I’ll be grumpy here instead.

I didn’t go to college last night because I saw my uni friend and it kicked off a learned response (see Saz, drink beer, skip lecture) so I wound up home by half seven.

I fell asleep and had two mental dreams. First I dreamed I was in Prison Break and was escaping by unscrewing the panel behind my loo to the wall. Only I wasn’t in a jail cell, I was in uni halls. Of course. It was very very disconcerting and fraught. I was scared I wouldn’t be able to get out and I was scared I would get caught.

Then I woke up cos there was a fox giving it some outside.

I fell back asleep and dreamed my recurring dream about trying to get somewhere but constantly getting on the worng train / not having the right ticket / getting off at the wrong station / misunderstanding the timetable / etc. I’ve only really been having this dream since I moved to Streatham and lived alone. Before that my recurring travel dream was all to do with driving.

When I was very young (and I blame Danny, Champion of the World for the onset of the driving dreams) I would dream I was in the passenger seat of the fmaily car with one of my parents, who would then become somehow incapacitated and I would have to take the wheel. This was pretty tough because I’d have to either lean across them or try and clamber onto their lap whilst the car was in motion. It’s pretty clear that I was dreaming about my fear of one day having to take control of my own life, tied into my panic that I would lose one of my parents.

This dream ‘grew up’ as I did, and I would wind up in the car alone in later years, struggling to reach the peddles (I was still a child) and trying to work out how to brake. I think that one points more towards me realising I was in control of my own life, but I wasn’t doing the world’s greatest job and I desperately, desperately wanted to s-l-o-o-w down. If only I’d figured out I could have used the handbrake, rather than just skidding off the road / into other cars until I woke up.

I have dreamed that one since I left home, but I’m always in a car I don’t recognise (generally a 4×4 – more powerful, I guess) rather than the family car and almost always with my sister. I guess because she can drive and I think of her as being more grown-up than me, and much more in control of her life (even though she really isn’t!)

So last night my subconscious seemed to be saying I was feeling trapped, I was too scared to make a good job of escaping, I was heading in the wrong direction, and I would never reach my desired destination. But my conscious mind is very smug about life right now and thinks it’s great.

Could it be – cue Carrie Bradshaw – could it be that my subconscious is wrong?

(How interesting that I chose ‘is wrong’ rather than ‘is right’ without really thinking about it. I think that’s my subconscious saying I’m watching too much American drama and I should stop over-analysing shit. But I must cheer up. The dreams have put me in a foul mood.)