Dream a Little Dream

Not so long ago, dear reader, I was visited by a strange and unearthly series of dreams and it is of these that I wish now to speak. They came upon me of a restless night, the sort which rattles the soul with its wanderings, of an echoing summer passing almost imperceptibly in autumn's shadow, and winter's creeping embrace sliding beneath the window cracks. These dreams, then, were perhaps the workings of a fevered and seasonally maladjusted temperament, yet I cannot but return to them and their possible significance. Of course, I realise that one's dreams are of no interest to anyone but oneself, one's psychoanalyst, one's resident hippie, any gypsies who may be passing, third-rate novelists, unreconstructed new agers, Scientologists, the Biblical king Nebudchanezzar, Dr Phil, the cynical purveyors of dream diaries, particularly intelligent cats and whomever may be sleeping next to you at the time you have said dream. If the dream ends with you in the role of Jean Claude Van Damme executing a roundhouse kick to the neck of a Russian arms dealer, and you wake to find your own foot has punched through the cheap plasterboard wall next to your slightly musty-smelling mattress, then we can add your landlord to the list, but that's a rare occasion and you're probably better off googling the website of your local community legal service rather than reading on here, but hey, whatever works for you.

For me, I have no choice but to explore these dreams, and by 'explore' I clearly mean 'write about on the web in a vaguely ill-informed manner', and by 'dreams' I mean 'device for posting about some shows I've seen recently'. We in the business call this 'meta-blogging', and by 'business' I mean 'bored way of passing time', and by 'time' I mean 'wind', and by 'wind' I mean 'dreams'.

To begin, however, me must go back, way back in time, to what seems many months ago but is really only a few months. Maybe enough to be called many, but not that many. Or...no, not many. Or...

For some time I'd been writing here of shows that I'd seen, the good and the bad, and those with excellent post-show catering. But as 2006 rolled around, I found the shows dried up a little, and with it my need to write on every show I attended. Moreover, I found that a fulfilling and utterly delightful relationship, a couple of new time-guzzling jobs and the need for more sleep took their toll. No time to write. There were still the shows, of course, calling me with their high-pitched siren-like tones, and of course I was there, but I couldn't write on them all. I'd lost the spirit. I'd lost the blogging* touch.

And so it was time to face my demons, to holster my shooters, saddle up and head off into the shimmering yonder. For forty days and forty shuddering nights I wandered the wasteland with naught for company but a stick useful for divining and the occasional brandishing; some cheefully packaged cheese stix; a flyer for a now-defunct pizza cafe; a photo of a zebra (by day 12 I'd called him Leroy); an Alanis Morrissette DVD; a memory of a plasticine Gorgon from Jason and the Argonauts; a wry smile; a team of bullocks (imagined); a sense of foreboding; and a scrap of paper for recording my dreams (you haven't forgotten the dream conceit, have you?). When my peripatetic nomadery was done, I found myself long-bearded and faraway-eyed returning to my domestic comforts, a long way from the nightly opening-attending boob I once was, yet still unsure of what I had become.

And so it is now, nestled neatly amidst my books and roaring fireplaces (two per room) and smugly attention-seeking cats that I have decided to revisit this period of wandering, in order to determine the meanings of the 40 Great Dreams which I found there. These dreams, sundry, are of such a diverse character that I cannot see any common theme therein, but I have a feeling that each and every one bears a mutual subliminal focus, and my only thought in this regard is as follows: the Comedy Festival is on and it lives in my mind. Perhaps we can work from there.

The first five dreams will be interpreted by a variety of guests tomorrow.

*note: this is the first time this blog has used the term 'blogging' or 'blog'. It may be the last. I prefer to use the term 'Guadalupe', a particularly endearing and colourful Hispanic name (feminine) which perfectly describes every blog in existence.