What are dreams? I don’t mean aspirations or hopes for your future... I mean actual dreams. The ones you have when you’re fast asleep.
I used to have a reoccurring nightmare...well I say a reoccurring nightmare, but it was in fact a reoccurring character. The dream scenarios were always different, but the main character called Carlos was always the same, and the theme was always that he was systematically killing off all my friends before coming for me. Naturally I would always wake just before he got to me, but the dreams always upset me.
I remember being on holiday with a friend of mine aged about fourteen, and we befriended a couple of lads, who introduced themselves as Jim and Carlos. I was so terrified that my nightmares were about to become a reality, that I pleaded with my friend to ditch them immediately! Luckily it seems “Carlos” was actually called Ashley and was merely trying to make himself sound more exotic. I’ve yet to meet a real life Carlos, but I think my reaction will probably be fairly similar to that of Sarah Conner’s, on coming face to face with the Terminator in T2... a slow-mo slide to the floor and desperate back track with echoic “Nooooooo” before running for my life....just in case, y’know?
Naughty dreams are often the most intriguing, not least because they usually involve someone that you would never dream of looking at in “that way” during your normal day to day life. The problem is of course, that once you’ve had this dream, each and every time you see that person, you look at them in a different way...mainly because in your mind you’ve seen them naked!
Although you know the reality would probably be quite different, (because naturally your unconscious mind will always miss out the messier, more awkward aspects of sex - such as, cramp which let’s face it, is always a bit of a passion killer, or the fact that you have never, and will never be able to contort yourself into “that” position...plus you’ve probably been a little over generous in the estimation of what’s going on in his trouser department...and undoubtedly you’ve mentally airbrushed all of your wobbly bits out, to ensure that visually, the whole scenario is far more aesthetically pleasing!) never the less though you can’t help the rather pleasant mental flashbacks to your make-believe evening of passion and debauchery every time you see them. Even when you really don’t want to look at them in that way! Of course in real life you’d never act on those impulses, because they’re just dreams...but should you?
We all know our dreams aren’t reality... that they’re something our subconscious mind acts out for us, and most of the time we ignore it. Sometimes we can’t though, or it plays on our mind. We all have those dreams, the ones where we catch our partners cheating on us. The dream isn’t real but the feeling of betrayal and humiliation we encounter is the same. You get up the next morning and your stomach turns at the thought of having to give them a kiss goodbye before you set off for work, because you know what they did and you despise them for it! It doesn’t matter that it’s not real, your emotions around the subject are. Within an hour or so, you’re over it, and laughing at yourself for being upset by a stupid dream, but until then you’re in turmoil – having flashbacks to something that didn’t even happen!
How clever must our unconscious mind be to convince us that these dreams are real? At the time you don’t even question that it might not all be happening, and yet we accept that when we wake up, this little dream world we’ve been inhabiting is completely false, and we don’t let it have any bearing on the rest of our day.
It occurred to me though that perhaps we should pay more attention to our dreams. Only the other night I dreamt that I wanted to go to the loo, and when I finally found some public toilets, each of them was locked apart from one. The one that wasn’t, couldn’t be locked because it had no door. I had a choice – I could try and hold it, or I could chose to pee in front of everyone currently queuing for the other lockable stalls. I woke up desperate for the loo and I don’t think anyone can argue that my dream was my brain’s way of telling me I needed to wake up so I could use the little girls room. Thank the lord my usual conscious stubbornness doesn’t transcend to my unconscious, or I think I would have used the stall with no door, and in reality done something a teeeeeny bit childish!!
My point is though, that if our brains can use dreams to send us the most obvious instructions...alerting us to something that isn’t right, or could potentially end badly for us (!!) then why do we assume that all of our dreams are just fantasy? Anyone who has been cheated on in real life must wonder why they ignored the literal meaning behind the dreams they had of their spouses being unfaithful to them? When we've had naughty dreams about unexpected people, why do we try to convince ourselves that we wouldn’t enjoy the real life version? When let’s face it – we probably would! Surely if dreams are the only way for our subconscious to speak to us, shouldn’t we listen? I’m not saying we should always take them literally (I once dreamt that my ex was having an affair with our cat, and I’m pretty sure that never happened!) but listen to the message, because it could be entirely based in reality.
