Bit of a breakthrough yesterday. I realised it's not Danny who is hit by the car and sent into a coma. It's his mother. She's the rather cool, cerebral one that he finds hard to get along with (more than his exuberant, physical Dad), but of course he loves her very much and this sends him into a spin.
It sends the whole family into a spin, especially as Geoff, his Dad, is pretty hopeless at running a home. Clara, the annoyingly practical elder sister, comes into her own and keeps the boat afloat. But it is Danny, who has discovered the Room of Strange Doorways, who must enter his mother's dream - her coma - and rescue her. Entering a coma is surely very dangerous. He could never come back.
Entering his mother's dreams requires a huge act of imagination and empathy. He has to think himself into her mind, put himself in her shoes. Only then will the door open and admit him. His mother is lost in there, deep in coma, swallowed by the dark. And he must get her out.
Tuesday, January 2, 2007
Dream 27/12/06
I was running full-tilt down a hill in the pitch dark with a friend. We ran smack into a low wooden house in the middle of the forest. A sort of woodsman's home, but very long, made up of one long series of rooms.
We went through the front door almost through sheer momentum, but once inside, the house proved so fascinating we had to explore. Although rustically built, it was packed with gleaming technology, as well as all sorts of arcane collections – I remember gramophones and old theatrical posters. It was like an exhibition. In one room, a sort of window showed my friend's face – I thought he was looking through it. The face spoke, and shouted, but then he appeared for real behind the face, and said it was this amazing device that could copy people.
Then the owner returned - we saw light down the corridor of rooms. He found us, but we explained that we'd stumbled over his house and found it too fascinating to resist. he was annoyed, but forgave us. He was around 35 or 40, and looked a bit like a country singer, with long hair and a short-cropped beard. He was somehow involved in technology for the PR industry.
Then we were all sitting around his table, a whole group of us, and he was talking about how one of us was destined for a great career. We assumed he meant in the marketing/PR world, or technology.
An arrogant man that I used to work with (in real life) stood up and held the umbrella over his head that was a sort of symbol of the chosen, or of the speaker to the group. This man said it was obviously him who would be the great success, given that this was his field.
No, said the owner of the house. He pointed to me. I hadn't said anything. But he said I was definitely destined for greatness - as a paleontologist. 'You've got it,' he said.
Then I was at my house, and had to go to the bank down the high street. I decided to make the journey interesting by going through all the buildings. I jumped into next door's front garden, but found myself surrounded by high, grey walls.
Luckily, there were also two strange black boxes, like big trunks, in the garden. I used one to vault over the wall. Then I found myself at the back of an old wooden building like a barn - one of the buildings on the high street. (But only in the dream.) I let myself in the back door into a large barn-like space. Green metal stairways and catwalks led all over. A staircase led down into a large empty pit in front of me, with a similar staircase the other side. It was all some sort of factory.
I passed a man with a clipboard, talking to someone else. He scowled suspiciously at me, then went back to his conversation. I got a bit lost in the factory, then found my way into the office building next door. I wandered about, up and down some staircases and through some double doors, and came into a room where the man from the house in the woods was holding some sort of meeting.
'You're nothing but trouble,' he told me. I grinned and carried on through the building.
Judi Dench, who was the boss of the company in the building, smiled and said cheerfully, 'Do any of you realise we have an intruder in the building?' She wasn't overly bothered, and nor was anyone else.
Through another set of doors I found myself in a huge, cavernous branch of Barclays. Through big plate-glass windows I could see out onto the high street. The journey seemed much quicker than it would have been walking along the street. I assumed it was because I'd made it much more interesting.
We went through the front door almost through sheer momentum, but once inside, the house proved so fascinating we had to explore. Although rustically built, it was packed with gleaming technology, as well as all sorts of arcane collections – I remember gramophones and old theatrical posters. It was like an exhibition. In one room, a sort of window showed my friend's face – I thought he was looking through it. The face spoke, and shouted, but then he appeared for real behind the face, and said it was this amazing device that could copy people.
Then the owner returned - we saw light down the corridor of rooms. He found us, but we explained that we'd stumbled over his house and found it too fascinating to resist. he was annoyed, but forgave us. He was around 35 or 40, and looked a bit like a country singer, with long hair and a short-cropped beard. He was somehow involved in technology for the PR industry.
Then we were all sitting around his table, a whole group of us, and he was talking about how one of us was destined for a great career. We assumed he meant in the marketing/PR world, or technology.
