The Inner Workings of a Sound Addict

Partly from the downtime of DV, and partly from my own neglect, my dream journal has been largely untouched recently. Now that I'm back from uni for a while, and away from its many dream-inhibiting substances, I think I'll try and get this up and running again.

My lack of dream journalling has noticeably affected my dream recall, unfortunately, so I feel as if I'm back to the start, but here goes: a retrospective view of some of the more interesting dream fragments.

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5/3/12

My friend gets stung by a wasp, so I take out a lawsuit against the wasp.

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7/3/12

I'm in a cruise ship hotel with my sister and cousin, and we steal my own dog (god knows who from). We escape to the top floor, which happens to be a posh restaurant, in which I'm pretty sure we're not allowed. My mum assures me it's fine, as my sister and cousin leave. She later plays some liquid drum & bass on some fat speakers, 'Memoirs' by Rameses B.

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14/3/12

I'm on a bed in a public place with my ex-girlfriend from about 3 years ago. I haven't seen her in a while and she tells me about implants she got recently, all 3 of them. She tells me to feel them, then to help her lose her virginity [despite previously being my girlfriend]. Though I nobly oblige, she leaves before we can do the deed, much to the disappointment of my entourage, who had recently formed in the room.

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17/3/12

I'm back from uni and my mum tells me she's seen my tattoo [though in real life, she still hasn't] and thinks it's disgusting [in the dream, it does actually look pretty vile]. However, she says she's over it because she's already cried about it and gotten it out of her system. [I really hope this isn't a true representation of how it actually goes down!]

Woke up for my lecture this morning, wrote down my dream, fell asleep, woke up again with another dream in mind, realised I had missed most of my lecture, got some more sleep and finally woke up with a third dream - which is a great result compared to my usual 1 per night. My second and third were particularly memorable, so I'm glad I gave myself a lie in
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12/2/12
I'm home from my lifeguarding job [which I was fired from a long time ago] and my house is busy with dozens of random people. I look for my boss's wife to give her something [curry, I think it was]. Later, as I play with my dog, Reggie, he nibbles along my arm, leaving some sort of yellow dye [which I, for some reason, dismiss as normal] . I go to the living room of my house, where my dad and sister watch a rugby match, which a strange man proceeds to parachute onto.
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I'm on a beach in a film, and some guys nearby are annoyingly throwing sand. As I approach them, and the hole they're standing in, they leave. In the hole is a folder full of papers, which I throw away. However, a phone nearby rings and tells me to retrieve the folder, as well as to destroy the hole. Without question I do what I'm told, yet the tide begins to come in fast.

Soon the water is neck-height, and I search around for the folders (of which there are now two) with the help of my mum and sister. As we struggle against the waves we lose a lot of pages, before finally reaching the back wall of the beach. It's then that I realise all of my stuff is underwater, much to my frustration.
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At uni, me and several friends run for a bus to take us to a gig. Once on, everyone takes ages sorting out payment for the bus, making the driver wait, due to high levels of intoxication. Chemical Fires by Tides of Man comes on the bus's speakers [which would be great in real life] and I began to sing along. Very loudly.
http://youtu.be/JEW5gMqhid0
Everyone seems to enjoy watching me drunkenly sing, and sometimes shout, to the rest of the public on the bus. As the chorus is in a 3/4 time signature, a girl begins to waltz with me. At the end of the song I scream the final words and, suddenly worried I'll be kicked off the bus, return to my seat.

Two friends (one from uni, one from school) provide the follow up act: one beatboxes a strange mixture of banjos and club house, while the other dances frantically (and almost dangerously). This act of extreme inebriation is enjoyed immensely by everyone on the bus, until the two performers collapse on top of each other and throw up everywhere

10/2/12
I am in a tattoo shop, about to get my second tattoo [which I plan on getting soon IRL]: the words 'Start Something', potentially on my chest. [This is a nice motto I have about being proactive and doing something productive instead of just thinking about it, as well as the name of the first album I ever bought, which I listened to everyday for 2 years walking to and from school during a not-so-good time of my life]

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I'm at the edge of a lecture theatre, watching a hot DC lecturer give a talk while lying down. Later, at home, I find some sort of oral hygiene kit behind a sofa, which unfortunately has a dog excrement on. This then means we have to either give up or put down the dog, who is sometimes an old man.
I am then in the perspective of Modern Family's Phil as he explains how he burned all his not-so-masculine clothes [his femininity/childishness being a recurring theme in the show] in order to impress his father-in-law. Like previous dreams, telling the story transports me into it, and the clothes become mine. I manage to salvage some of my favourite clothes but the rest are incinerated.