It turns out that back in 1982, when I was an infant, perhaps the world’s most elusive criminal, Ramirez Sanchez, was allegedly masterminding a series of brutal bomb attacks, hijackings and kidnappings across Europe. It was a killing spree which included a car bombing in Paris, which killed one person, and injured sixty three others without any warning. As an infant you wouldn’t think I’d have absorbed much of the news, playing in the background as I had my night feeds...but the mind is a wondrous thing. The media didn’t call him Ramirez Sanchez.
They called him “Carlos the Jackal”.
Saturday 23 October 2010
Sunday 17 October 2010
Facebook - Good Or Evil?
Anyone who knows me, knows that I am a big fan of Facebook. In fact most people reading this will have followed a link from my Facebook to this very page. It’s a way for me to know what’s going on in my friends lives, a way to organise my social life, a way to chat to my friends for free, an outlet for me to vent my daft sense of humour, my observations on life in general, and on tough days, when I’m sat on my own at home, with only the pooch for company, it brings the people I care about most into my living room, so I don’t feel quite so alone.
For me Facebook should be a positive thing. It’s supposed to be fun...it’s a social networking site which aims to bring people together. So why is it, that sometimes, people can take this good, wholesome idea, turn it around, and use it to make other people lives unpleasant?
Facebook stalkers are my favourite. I have had to recently block two people from my Facebook, and they weren’t even my friends! They were viewing my profile through mutual friends and then posting bitchy statuses about me based on comments made in a conversation they shouldn’t have even been looking at!! Who does that?? You’re not a part of my life, I clearly don’t want you to be or we’d be Facebook buddies already, so why do you feel the need to spy on me through mutual friends? It astounds me that some people’s lives can be so empty that they feel the need to do that.
I don’t see what anyone has to gain from Facebook bitching. Deliberate comments between friends, behind which is the intention to upset another individual. Or worse, designed to prompt people to ask what’s wrong, so that you can gossip to the masses about that individual and how you’ve been wronged by them. Whatever happened to good old bitching down the pub? At least then you can have too much to drink, forget what was said and no’one ends up getting hurt particularly.
Then you have those people with a huge chip on their shoulder, who when their lives turn to shite, rant and complain and whinge about their circumstances, (even if their situation is of their own doing), brining every one of their friends down with them. People will always lend an ear to a friend going through a rough patch, but if you spend months on end complaining that your life is crap, the whole world owes you a living and yet you don’t appear to be doing anything to rectify the situation, then people will soon get bored...and start blocking you from their news feed!
For me Facebook is about fun and silliness and it should be treated as such. Facebook has allowed me to get in touch with friends and family on the opposite side of the world. Family that I knew very little about, but that I now feel close to. It gives me the ability to share photos, which in themselves are precious memories of me and the people I love. They’re there for everyone to enjoy, laugh at, cringe at and when it comes to the ones of my pops, well every now and then, just have a little cry at.
It’s allowed me to stay in touch with friends who go to war, to protect this free and safe environment that we all take for granted. It gives them a link to the people they love, when they need it the most. From a morale perspective, can you imagine how shit it must be to get half an hour’s break to access the internet after a particularly awful day patrolling in Afghanistan, logging on to Facebook (because you just want to see what the people you care about have been up to while you’ve been putting your life on the line for them), only to find a newsfeed spattered in bitchiness, “woe is me” updates and boring “Joe Bloggs is doing the ironing” statuses??
Come on people, I know we all need to vent every now and then. Of course I understand that, and I’ve done it myself in the past...but when it’s constant it just makes for depressing reading...
Use it for a giggle, use it to make someone smile...and if you can’t...or won’t, expect to be cleared out on the next friend cull, because much as I might love you, I just don’t want you to bring me down – not when I’m so grateful I have the life that I do, the friends that I have, and the family I was born with. Besides...why rant on Facebook...when you can rant on a blog instead?
For me Facebook should be a positive thing. It’s supposed to be fun...it’s a social networking site which aims to bring people together. So why is it, that sometimes, people can take this good, wholesome idea, turn it around, and use it to make other people lives unpleasant?
Facebook stalkers are my favourite. I have had to recently block two people from my Facebook, and they weren’t even my friends! They were viewing my profile through mutual friends and then posting bitchy statuses about me based on comments made in a conversation they shouldn’t have even been looking at!! Who does that?? You’re not a part of my life, I clearly don’t want you to be or we’d be Facebook buddies already, so why do you feel the need to spy on me through mutual friends? It astounds me that some people’s lives can be so empty that they feel the need to do that.