An arrogant man that I used to work with (in real life) stood up and held the umbrella over his head that was a sort of symbol of the chosen, or of the speaker to the group. This man said it was obviously him who would be the great success, given that this was his field.
No, said the owner of the house. He pointed to me. I hadn't said anything. But he said I was definitely destined for greatness - as a paleontologist. 'You've got it,' he said.
Then I was at my house, and had to go to the bank down the high street. I decided to make the journey interesting by going through all the buildings. I jumped into next door's front garden, but found myself surrounded by high, grey walls.
Luckily, there were also two strange black boxes, like big trunks, in the garden. I used one to vault over the wall. Then I found myself at the back of an old wooden building like a barn - one of the buildings on the high street. (But only in the dream.) I let myself in the back door into a large barn-like space. Green metal stairways and catwalks led all over. A staircase led down into a large empty pit in front of me, with a similar staircase the other side. It was all some sort of factory.
I passed a man with a clipboard, talking to someone else. He scowled suspiciously at me, then went back to his conversation. I got a bit lost in the factory, then found my way into the office building next door. I wandered about, up and down some staircases and through some double doors, and came into a room where the man from the house in the woods was holding some sort of meeting.
'You're nothing but trouble,' he told me. I grinned and carried on through the building.
Judi Dench, who was the boss of the company in the building, smiled and said cheerfully, 'Do any of you realise we have an intruder in the building?' She wasn't overly bothered, and nor was anyone else.
Through another set of doors I found myself in a huge, cavernous branch of Barclays. Through big plate-glass windows I could see out onto the high street. The journey seemed much quicker than it would have been walking along the street. I assumed it was because I'd made it much more interesting.
Dream: 23/12/06
It's very hard to capture that bizarre, real-but-not-real quality of dreams, so I thought it might be worth recording some of my actual dreams as a sort of reference. Here's the first I've written down:
I was involved in some sort of experiment, which was being run by a teacher apparently as something to do with school. (But not my school.) We were trying to discover the source of a ghost or supernatural emanation of some kind: a man in a blindfold.
We all had to gather in a sort of school hall or village hall, in a large circle of chairs. I knew some of the people there but not others.
I had a breakthrough: I found some old black-and-white film footage taken in WWII. It showed some grubby, urchin-like boys in the rubble of a bombed city, all gathered around a man in the centre of the frame. he may have been injured: he was wearing a bandage around his eyes like a blindfold. There was a rough star shape drawn (carved?) on his forehead – or it might even have been a flaw in the lens. As we were watching, the film closed in on this star, which suddenly burst with light, sending beams of bright light out from each of its 'arms'.
A homeless man arrived in the hall one night. He had nowhere to go. I was in a room off the main hall, which was visible through some windows. I said he could sit down in one of the chairs in the circle. I asked if he wanted something to eat.
'No thanks,' he said, 'We've got some sponge.' And I saw through the glass that his friend was already sitting in the circle, cutting up a sponge cake. He lifted it and grinned...
This is a good example of the way dreams can move between the almost mystical strangeness or frightening imagery into something like farce. It's a quality Alec and I have discussed for the book. You just have to be careful not to descend into complete whimsy, I think.
I was involved in some sort of experiment, which was being run by a teacher apparently as something to do with school. (But not my school.) We were trying to discover the source of a ghost or supernatural emanation of some kind: a man in a blindfold.
We all had to gather in a sort of school hall or village hall, in a large circle of chairs. I knew some of the people there but not others.
I had a breakthrough: I found some old black-and-white film footage taken in WWII. It showed some grubby, urchin-like boys in the rubble of a bombed city, all gathered around a man in the centre of the frame. he may have been injured: he was wearing a bandage around his eyes like a blindfold. There was a rough star shape drawn (carved?) on his forehead – or it might even have been a flaw in the lens. As we were watching, the film closed in on this star, which suddenly burst with light, sending beams of bright light out from each of its 'arms'.
A homeless man arrived in the hall one night. He had nowhere to go. I was in a room off the main hall, which was visible through some windows. I said he could sit down in one of the chairs in the circle. I asked if he wanted something to eat.
'No thanks,' he said, 'We've got some sponge.' And I saw through the glass that his friend was already sitting in the circle, cutting up a sponge cake. He lifted it and grinned...
This is a good example of the way dreams can move between the almost mystical strangeness or frightening imagery into something like farce. It's a quality Alec and I have discussed for the book. You just have to be careful not to descend into complete whimsy, I think.
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