While falling asleep I remember having tiny dream fragments of having really good food in front of me which, every time I tried to eat, tasted like nothing. This was very disappointing. It seems my sense of taste hadn't transcended into the dream world with the rest of my senses.
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9/2/12
I'm playing a game of rugby with my friend Ben, my mum, Slash and Axl Rose (among others). However, the game is played not with a ball, but by playing music [don't ask how!]. As a drummer, I am getting quite a workout (as I usually do) and begin sweating a fair bit, so I turn on a fan I happened to have with me, to which Ben approves.

Nice lie in this morning, so dream recall was pretty good.
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31/1/12
I'm in a pub with my flat for one of my flatmate's birthday, drinking. For some reason the pub suddenly gets locked down - no one can enter or leave - and Diana Skouris from The 4400 [a Heroes-esque TV show I've been watching recently]leads the investigation. In the commotion I realise I need the toilet, and proceed downstairs with an unidentified mate on my shoulders [though I have no idea who, or more importantly, why].

While queuing, two arrogant girls cut in, to which all the guys around me react with a flash mob, me included. I'm quickly exiled from the toilets (which doubles as some sort of clothes shop) as I still have someone sitting on my shoulders. In reply, I turn around and fart in the bouncer's general direction. Quick to anger, he immediately grabs me and abrasively escorts me to the security office.

As I wait in the office, I manage to hire two DCs to have a food fight, and another to watch [for my amusement?] and eventually I join in. I am later released back into the pub to join my flatmates once more. However, we have to wait to be picked up by the birthday girl's parents and taken home.

At home [my house, rather than my uni flat] the parents ignore my apologies and leave. I tell my flatmates about my night in the security office, and about the food fight. I am then transported back to that scene [as if telling a very vivid story] but with different characters (this time people I know). This time, the food fight ends in making a Christmas tree out of the food, in a similar fashion to Epic Meal Time. It looked incredible.

Don't remember much from last night's dream, apart from the end, which is just about worthy of a DJ entry.
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30/1/12
I'm standing next to Tommy Wiseau (the brilliantly awful director and star of The Room) as he takes revenge on someone with a hose[though I don't remember what for]. The hose is so powerful, however, that it debilitates his foe and eventually causes his body to explode! We proceed to get into the car and leave, but we find him sitting in the back seat, intact... Another spray of the almighty hose does the trick and at last justice is served.

Dream recall has been woeful over the last few days, and I've had nothing to write in here, but finally I remembered a bit of last night's dream (though there wasn't much significant about it).
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27/1/12
[This night was following a big clubbing night out, which explains the first half.] I am in my uni flat with the girls that I usually go out with and we've just got back from a club, discussing going out the following night as well. Over time, everyone in the nearby blocks of flats pulls out for various reasons. I see one girl I know quite well tucking the rest of her flat into bed, and saying that they're 'not allowed' to go out Saturday [I always saw her as a bit of a mother-figure].

Later, I'm in a computer room back at school, and I've just finished my work. I am reluctantly convinced by my old rugby coach to go to the lunchtime training session, which involves the whole team running on treadmills in a line, passing the ball to each other, which seemed a lot more normal in my dream than it does looking back at it.

It does horrible things to my dream recall! I haven't remembered a dream in its entirety for days because of this weekend taking its toll.
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I do remember that I met this guy last night though, which I believe to be worthy of a DJ entry!
21/1/12

Not much of a recall night, last night, but I do remember this little fragment.
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18/1/12
I am on a cruise ship with the family [again with the family!] and we have this tiny, but full-grown, ape of about 5 inches in height. It's so cool, constantly climbing on us and swinging around the boat - but that's all I remember of it.

Later on my dad orders two waters from the bar, and explains to the barmaid the best way to do it. He asks for two cylindrically-shaped lemons and ice which as been scraped off a larger block with a knife. Tasted fucking fantastic.

No recall on the night of the 16th as I was off-my-tits high, but I managed to remember bits a pieces last night - mostly of me hiding my tattoo from my parents again...
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17/1/12
One dream did stand out, however, as it was pretty intense:

I'm walking down the street at night with two friends [who I don't think I know in real life] and one is reading a book. A girl with her boyfriend behind us makes a snooty comment about his 'cheap clothes' and how she didn't think poor people could read. At this, we band together like brothers and decide to lay into her with a dazzling display of insults.

We continue walking through an alley to some sort of changing room [probably a rugby changing room, like so many of my other dreams, for some reason] where I get lamped in the back of the head by this girl's boyfriend and fall to the floor dazed. I don't take to this cowardly form of combat and so get up to confront him, but he turns himself invisible!

