of happy memories, joy, and love, then, real life awoke to the phone ringing to find my Mum on the other end of the line, crying, telling me he’d passed in the night.
Hey, I said other people’s dreams are boring, I didn’t say they weren’t sometimes sad.
