h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi Dmitri and Peanut! Well at least you're also remembering your dreams and I find it interesting that you dream about that!

Last night's dreams were action-packed but I can remember very little of them. The one bit I can remember is another common theme. I was driving with my mom, past some lovely mountains. I asked her if she would drop me off so I could do some climbing and exploring, and then she can come pick me up again later. She said yes. Unfortunately we couldn't do that just yet, we had to go on a search for something and didn't finish before nightfall. Sigh. It often happens in my dreams that I see a wonderful place and want to go explore it but can't. This happens to me in real life too...

I can remember quite a good amount of what I dreamt last night! I was traveling to Germany with a couple of friends (they were colleagues of my parents). I spoke with them about my mental illness. While we were driving the city we were in was attacked! I remember bright streaks like the traces of tracer bullets streaking towards us from many sides. And yet I was not afraid and we did not get hit.

Then I was actually in Germany. I had to meet contacts but didn't know who or where. I spoke to a woman that used to be my old media studies teacher. She was friendlier in the dream than ever in real life. Then there was a bit where I did dream exercises again but I was struggling with performing chin-ups. I was worried in the dream about that.

Then I found a person working on a big, beautiful painting of caterpillars! I chatted with her in German first, but then realised she was from South Africa and could speak Afrikaans! So we chatted a bit.

My contacts then apparently came but walked past me without seeing me and I didn't see them either.

I then entered a movie theatre and got lost.

That picture of the catapiller sound amazing

I have just been gooling my dreams as they had frogs and snakes in them. Green snakes, don't if they were rough or smooth, Sri Lankan Pit Vipers and mountain yellow legged frog (that apparently smells like garlic when handled)

Hey there Peanut, sounds like an interesting snake and frog dreams! I hardly ever dream of frogs, but snakes do feature from time to time; I'll be on the watch for them!

Last night: One school friend of mine wanted to marry me! At first I thought it was another school friend. Anyways so this friend of mine, I was walking with her and then a robber came and stole something from her! I ran after him. Then he is caught, I don't think I did it, but then there was a court case and I had to testify. I told the truth: I hadn't actually seen him robbing my friend. My testimony was considered unsatisfactory and I was berated.

Another bit of a dream I can remember: I was taking people on a tour on a mountain at night; I showed them a big specimen of a Wild Pear or Dombeya rotundifolia, only barely visible in the dark.

I have been having an interesting collection of dreams on a theme of moving house, these have been different houses but the one with the frogs and the snakes is one I have three times now

Trying to keep this post shortish, essentially, this house is a huge bungalow on a hill, in side it is very modern, furniture wise minimalistic. The odd thing is the doors, they out of place, cheap doors with opaque glass in them

There are three main rooms,which are on different levels, and have large ponds in them, there are trees and ferns and other plants

Anyway the interesting thing about this dream after having it twice, I casually resolved to pay more attention to the wildlife in my dream to see if I could identify it later and I did,especially the frogs, spent flipping ages looking at them

Hi Peanut, that's very interesting that you dream of houses with ponds, trees and ferns in them! I have just completed a part of a book I'm writing in which I describe a room high up in a building with a forest growing in it. That was before you posted this. Anyways keep trying to identify your dream wildlife!

Last night: a woman I know sent me to collect wood and grass in a patch of 'veldt'.

Then there was a dream in which I was watching myself dream! I watched myself from the outside going through certain postures which suggested to me what I was dreaming. Then after having watched all this, the dream-me went asleep so as to actually *have* the dreams he/I had just watched!

Unfortunately I then woke up.

Last night:

First - another one of my dream activities, free pole climbing! By this I mean the challenge is to climb a pole that is NOT planted in the ground. You carry your pole, pick a point on the floor and put it down, hoist it upright and then you have to balance it as you climb it. Of course in my dream I was a master of this sport ... I climbed a pole that was as tall as a twenty-story building! A fall would be deadly of course.

Next dream I was rather horrified to look in my back yard and see all my plants were gone from a particular section of it! Another act of vandalism by my dream city municipality. My backyard had been chosen as the site of removable advertisement billboards; every now and then they would plonk one down there to advertise cr*p to me and my neighbours for which they destroyed all my plants.

Next dream: APOCALYPSE! An unknown disaster wipes out almost all of humanity. In a heartbreaking scene children stand in a long line to be permitted entry into a safe building, to no avail because they are already doomed. A little boy savagely attacks a little girl; their grandfather tries to stop them.

The population of the entire USA is down to 300 people; they are all crowding in a small building, I think it's a church. Prez. Obama is there, he's in and out, trying to do vitally important stuff, keep folks calm and informed. I am there as well and I'm kinda impressed at having met the president.

The danger is past, but how will the few of us remaining restart civilization? The whole country is full of factories that have stopped, machines that have stopped, will there be enough of us to know what to do with them? I consider offering my services in writing textbooks.