I decide this coward needs a lesson as I see a crowd of people being pushed apart by an invisible force, and chase my attacker to a nearby toilet cubicle. He pleads as his invisibility wears off, but I'm too fired up and I crack him in the jaw. He then somehow appears with his head in the toilet bowl (not through my doing) and I pull him out by his legs to save him from drowning.


I leave the scene to gasps and disgusted whispers, as if I was the one in the wrong. To be fair to the guy, he did need an ambulance.


Just to point out, I'm not a very violent person, and though I wouldn't react well to being hit from behind, I definitely wouldn't retaliate as viscously as in my dream.

Ok so my dream last night was pretty much all over the place, and I'm sure the following structure is artificial due to my mind's desire to make the story more followable, but you get the picture this way at least.
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15/1/12
As far as I can remember, the dream starts with my family having just come into some money to take us out of our life-long debt (which we do not have IRL), of which my dad wastes on something extravagant [in some sort of Family Guy manner]. Angry with him, we all get into a rusty old car and set off.

Our journey takes us to a rollercoaster-shaped path - throwing us up into the air over every hill. The car disappears without us noticing, and I realise the small cart I'm sitting on (now detached from the rest of my family) is rather unstable! I put all my effort into keeping it stable, but I'm more concerned about my more less-well-balanced family, particularly at the speeds we're all going.

We all make it safely to a platform in the water (apart from my mum, who had to swim the last bit) which features a set of bungee ropes and two body straps. In my mind I know I've done this before, and that it catapults you across the body of water to another rollercoaster, yet there if you don't strap yourself in fast enough, you risk serious injury. I barely save my sister as she slowly attempts to go first. The ropes snap off violently into the distance and we wait for the next set to arrive.

The rollercoasters then appear to be a video game, and we're all back in my front room back home, with the addition of my cousins and aunt. I get a brief glimpse that this is an Adventure Time video game, seeing Finn and Jake, while also finding out the aim is to deliver an extremely sugary cake to a group of rappers (given to me by P Diddy himself - I don't even like his music). My sister and spoilt cousin try the game but do not even reach the rollercoaster level, so I offer to try. My aunt gets stressed and says my cousin has another go (rather unfairly, yet I go along with it as the elder) before she breaks down into tears, claiming she doesn't want another go! A tense family feud ensues, and I unfortunately never get the chance to deliver the cake to those disappointed rappers

Sadly, no recall again on the night of the 13th, due to my poor sleeping pattern.
I do, however, remember a small fragment of last night - though nothing quite as interesting as my last proper dream.
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14/1/12
I am back at school, in a maths class being taught by this fat-arsed invigilator that we used to have for exams [honestly, she could barely fit between the desks when walking up and down the hall] but I hadn't been paying attention. When she makes her way round the class to me, I grab my neighbour's book (who I dislike) and claim it as my own.

I then walk all the way round the school to my next lesson (a huge detour) and see various people on the way, some who have influenced my life greatly, and others who haven't. Nothing particularly remarkable about any of them, apart from an old art teacher of mine spinning uncontrollably on a skateboard, as if in some sort of glitch, as well as Angela from the US Office refusing to help out any of the other teachers.



That was it unfortunately, but hopefully tonight will prove more interesting after seeing Asking Alexandria live.

No dream recall last night as I was fairly intoxicated, so I thought I'd share a recurring dream I used to have when I was very young.

The dream would always start differently, in various places that were at least 1 floor above the ground. It would feel exactly like a normal dream (and probably would have continued normally, if left uninterrupted), and there's one occurrence that I remember more vividly than any dream I've experienced:

I am in my parents bedroom with some friends from school, jumping on the bed (remember, I must have been 7 or 8 years old). Suddenly, I hear the sign that I hear in every instance of this recurring dream: footsteps up the stairs. [No doubt the sound of my parents going up to bed in the real world]
I know exactly what to do at this point, as I've had years of practice: lie as flat as you can, hands by your sides, head tilted sideways. I tell my friends to do the same and they follow, apart from one. He stays standing up on the bed, and as I close my eyes I hear the door open and my friend scream as this monster throws him into a nightmare - the price to pay for not lying on the ground and therefore being invisible to him.

I think I was caught by the monster a few times in the early instances of the dream, and thrown into a nightmare, and though I never remember the top half of its body, I know that the bottom half consists of the pair of 'wrong trousers' from the Wallace and Gromit animation. I can't watch it now without being reminded of those nightmares.

