Weird Dreams I Have Had

More To the Point, Why Was I In California?

Posted 16:46 (GMT) 8th January 2008

Here's something weird that happened to me last night. I had a dream which seemed to last ages, as if an entire mental lifetime was lived during the night (and most of the morning). Unfortunately, I forgot everything that happened as soon as I woke up, apart from how the dream ended. How the dream ended was weird enough to brand itself on my memory, white hot.

This was really weird. Okay, here goes.

I was in my bedroom back at my parents' house, working at my desk. I like to think I was working on the comic, as if even my nocturnal imagination wants to work on the next update. Anyway, out the window my brother and father are cycling through this imagined suburban landscape to the train station. They've just set off. I don't know why our house was suddenly in a different part of the world. It seemed really beautiful there, there were lots of houses and its was sunny. There was a mountain. I think it could have been California, or at least California as I imagined it at the time.

So I'm upstairs looking down on my dad and my brother as they set off and I realise I want to say goodbye to them. So - and this is when things get weird - I pass through the wall at the front of the house in my fucking swivel chair and wheel after them in the chair, only the wheels are on the ground but I'm still sitting a whole storey above, actually on the same level I was back in my bedroom. Just imagine me wheeling down this road in a ridiculously elevated chair, as members of my family cycle ahead on their way to the train station.

How do I know they're going to the station? Why are they going? What train shall they catch? I have no idea.

Not only is this office chair tall, it's fast. I manage to catch up with my brother and father and for a second we're travellnig side by side, as if swivel chair and bicycle are two equally acceptable forms of travel. But the chair's still picking up speed and I realise with a grim sinking feeling that I have no fucking way of steering the chair. Did I mention there was a mountain? The chair starts taking me up this mountain path which, you know, this sun-drenched suburban neighbourhood is apparently built around, only the path curves around the mountain, doesn't it? So the chair launches me off the edge of the cliff after the first few seconds.

So I didn't get that far up the mountain but I'm still about three storeys up, still in this stupid high chair, sailing like fucking E.T. over beautiful American back gardens. At first I'm surprised that the chair has stayed airbourne but then as it reaches its zenith I start to think - to panic, even - about the descent. It's going to hurt when this chair lands. I'll fall to the ground, I'll probably break something, I may even die. Even though this scenario seems pretty stupid now I'm awake I can still remember the terror, the panic, the rollercoaster feeling of flying through the air, the horrible pull of gravity.

And that's how I woke up. For a second, I still felt like I was falling. God, that was weird. All I can think of now is: why didn't I just cut my losses and jump out of the chair before I reached the fucking mountain?

On the Lam - Another Adventure in Dreamland!

Posted 08:45 (GMT) 15th January 2008

I didn't mention this before but I had another dream the other night. I didn't mention this for two reasons:

1. The home page is not, nor should it become, a dream diary.

2. The more ridiculous dream scenarios I relate, the less believable they become.

On the other hand, my subconscious anxieties seem to be inherently funny to the people I know. And when God hands you a dream this bizarre, you really have to tell someone and relating the dream to my flatmate didn't quite cut it. And it's not as if I'm dreaming about having upside-down sex with a battenburg cake.

But in this dream I was a minor comedic celebrity, on a par I would say with Rob Schneider. But I definitely wasn't Rob Schneider. And I was on a talk show (why do all my dreams take place in America?) and the banter and laughter reached such a pitch that I, on the spur of the moment, ended up punching Harrison Ford in the face.

I spent the rest of the dream (hours, it seemed) running from the police because I was wanted for attempted murder.

I... I don't know how punching Harrison Ford constitutes a murder attempt but, what the hell. There's more than one thing wrong with this dream already and I'm just getting started.

Anyway, because I was on the lam I couldn't go out in public but my parents were kind enough to retrieve my Xbox controllers from the scene of the crime. I know what you're thinking: this is the problem with wireless controllers, they're so easy to leave around after punching Han Solo. Here's the twist - they brought back the wrong controllers! These were the wrong colour!

I don't know who else was carrying around next-generation game controllers for the switch to take place but that's just the tip of the iceberg. Wrong colour? I don't even have two Xbox controllers!

So anyway, I had to return to the scene to get my controllers back whilst still staying anonymous. Weirdly enough, by the end of the dream I was off the hook. I think I managed to evade the police long enough for them to forget all about it. And the dream ended with me back on the show, sitting next to Harrison Ford again. So I punched him again.

I don't know why.

Right, that's the last dream I promise. And I'm not drawing a picture of me punching Harrison Ford no matter how many times you ask. Most of my night was spent in terror, evading police cars. Hitting one of my favourite screen actors was only a small fraction of the sleepy-time experience. Here's what I want to know: what if I had died in my sleep that night? My last thoughts in this mortal world would have been, "I wonder if they'll invite me back a third time."

All content in this web-site is the property of Fourth Floor Comics and Copyright ©Fourth Floor Comics 2004-2012

Unauthorized use of any Life on the Fourth Floor materials including characters, images and texts is strictly prohibited.

Life on the Fourth Floor is hosted on Comic Genesis, a free webhosting and site automation service for webcomics. They specialise in annoying advertisements.