The section features childrens' dreams collected during the years 1999 and 2000 as part of the Hypnotrash project, (see introduction to 'dreams other'). The ages given for contributors refers to their age at the time of submitting their dreams. All were transcribed from recorded interviews or sent in by the parents of the children.
My daughter is six and recounted this dream to me:
"You opened the map book in the car and there was a coffee ring on the page which you were using but when you opened the book the next day the coffee ring was gone. You flicked through all of the pages looking for it but it was gone. We took a long time to find the hotel we were looking for, and when we found it it was supposed to be noisy and have lots of bright lights but it was all closed up and looked spooky. The sign was hanging off the wall and creaking."
I asked my daughter who was in the car when I was looking at the map. She said it was just her and me and that she was driving. In the dream she was nineteen and had just passed her driving test. She said I had promised to take her out to a hotel when she passed her test. We couldn't find the hotel on the first day so we slept in the car. This was the day the coffee ring was on the page of the map book. When we looked the following day it was gone.
F. 6 (transcribed by father, 36)
When I was ill I had this dream where I started growing older really quickly. I was growing smaller and smaller and wrinklier and wrinklier and when I was still in the dream I got out of bed and went down the stairs into the bathroom to wash all these wrinkles off.
Then mum came up behind me and sort of like took me out of this dream.
M.11
Well, it started off at a wedding where the groom and brides didn't actually like each other.
Everybody was in a separate box which was really weird. They were in these transparent boxes and everybody had a background which was like another little box but a bit out of place.
I tried to do something about this but I couldn't because (I realised) I was in a wheelchair and nobody was there who would help. I couldn't do anything with my body because I didn't have any control over it.
It was pretty upsetting and really scary. When I woke up I was I was really hot and sweaty. It was a really bad dream.
F.9
In my dream I stopped time. I had the power to stop time like this TV programme called Bernard's Watch. I robbed a bank. And I had it all in my room, under my bed, lots of money. But I was found out by the police and they came to get me so I stopped time again and ran away. I went on a plane to Texas.
M.11
This one happened when I was about five I think.
I was standing outside the back gate, wearing the same things as I was in a photo that I've been looking at again recently: a yellow dress and a white cardigan.
I was standing there with this white stone I had in my hand. I was looking up at a camera which was looking at me. And then I just swallowed it, I put the stone in my mouth and swallowed it, then carried on looking at the camera.
I think I heard mum's voice going, "Elsa! What did you do that for?"
And then I heard Oscar running around going "click click" and then I woke up
F.9
Well, I've had this dream quite a long time. I'm in this sort of creamy coloured room and there's this box and this invisible pen and it keeps making these lines and when there's too many lines it's sort of blocking up the screen. I can't breathe and I'm getting all squashed up inside the lines and can't move or breathe. This pen just keeps on scribbling. There’s less and less space, I can hardly see anything. Then it goes all quiet and I go back and look at the scribble and it's smaller. It's really stuffy.
I scream and try to wake up then it all gets untangled. It starts to scribble again and I have to face up to it again. And that dream keeps coming back.
F.9
I was at Churchill Square and then suddenly everybody stopped. Everybody looked up at this big microphone on the ceiling and it said in a big loud voice,
"Everybody! Stop what you're doing. It's spend spend spend and everything's free"
Everybody started running about getting everything in sight and I just ran up the escalator and into all these shops - taking all these sweets and all these hair accessories and teddy bears and I may have even picked up (I don't know why) a box of Coco Crunchies. Pretty funny really. And then I was wearing all these new clothes and I started taking all these breakfast cereals. I don't know why I did that. Eventuially I came to a pick 'n'mix. That was nice. But nearly everything there was drumsticks. So I didn't have much of a choice.
F.9
Shortly after my daughter was born, my son, who was then two and a quarter, told me about a dream he'd had.
A herd of dinosaurs was coming up from underneath the ground in the front garden to get his new sister. He had to rush out and rescue her and bring her indoors, safe.
F.
I dream of Christmas
F. 4