This is by far my best-recalled dream since I started over a week ago, and was definitely the most interesting (if slightly disturbing).
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11/1/12
I am in some European country, probably Italy by the way it feels, with one of my best friends (Luke, an old rugby teammate), my dad, and my former head coach, Kiwi. [Rugby tour perhaps? My dad always used to love coming along and pioneering the drinking games]
The four of us are looking around some sort of touristy ornament shop when another close friend/teammate, Ant, and Luke's dad (also a former coach) walked in. Despite us all being friends, no one says hello to either of them (I didn't recognise them initially) and the atmosphere gets a bit tense.
Luke's dad asks why none of us didn't greet them before Ant looks at Luke with tears in his eyes. I knew instantly that Luke and betrayed him in some way, presumably over a girl. [Incidentally, earlier that waking day the three of us were commenting on a picture of the two of them, in which Ant's goofy grin ruins Luke's serious stare]
We all leave the shop and I discuss the situation with Kiwi as we walk through some ancient-looking ruins.

Later, I'm back in a hotel with my mum, dad and sister, as well as my old head of sixth form from school (who had morphed from Kiwi). A hotel staff member explains to my dad about damage to a note in the cupboard under my bed. He gets the note out and it's two pieces of crumpled lined paper, with what I explain are my shopping lists and one 'to do' list. [I had recently made both those lists at uni, and the bed resembled that of my uni room]
Strangely, my dad tells me not to worry about the 'rerun thing', which makes no sense but I know he's referring to the Ant and Luke situation (not that this makes it any more understandable) and asks me how much he should pay the hotel for the damage to this note. I realise everyone thinks I crumpled it by masturbating on the bed, of which I'm 100% innocent, but I'm too embarrassed to mention it, especially in front of my sister. Instead, I go along with it and tell him to pay £100.

I started my bed-side dream journal about a week ago, so, this being my first entry, I'll just lump them all together seeing as they're not long or very detailed.
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4/1/12
1. I was looking at a random selection of friends' photos on my Facebook with my sister (who knows none of them), including a friend from the flat below me in my uni accommodation who got his bicep tattoo at the same time I got my first on my back. I'm pretty sure I was comparing the two to my sister (who is the only person in my family that knows about mine, may it long stay that way).

2. All I remember was that I was in a larger-scale version of the pool in which I used to work as a lifeguard, and was later fired from.

3. I was playing my first match back for my old rugby team, Teddington, and my first tackle was a fairly weak one - which is unusual for me, as flooring people is my favourite part of the game. The best kicker on the team later attempted to punt the ball down the pitch, but missed it completely - not sure of the relevance to be honest.

Later, however, was the stranger part. I was in the changing room, getting my wallet and phone from my bag in order to give it to my dad for safe keeping, as he often comes to watch matches. However I bumped into my friend's parents on the way, as well as his older sister, who was naked apart from a towel around her chest. When I proceeded to give my phone to my dad (I'd left the wallet for some reason), I attempted to put my contact lenses in, only to find I was putting them in over an existing pair, to great discomfort.
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5/1/12
In an adult house party somewhere greatly resembling the house I spent Christmas in, I was trying to pry a dog's rope toy from a cat. However, the cat made high-pitched barking sounds and despite putting all my effort into it, I could not get the rope out of its grip.

I was later shirtless in the kitchen, where I had to tell my mum to look at something (that I made up) in the other direction, so that I could slip past without her seeing my tattoo.
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6/1/12
I was in an abandoned changing room (may also have been a bath house, given the steam) with my aunt and two younger cousins. I was playing various games with them, the most vivid being simply sliding around on the tile floor in socks.
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7/1/12
The Red Hot Chili Peppers were onstage without a singer, so me and my friend from my music course stepped from backstage to cover. We both forgot most of the words initially (in the same way as a drunken karaoke night), but I eventually got very enthusiastic and began singing in more of a hardcore punk manner, jumping and flipping on stage like Frank Carter (Gallows) or a similar frontman. I spotted my family in the crowd, who found it silly, despite the crowd's enthusiastic reception.
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8/1/12
Sadly, nothing.
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9/1/12
My first other-worldly dream, in what I assume was an Elder Scrolls environment. Somehow I was looking at a town in two perspectives: both before and after it had been partially destroyed and rebuilt. I.e. I could see two versions of the town at the same time. It vaguely resembled Skyrim's Solitude, in that it was long-shaped and up-hill, maybe ending at a cliff at the far end (though I didn't venture that far).

Near the base of the hill was Umbacano Manor (though nothing like that of Cyrodill), with a large courtyard. I talked to various bodyguards (in the fashion I normally do in-game before talking to the most important person last), and then got to Umbacano himself. He offered to upgrade my spells and teach me new ones, before I realised I couldn't learn them (I don't tend to play magic characters) and so ended my dream.

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10/1/12
Nothing again, unfortunately.