Day 2 of the ‘Dreams’ blogathon to celebrate the publication of Dream a Little Dream. Joining me today is lovely Carole Matthews:
Carole says:
I have a recurrent stress dream. Whenever my To Do pile threatens to resemble the Great Wall of China or my diary looks fuller than Kate Moss’s or my latest deadline is looming ever closer, my nights are punctuated by unimaginable terrors.
I’ve never been the biggest fan of Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer and, although I do find them very amusing, thoughts of them don’t pepper my waking moments. But when I reach a crisis of more work than I think I can cope with, I then spend every night with them.
My stress dream starts with me skiing with Vic and Bob. I tell them I’m an expert skier – in real life I haven’t actually skied in twenty-odd years and was never very good at it then. I offer to show them the best slopes while they follow in my wake. Then, to my horror, each of the slopes we ski the snow gets more and more icy, then thinner, then there are patches of grass and rock sticking through until, eventually, the snow peters out completely. I start to panic, but assure them that I know another, even better slope and we set off on the chair lift again only for the same thing to happen. It feels as if I do that all night long and then wake up exhausted.
If I complain of being tired in the day Lovely Kev always says, ‘Skiing with Vic and Bob again?’
And, more often than not , the answer is yes.
Then there are those nights where my head is swirling with unresolved plot problems. I’m sure I’ll be pacing Matthews’ Towers all night, unable to rest. Invariably, I’m gone as soon as my head hits the pillow and I don’t just sleep but sink into a one-night coma . Then, by some miracle of brain machinations which go on while I’m snoring, I wake up and find my plot problems completely and utterly solved. I don’t have a clue what happens in my head while I’m asleep, but I’m eternally grateful that something does.
Sleep and I have always had a tricky relationship. Those of you who know me from Facebook and Twitter will know that I’m equally likely to be found on there in the middle of the night as I am during the day. But I don’t mind my night time wakefulness, I think it’s all part of the creative process. And, if my sleep has to involve Vic and Bob too, then so be it. I just wish I could find some nice, snowy slopes for them one night!
Carole’s latest book is With Love at Christmas. Published by Little, Brown on 25 October, Paperback £6.99
Can the imperfect family really have the perfect Christmas?
Juliet Joyce adores Christmas. She loves the presents, the tree, the turkey, the tinsel, everything. Already the festive spirit is upon her, which is just as well as this Christmas things are starting to get out of hand.
Her son Tom is out of work and bringing home a slew of unsuitable partners; pregnant daughter Chloe and her little boy have moved back in; Juliet’s father, Frank, is getting over a heartbreak of his own and Rita, her eccentric mother, is behaving more erratically each day. And has the chaos got too much for Juliet’s husband Rick?
With the big day fast approaching, Juliet hopes that she can stop everything spiralling out of control, because the only thing she wants is her family all around her and her home to be filled… WITH LOVE AT CHRISTMAS
Thanks, Carole! I’m sure Vic and Bob would be flattered …
Carole’s kind enough to offer a hardback copy of WITH LOVE AT CHRISTMAS as a giveaway. Comment on the oddest person or people you’ve seen in your dreams to be in with a chance to win.
Sue Moorcroft blog 
I rarely remember my dreams. Maybe that’s a good thing?
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I once had a rather disturbing dream about Adrian Chiles, a wet suit and a tub of Ben & Jerrys Cherry Garcia. *shivers* It still disturbs me now, 2 years on – scarred for life…….
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That’s terrifying! C : ) xx
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The answer has to be Arnold Schwartzenegger in TERMINATOR mode, advancing towards me down a long corridor, machine gun blazing. I try to get away but I fall over and then . . . luckily at that point in the dream I always wake up!
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I once had a dream that I was kissing Matt Smith. He was kissing like a lizard, his tongue flicking in and out really really fast. It was really weird and a bit disturbing. All I could think was, “So this is how Timelords kiss!” Well, you asked!
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I rarely remember my dreams which, when you wake up happy and don’t know why, can be a tad frustrating. As for a nightmare, my waking one was when a famous film star walked into my shop, oh how I’d drooled over him throughout the years! The reality was a nasty shock. Quite a nightmare!
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No-one famous sadly but I did have a dream about a friend at work once. For some reason we were holding hands (seriously, that’s all!) and I’d completely forgotten about it until he walked into the office. It obviously sparked a memory and I went bright red! Awkward!
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Well, over the years I’ve had a number of disturbing dreams ranging from my sub-conscious letting me know what was really going on in a given situation, to downright terrifying spectres of black cloaked creatures! But possibly the most upsetting was the least ghostly – it involved me riding in a fast car with an older man. I was begging him to slow down, then screaming at him to stop, until it came to me that it wasn’t me who would be hurt. I knew then that the crash was inevitable, but that I would walk away unscathed. (I did…..dream or fortune telling?!!)
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I have the same recurring dream that Mark Wright and John Barrowman are fighting over me ~ it’s one of those slapstick fights like in Bridget Jones. Legs and arms flapping about in hilarious positions and of course “It’s Raining Men” is always playing in the background. It ends with me kissing them both!!! 😀
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Lol… C : ) xx
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My grandparents, they were witches and quite evil in my dream!
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Oddest person I have seen in my dreams was a school teacher I had in high school…I was at my current age but was back in school and he yelled at me because I didn’t have my homework done! Lol…I tried to explain but he said it wasn’t a good enough excuse
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I have had the devil in my dream. No real person was present but like an entity and I could feel the evil. Very scary! I actually had to sleep with the light on after that for a while.
Margaret
singitm(at)hotmail(dot)com
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I have lots of dreams, all very weird and very worrying. On Saturday night my Aunt was in my dreams, apparently she has a collection of terrapins these days. She was showing me how to carry them correctly which was apparently to get them to clamp onto a bit of material. They could do this with their mouth or the side of their shell but the correct way was with their mouth. Well, I did it wrong and the terrapin dropped and damaged the side of its shell. My aunt was annoyed and started putting some cream on the shell so it would heal, all the while telling me that terrpains could survive without their shell because they could regrow them. Safe to say none of the facts are true, apart from it was my Aunt, and no animals or children were harmed in the making of this dream.
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When I was 15 I had a dream that I was out walking with my best friend and we met her Grandma, (whom I had already met in real life). In the dream she invited us into her house, (which I had never been to). As we approached the door, it opened, and a man in a black suit, with balding hair, and glasses, said, “I take it you’ve met my wife”.
The dream ended there, and I described him to my friend and asked if that sounded like her Grandad – who was deceased. She confirmed that he did indeed look as I saw him. As I was into ‘weird’ stuff I thought that was brilliant.
Even more brilliant – a couple of weeks later, we went round to her Grandma’s, and as we stood in the living room I noticed a wedding photo on the sideboard. It was her Grandma’s wedding, and there, exactly as I saw him in my dream, was her deceaased husband.
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More things in heaven and Earth, eh? Thanks for that story. Fascinating.
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