I was living with some 1930s film people in their 1930s house. I could tell that they were 1930s people because they and their house were in black and white. I was in colour, of course.
We were all doing various tasks together in the kitchen when a man who I thought was the uncle of one of the others in the house tripped and fell forward onto the searing hot metal plate of the range. After lying on it for a couple of seconds, as if paralysed by the shock, he slowly and seemingly without pain turned to face us. One side of his face was terribly burned.
I knew I had to tell people about this. Without stopping to think or to ask how he was, I rushed out of the house. I wasn't going to fetch a doctor; I was heading for an internet cafe.
When I got to the internet place, which was in a modern high street -- all colour -- I realised I didn't have enough money to pay for a session. The minimum charge was 28p, but I had only 26p. I searched all of my pockets, and discovered a 2p piece. I entered the cafe and paid the guy...
Notes for Freudian Interpretation
I have a work anxiety dream every now and again. Usually, the dream will involve me being unable to report the parliamentary proceedings properly because something has gone horribly wrong. These dreams fall into three main types: the "Please shut up!" dreams, in which the members of Parliament all start speaking over each other so that I can't hear what anyone is saying; the "Who the hell are you?" dreams, in which I realise with horror that I don't recognise a member who's speaking; and the "Oh my God!" dreams, in which a riot breaks out in the chamber and I have the impossible task of desperately trying to write down every weird thing that happens.
This dream, although I'm sure it's a work anxiety dream, doesn't fit in any of those categories. That's because it's not about my work in Parliament; it's about writing The Unsung Joe, my other blog. The dream is an obvious dramatisation of the process of researching the private lives of old, unknown movie people with the aim of finding out some interesting, tragic or funny facts about them, and then writing about it on the internet.
Imagine the type of character who'd have a work anxiety dream about writing his blog! Shameful.
I should point out that the anxiety about The Unsung Joe comes not from the act of writing the blog, but from my recent decision to rewrite it as a book, which was suggested to me by a literary agent who got in touch last month. The prospect of undertaking a serious piece of hard work, rather than posting stuff whenever I feel like it, is a little daunting, and is exactly the kind of thing that you'd expect would cause ripples of disquiet in your subconscious, which might result in a dream in which not only is the task of finding out interesting stories as easy as simply hanging out with a bunch of people, but, even though it might at first appear that you simply don't have the necessary resources to complete your work, you'll find that you do, if you try hard enough. It's one of those pep-talk dreams that Freud was always on about.
It's nice to know that my subconscious has faith in my abilities, but I can't help but note that it won't be doing any of the actual work.
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