I don’t see what anyone has to gain from Facebook bitching. Deliberate comments between friends, behind which is the intention to upset another individual. Or worse, designed to prompt people to ask what’s wrong, so that you can gossip to the masses about that individual and how you’ve been wronged by them. Whatever happened to good old bitching down the pub? At least then you can have too much to drink, forget what was said and no’one ends up getting hurt particularly.
Then you have those people with a huge chip on their shoulder, who when their lives turn to shite, rant and complain and whinge about their circumstances, (even if their situation is of their own doing), brining every one of their friends down with them. People will always lend an ear to a friend going through a rough patch, but if you spend months on end complaining that your life is crap, the whole world owes you a living and yet you don’t appear to be doing anything to rectify the situation, then people will soon get bored...and start blocking you from their news feed!
For me Facebook is about fun and silliness and it should be treated as such. Facebook has allowed me to get in touch with friends and family on the opposite side of the world. Family that I knew very little about, but that I now feel close to. It gives me the ability to share photos, which in themselves are precious memories of me and the people I love. They’re there for everyone to enjoy, laugh at, cringe at and when it comes to the ones of my pops, well every now and then, just have a little cry at.
It’s allowed me to stay in touch with friends who go to war, to protect this free and safe environment that we all take for granted. It gives them a link to the people they love, when they need it the most. From a morale perspective, can you imagine how shit it must be to get half an hour’s break to access the internet after a particularly awful day patrolling in Afghanistan, logging on to Facebook (because you just want to see what the people you care about have been up to while you’ve been putting your life on the line for them), only to find a newsfeed spattered in bitchiness, “woe is me” updates and boring “Joe Bloggs is doing the ironing” statuses??
Come on people, I know we all need to vent every now and then. Of course I understand that, and I’ve done it myself in the past...but when it’s constant it just makes for depressing reading...
Use it for a giggle, use it to make someone smile...and if you can’t...or won’t, expect to be cleared out on the next friend cull, because much as I might love you, I just don’t want you to bring me down – not when I’m so grateful I have the life that I do, the friends that I have, and the family I was born with. Besides...why rant on Facebook...when you can rant on a blog instead?
Tuesday 5 October 2010
Expect The Unexpected
When my brother told me (after a particularly gruelling training session) that he wanted to “go out and get smashed”, my initial reaction was to laugh. My secondary reaction was to laugh so hard I snorted like a little piggy, and that was because this ludicrous idea. You see, the middle brother isn’t really the “going out” type. He sneers at the chavs, and despises most forms of popular music. He doesn’t usually drink, and when he does go into a pub, he likes to be able to “talk” (rather than mime) to the person sitting next to him. But....I couldn’t remember the last time we’d been out for a night out so I decided to indulge his bizarre and somewhat out-of-the-blue request. He also wanted to invite the big bro out at the same time, and to be honest, I felt sorry for him, because there was no way the big bro would go out on the town for anyone. He really wanted to ask him though so I picked up the phone, and pleaded his case to my eldest sibling. His response was...
“Err...yeah...okay.”
WTF?? Have I fallen into to some strange parallel universe or something?? If there was anyone less likely to want to go out round sunny Nunny on a Saturday night, it was the older bro!
Now when strange things like this happen, my initial reaction, like any shrewd, intelligent woman, is to be incredibly suspicious. These boys tear strips off me for enjoying my nights out at the local pubs and bars. They take the proverbial pee out of the fact that I can be quite contented meeting the girls down at my local, before heading into a town and spending my evening in an over commercialised expensive and overrated wine bar/club, just so I can boogie in my “ridiculous” heels until the wee hours. They claim that no’one really wants to do that...not when they have series 1-4 of Battlestar Gallactica on DVD boxset, and a fridge stocked with Coke Zero and Haribo back at home. If I was going to do this, I needed back up...and that came in the form of Beck-lar.
