the dog dream
I am in a small caravan – the old-fashioned grubby sort with that orange and brown 70’s upholstery. The kind of caravan your aunty and uncle took on trips to Devon when you were a kid. The entire dream is a murky grey-brown. It is claustrophobic and there are no lights inside the caravan. Outside it is nightime and the caravan is standing on its own in the middle of waste-ground. There are a few bleary lights floating in the distance (the only faint colours in the dream) blocked by a frenzied swarm of huge baying brown dogs. They are rather like oversize and very muscular Great Danes and are clawing and tearing with their teeth to get into the caravan and rip me apart – like a zombie movie, except that they are not zombie-dogs and move at a real-life speed. At first I feel safe from them locked outside, but almost instantly realise that they can get in as I become aware that the caravan is made of a soggy cardboard sort of material and bits are being torn away by the dogs. I can see their vicious jaws straining through the holes. I am terrified, but an inner-voice, which is not my own, tells me that I can protect myself from the dogs by plating the caravan with slices of toast dipped in tea. This homely armour works two ways, firstly by making the caravan impenetrable to the dogs, and secondly by giving them something to eat. I have a strong image/sensation of those lumps of wet toast packing their throats like wadding, a kind of numbing and a dampening of sound, as their bodies strain upwards on hind legs. I’ve no idea how I’ve managed to get outside to slap the toast so neatly onto the exterior without the dogs getting me (or how I’ve managed to produce so many slices of tea-soaked toast so quickly), but I can see this odd caravan-shaped structure covered with a patchwork of toast very clearly. Oh and its ready-sliced wholemeal.
grotto - immediately after the dog dream
I am in a large brightly lit cavern – everything is in glorious technicolour, even the rock is a crayony orange-brown. The rock is quite smooth and glistens and sparkles as if wet, although it isn’t water. This cavern could be accurately described as a grotto. There is a knowledge that something terrible has happened in the outside world and that it will be home for a long time, maybe generations. I have no sense that there is any point to trying to find a way out. There is no return, this is just the way it is from now on.
There are three defined areas to the cavern: Two sides are very roughly stepped like an amphitheatre and separated by a wide, but very shallow (less than 1cm) stream of water. The gap separating these two sides gets broader and narrower throughout the dream. The third side has a lower ceiling and is much steeper and boulder-like (but still quite smooth) and the rock is formed into a rather neat scallop pattern.
The side opposite to me (across the stream) is populated by colourful plastic toy characters from a TV cartoon series. They are standing and sitting on the rock, talking amongst themselves and being generally animated by the situation we have found ourselves in. My side is populated (more sparsely) by toys from the same series, except these are non-human characters. They seem more resigned to the situation. I feel that I am part of this group by default – the ‘human’ toys are definitely not my ‘tribe’. I think I am sitting next to a rabbit who looks a bit like Miffy. He/she is a down-to earth and friendly, if a bit glum, sort. There is animosity between the two groups because the ‘non-human’ characters were introduced late on in the series when ratings were falling and the studio execs thought it a good idea to shoehorn a ‘cute’ element into the show. The ‘human’ toys look down on the ‘non-human’ toys because they aren’t ‘classic’ and are regarded as silly. We think they are hysterical, dull, and up themselves. Our side of the cavern is not as comfortable. There is some bitching and exchanges of insults across the stream, but it is rather uninspiring because we know we are all in the same boat. There is a vague feeling that we have all crash-landed here from some sort of craft, but I am not sure about that.
Then the rock starts to ooze a brilliant blue-green substance. It oozes in and out in an even scallop pattern, like rows of creeping tidal tongues. I then spend the rest of the dream on the third side of the cavern by myself, trying to dodge the ooze, because although it is fascinating and pretty it is also threatening.
Female, Born 1969. Artist/writer