Female,
artist/writer, born 1969
Caravan
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.