We decided that the boys weren’t actually ready for our usual haunt right from the off, so we took them to a quieter pub not far from town called The Royal Oak. It’s a bit of a “mans” pub – it has regulars and not many of them are under thirty, but it has a fab atmosphere, and was the perfect venue to break the boys in gently. Luckily this part of my plan seemed to work well. The boys enjoyed the easy conversation between the four of us, and the cheap prices at the bar. The locals, eyed the newcomers suspiciously at first (I don’t blame them, I still thought the boys were up to something!) but soon relaxed when they realised we were friends of their favourite barmaid (Princess – who’s been doing the odd shift here and there when she’s not being doing her day job). We talked about rubbish; boyfriends, girlfriends, family, work etc, but the boys were soon eager to taste the delights that Nunny had to offer. One of the older bro’s friends had made a request that we mark this bizarre and random occasion by taking pictures of him with plenty of “townies” in the background, and he was keen to make a start on his challenge.
Beck-lar and I debated on the best venue to take them to next and decided on the 80’s themed bar, Reflex. Honestly we couldn’t have made a better choice. The vision of my two dear brothers air guitaring to Chesney Hawkes’s “I Am The One And Only” is a picture that will stay with me forever. The big bro was positively buzzing, and the middle bro danced in a state of euphoria (largely owing to the fact that by this point he’d had at least 8 bottles of beer). In fact it was at around about this point that the middle bro decided to really break out the serious moves on an unsuspecting audience. Mum and Dad had forced the middle and baby bros to go to ballroom dancing lessons when they were young, and it appears that the middle bro never lost his moves. I can say this with confidence because it was me he was trying to Jive with around the dancefloor! I’m not what you’d call a natural mover so this was somewhat uncomfortable for me. I did tell him he looked a little bit gay, but he brushed off my comment with a smile saying...
”yeah it can look a bit gay...unless like me you can make it look f**king ace!”
(And that’s what I love about my brothers – they really couldn’t give a crap what the world thinks, they’re just here to have fun)
The evening progressed, the four of us got more and more drunk, and eventually we grabbed a taxi back to my place. Beck-lar wasn’t ready to go home either so she jumped in the taxi with us. The boys had spent most of the evening desperately trying to not “break the seal”, so were quite desperate to visit the little boys room. Unfortunately so was Beck-lar...well the little girls room at least. It was decided that Beck-lar would be allowed to take the upstairs loo, but the gauntlet was laid down for the downstairs loo. A huge amount of trash talking ensued between the boys (neither of them saw the irony of the “yo momma” comments flying back and forth between them), and the wrestling contest between them started the minute they fell out of the taxi.
Now you should bear in mind that it was about 12:30am and I live in a very nice, quiet residential area. My next door neighbour is around seventy years old, and quite frankly you just don’t hear this kind of ruckus in my cul-de-sac. As they wrestled and jostled with each other (sounding like two grizzly bears at the height of the mating season) I quickly let Beck-lar in the house, whilst simultaneously hushing and shhusshhing the boys as they slammed though my front door. The wrestling match continued to the back of the house and into the conservatory, where quite frankly I got bored of waiting for one of them to “win” and decided to walk calmly past them to the loo and use it myself. Silly boys.
The rest of the evening was spent playing Rock Band on the Xbox, drinking, chatting and rough housing with the dog before the boys crashed on the sofas, Beck-lar in the spare room, and me in my waterbed – exhausted at about 3:30am. As I lay there in bed reflecting on the unexpected success of the evening (and dreading the massive clean-up operation that awaited me in the morning) it struck me, that despite the fact we no longer live in the same towns, never mind the same houses, the bond between me and my brothers grows stronger and stronger as we get older. They do more and more things to surprise me, and show me how they’ve grown over the years. I've learned when it comes to my brothers, to expect the unexpected. They’re fun, charismatic individuals, and....despite our best efforts to become our own people, and our decision to actively avoid following the crowd, to each of us, there will always be at least another three people in the world who are just like us...and that feels kinda cool.
“Err...yeah...okay.”
WTF?? Have I fallen into to some strange parallel universe or something?? If there was anyone less likely to want to go out round sunny Nunny on a Saturday night, it was the older bro!
Now when strange things like this happen, my initial reaction, like any shrewd, intelligent woman, is to be incredibly suspicious. These boys tear strips off me for enjoying my nights out at the local pubs and bars. They take the proverbial pee out of the fact that I can be quite contented meeting the girls down at my local, before heading into a town and spending my evening in an over commercialised expensive and overrated wine bar/club, just so I can boogie in my “ridiculous” heels until the wee hours. They claim that no’one really wants to do that...not when they have series 1-4 of Battlestar Gallactica on DVD boxset, and a fridge stocked with Coke Zero and Haribo back at home. If I was going to do this, I needed back up...and that came in the form of Beck-lar.
