ErraticHopper

I'm at home, curled in my desk chair, planning a trip to Monaco for myself on my laptop. The light is low and warm, it must be evening - and the trip is tomorrow. I look over my plans. I've already booked the Eurostar (£54.30 - I know it shouldn't cost that much!) and I'm familiar with the Côte d'Azur TER trains that pass through Monaco Monte-Carlo. Though I notice now that I didn't plan any way to get from Paris to Provence.

While reading through my plans, I'm a bit doubtful as to how well it will go - it's meant to be a day trip but it doesn't look like I'll make it in a day. With security and waiting the Eurostar takes about 3 hours, the train from Paris takes longer and the last one into Monaco is at least half an hour. I'm worried and I feel a headache coming on - I wonder if I should cancel the trip. Maybe I can get my money back?

Then it's the next day, my suitcase is packed and I'm leaving, still filled with worry. My mum wishes me luck. I don't remember what happens after I step out the door.

But then I am in Monaco, standing in a shop, the walls, floor and ceiling are completely wooden. I look over some goods displayed on wooden counters. Seemingly I've been here before: I remember a sale that was on last time I was here. This time the sale is some aromatic bars of soap. I pick over up and turn it over in my hand, smelling its lemony scent.

Sorry for slacking with the Dream Journal. I think this is the first time I've properly smelled something in a dream! Yay!

This is Day 42 because I noted some fragments during the competition, and forgot to send them in...

Two dreams tonight!

I'm inside a house, in a white dress, holding a baby. The front door opens and a man enters, he's wearing a hat and sunglasses and his expressionless, confident manner creeps me out. It seems I'm used to his entry, and I keep my head down and stand still while he walks up and down the living room before leaving. I don't remember arriving - I get the feeling I've been here for a long, long time.

Sometime later, my parents have come to visit, and I break down. "I don't want to live here," I sob. My dad pats me on the back but they both have expressions of not knowing what to say. This house looks a lot like my own house.

I'm outside, standing near the bottom level of a sort of Roman amphitheatre, a hand resting on the iron fence surrounding the arena. A soft shawl wraps around my shoulders. The theatre is sandstone-coloured and completely empty, weeds springing up through cracks in the stone. A man approaches from the arena and we talk for a while. I feel relaxed and peaceful, breezes are blowing.

Then I am in the house once more. I go to open the front door and let my mother in. She is outside and a little way back, waiting, is the creepy man. I hurriedly usher her in and shut the door in his face - I don't want him here today. Through the peephole I can see his face peering boredly in.

I show her into the lounge, and wanting to be far away from the man at the front door, suggest we go and stand by the far window. She agrees and we walk to the back of the room, gazing out. And then, the creepy man steps into view. He's come around the back of the house to the very edge of the window. I stand frozen in apprehension and he, too, is still - until he winds up his arm and smashes a wooden chair through the glass. Still expressionless, he moves to climb through the window. My mother and I seize another chair and use it to hit him and push him back. He doesn't yield.

Suddenly my dad is here, and so are the police. They have a 'stun gun' - not a taser but actually a tranquilliser gun with very short darts - and start shooting rapidly towards the man, and us behind him.

He's knocked out, but I feel and see a dart pierce my skin. I try to tell my dad that I've been hit, but no-one is listening and I feel my eyelids growing heavy. My eyes close as I'm babbling, grabbing at his arm.


2

I'm on a 'snowmobile'. No idea how those are actually supposed to look or what they do, but mine has a wide driver's seat and wheel, two seats behind and one on the back facing backwards. I drive it through the market street in the evening when who should I run into but a boy from my primary school (who I actually just met yesterday for the first time in ages) and his friends. We both exclaim at the coincidence and they ride on my snowmobile for a short distance. They drop off as I turn out of a narrow street onto the main road.


Regarding the first dream, the setting was a sort of dystopian society under heavy surveillance. I don't know how to fit it into the journal, it was just a feeling I had; the creepy man was there to watch me and how I lived. The baby might not have been mine, either.

SPRING COMPETITION NIGHT 7

I'm at home, in my room. It's the holidays and I'm not doing much - just lazing around on the floor, in a T-shirt and shorts and looking out of the window. It's sunny outside.

I receive a delivery of a big box of pastries, from school, for the prefects. There's a note from a teacher explaining that, since we're not at school, she sent them here instead (FYI I'm the head of the prefects). I guess she wanted me to distribute them, but it's the holidays after all, and I don't know where everyone lives. Also I really can't be bothered. I'm in a lazy mood. I eat some - probably more than my fair share - close the box and lay back down.

The next day I wake up to a message in the prefect group chat (from someone who's not even a prefect IRL). She mentions the pastries and that everyone's looking forward to them. I start to feel guilty for not handing them out and remember some other things I forgot to do. I hope everyone won't notice how scatterbrained I've been.

I go into school. There aren't many people, but in the school hall are some younger year girls in the centre of the room. They've built a rather wobbly (I tried to climb it) staircase out of some big plastic boxes and a desk chair, up to a high table. One of the steps is a block of something white and strange - I think they said it was squid - and a blonde girl refuses to go up it. The girl who placed it there complains that her friend doesn't understand the true usefulness of squid. I laugh at the girls and ask what they think they're doing.

I go up to a whitewashed classroom on the second floor, which seems to be our room in this dream. There's no-one in there but plenty of sunlight coming in through the windows. I think that I'd better get the pastries - and then I remember that I threw them out! I have a vision of the box left on top of a broken desk chair and a heap of cardboard boxes in an alley. I panic. What should I do? I know everyone else will arrive soon. I leave the room and run down the hall. In another room, bizarrely, I find the box. Although I don't understand how they could be there, I'm relieved and bring them back to the classroom.

Such a strange dream... At least things worked out in the end. Actually this is the first time I've eaten food in a dream! A milestone - though I don't think it counts for points if the dream isn't lucid. I can't remember how they tasted, alas.

P.S. I like to dress smartly and I would never wear a t-shirt and shorts, even on holiday!