We start going back to life as we remember it. Including sports. There's an athletic meet. The entire stadium contains only a handful of people; on the field there are only two athletes competing, looking tiny.

* There was a dream, perhaps related, of a movie with powerful and strange sound effects. There was a city, there were factories, and huge trucks making these ominous noises.

pole climbing eh Willem, funny you should dream that, I dreamt something similar the other day, only there was a dance element to it perhaps the less said about that the better

Okay, apocalypses and pole dancing. What next?

Willem, I have those dreams, too, where I end up discussing the significance of the dream with another observer in the dream, stuff like that.

I think I dream about the trees and ponds inside because I am interested in vertical farming/gardening and practises like permaculture and how to grow in a small spaces

The dreams you had last night sounded like anxious dreams, I am wonderering how you felt that day?

I don't think that anxious is the right word but I can't think of one that fits the bill, sorry about that

Hi Dmitri and Peanut! I wasn't that anxious actually. Or anything else out of the ordinary. There was a bit of trouble with the front security gate but that's it.

I am also working on more effectively using my garden space. I have lots of *real* wildlife here.

Last night:

I dreamt I was at a concert of one of my favourite bands, Autumn of the Netherlands. In my dream they had FOUR women as vocalists! In real life the band has had two, and not at the same time.

Next dream: I was on a hike, and found pieces of baobab trees lying on the ground, like sections of branch. I considered taking these home and trying to plant them and see if they strike root, but the branches on inspection turned out to have already been rotting.

Then a dream in which I was in a castle. I met an old school friend of mine who in the dream was an architect. I asked him if he would design for the castle secret hiding places and exits that we could use in case someone attacked us.

I'm glad you weren't over anxious, I hope you didn't mind me asking. I was wondering if overall mood played out in dreams.

I know that some things things in my day, or things I have read in my day even, or actual worries I have about work, or my house etc, etc, play out in my dreams, often with very interesting results!


I can't say I have noticed that my mood or overall feelings have although I don't think I have really thought about it before so perhaps I haven't realy noticed a connection, if indeed there is one

Hello again Peanut! I can't yet discover a link between dreams and moods, but I do notice my real life concerns become themes in my dreams.

Last night: I was riding my bike and stopping in interesting places. I made it to the Potgietersrus Game Breeding Centre (about fifty five km/35 miles from my town of Polokwane) but somehow it seems I didn't go in.

A bit later I came upon a horrifying scene! A crowd had gathered, a young black man was tied to a wooden post, and a guy behind him had a long iron bar; he hit the black man repeatedly and very hard, on the head and on the body ... he surely would have died! But I was unable to bring myself to intervene.

Last nights dreams were momentous but I can only remember the boringest bits! There was a girl I went to school with and still hear from occasionally ... in the dream she was going to marry some guy about which I was a bit disappointed. She also had magical powers but I can't remember what they were!

Then there was a dream in which I rode my motorcycle to a shopping centre, then lost it in the parking area.

I never rode a motorcycle in real life, but I do it quite a lot in my dreams.

An unfulfilled ambition ? Maybe you should get a motorbike.

It's all your fault - and Peanut's. Last night, I had some weird dream about a lady of negotiable affection in one of those Rocky Horror underwear outfits, you know, and she had a whip and stilletos...it made me laugh.

Well, it's partly Peanut's fault, and partly the fact that we finally watched 'Iron Sky'... Finns, really...

(reading thread) I love your dream journal, Willem. Interesting read over morning coffee. .

(gets to the bit about dream motorcycles and ladies in Rocky Horror underwear (plus accessories). Partly Peanut's fault? )

(heads out to find more coffee)

Do you have to wear a crash helmet on a dream motorcycle? I see skull and rose graphics, and Dream Rider printed on a leather jacket, in gold italics. .

it seems that Dmtri and I are blaming each other for the content of our dreams

I'll trade you a Pre-Raphaelite lady for die Dame mit der Peitsche, any day, Peanut...

Just for that, Elektra and I spent all evening yesterday watching the 1983 BBC version of 'Mansfield Park'. It worked. No more re-enactments of 'Cabaret'. I shall probably start dreaming about ha-has.

Hi folks! Actually I don't ever wear a helmet while riding a motorbike in my dreams. So far I haven't suffered any actual injury. At any rate I never had any ambition to ride a motorbike.

Real life did influence yesterday's dreaming. I dreamt a guy with conspiracy theories on his mind was talking to me ... and ended up finding sensational new conspiracy evidence in my closet! The guy was of the type who would interpret *anything at all* as confirming his theories.

Last night I again dreamt of riding my motorbike! And of my dad. He was alive but sick, I can remember feeling his chest to feel if I could feel his heart beating.

And there were lots of paintings again. Once again I had misplaced a whole bunch of them; I searched all over the house and found some... some of them turned out not to be mine! At any rate again I wish I could remember details of those dream paintings. Must try harder!