We decided that the boys weren’t actually ready for our usual haunt right from the off, so we took them to a quieter pub not far from town called The Royal Oak. It’s a bit of a “mans” pub – it has regulars and not many of them are under thirty, but it has a fab atmosphere, and was the perfect venue to break the boys in gently. Luckily this part of my plan seemed to work well. The boys enjoyed the easy conversation between the four of us, and the cheap prices at the bar. The locals, eyed the newcomers suspiciously at first (I don’t blame them, I still thought the boys were up to something!) but soon relaxed when they realised we were friends of their favourite barmaid (Princess – who’s been doing the odd shift here and there when she’s not being doing her day job). We talked about rubbish; boyfriends, girlfriends, family, work etc, but the boys were soon eager to taste the delights that Nunny had to offer. One of the older bro’s friends had made a request that we mark this bizarre and random occasion by taking pictures of him with plenty of “townies” in the background, and he was keen to make a start on his challenge.
Beck-lar and I debated on the best venue to take them to next and decided on the 80’s themed bar, Reflex. Honestly we couldn’t have made a better choice. The vision of my two dear brothers air guitaring to Chesney Hawkes’s “I Am The One And Only” is a picture that will stay with me forever. The big bro was positively buzzing, and the middle bro danced in a state of euphoria (largely owing to the fact that by this point he’d had at least 8 bottles of beer). In fact it was at around about this point that the middle bro decided to really break out the serious moves on an unsuspecting audience. Mum and Dad had forced the middle and baby bros to go to ballroom dancing lessons when they were young, and it appears that the middle bro never lost his moves. I can say this with confidence because it was me he was trying to Jive with around the dancefloor! I’m not what you’d call a natural mover so this was somewhat uncomfortable for me. I did tell him he looked a little bit gay, but he brushed off my comment with a smile saying...
”yeah it can look a bit gay...unless like me you can make it look f**king ace!”
(And that’s what I love about my brothers – they really couldn’t give a crap what the world thinks, they’re just here to have fun)
The evening progressed, the four of us got more and more drunk, and eventually we grabbed a taxi back to my place. Beck-lar wasn’t ready to go home either so she jumped in the taxi with us. The boys had spent most of the evening desperately trying to not “break the seal”, so were quite desperate to visit the little boys room. Unfortunately so was Beck-lar...well the little girls room at least. It was decided that Beck-lar would be allowed to take the upstairs loo, but the gauntlet was laid down for the downstairs loo. A huge amount of trash talking ensued between the boys (neither of them saw the irony of the “yo momma” comments flying back and forth between them), and the wrestling contest between them started the minute they fell out of the taxi.
Now you should bear in mind that it was about 12:30am and I live in a very nice, quiet residential area. My next door neighbour is around seventy years old, and quite frankly you just don’t hear this kind of ruckus in my cul-de-sac. As they wrestled and jostled with each other (sounding like two grizzly bears at the height of the mating season) I quickly let Beck-lar in the house, whilst simultaneously hushing and shhusshhing the boys as they slammed though my front door. The wrestling match continued to the back of the house and into the conservatory, where quite frankly I got bored of waiting for one of them to “win” and decided to walk calmly past them to the loo and use it myself. Silly boys.
The rest of the evening was spent playing Rock Band on the Xbox, drinking, chatting and rough housing with the dog before the boys crashed on the sofas, Beck-lar in the spare room, and me in my waterbed – exhausted at about 3:30am. As I lay there in bed reflecting on the unexpected success of the evening (and dreading the massive clean-up operation that awaited me in the morning) it struck me, that despite the fact we no longer live in the same towns, never mind the same houses, the bond between me and my brothers grows stronger and stronger as we get older. They do more and more things to surprise me, and show me how they’ve grown over the years. I've learned when it comes to my brothers, to expect the unexpected. They’re fun, charismatic individuals, and....despite our best efforts to become our own people, and our decision to actively avoid following the crowd, to each of us, there will always be at least another three people in the world who are just like us...and that feels kinda cool.
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