Dinner Parties and Dreams

We had a massive dinner party last night. Well, I say massive – about 12 people, which is the most you can fit into our flat with any comfort. It’s the ‘grand finale’ as it were of freshers’ week. Some of us older students ‘adopt’ freshers as part of a parenting scheme – though this year they decided to organise things in extended families of three parents, six or so kids.

We went for a huge vegetable stir fry followed by apple pie, fruit and ice cream, which went down pretty well. We’d over-estimated on some of the ingredients, so I have plenty of leftovers (since it was my flat) – on the other hand, I have most of the clearing up to do…

Since everyone else was also having a dinner, we went over the communal recreation area to carry the party on until around 1-1:30am. Someone then decided to invite everyone back to their flat, but I decided I’d had enough by then. Once I’d done some clearing up, it was 3am before I got to bed – and I have a joint birthday party to go to tonight too…

I was up around 8am, to go to the toilet, then went back to bed. I don’t know if you ever get this, but then I had a really weird ‘dream’. I don’t know if it counts as a dream, because technically I think I was probably still awake – but just kind of half-asleep, dozing and with my mind wondering.

I read an interesting piece on dreams the other week, but I don’t usually remember mine (unless I’m somewhat awake, like this) so I thought I’d describe it. If anyone has any ideas what it might mean, feel free to comment…

I was in the Bodleian library, though not a part I’d ever seen before. I was half-reading something, but ended up paying more attention to Fiona and Nick (who I’d been talking to last night, and who were sat at the same table) – they were trying to explain what a ‘concept’ was to one of Fiona’s friends, who just didn’t get it.

Somehow we went from there, to me being in bed (half-asleep, as I was in real life), but Nick and Fiona still there continuing the conversation. Feeling the need to wake up I (in my dream) pulled open my bedroom curtain. Having done so, I saw what I thought was a plane doing stunts (rolls, etc) in the air, but coming down as it did so. As it got closer, I realised it was actually a space shuttle (like Discovery etc), and it actually came down – landing upside down in the Thelwall House garden (visible rom my flat, only a few hundred yards away). At that point, I got up, pulled on my dressing gown, and started heading for the scene, trying to ring 999 and Leigh (an astrophysicist, who lives in Thelwall) on my mobile.

Odd huh? After that though, I really got up. It was about 10:30am, and I have a lot to do – not least clearing out the ‘spare’ room in our flat, because my third and final flatmate Pavel’s coming back from his fieldwork in Prague today.