The Reoccuring Dream

Saturday 24th April 2010, 6.45am, Ratu Kini Resort - Mana Island

I have been having the same dream, continuously, for the past 5 months. I would have told you about it sooner but as often happens with our dreams they pale and vanish in consciousness, they flee from that cerebral cortex which governs daytime thinking. Unless we make concerted effort to hold on to them by chasing their tails through our memory, they are lost in a No Man's Land of unexplained sleeper's thought. This one always sticks with me, but it is only today, on rising and reaching for my notebook as early as I have, that I finally remember to tell you about it.

The premise, the feeling and the ending of the dream are always exactly the same, a few variables change here and there, but every time I have it I wake up not knowing where I am. It starts with me at home, and by home I mean various locations around London; sometimes I am at work, sometimes at my parents' house, sometimes at my local pub. The conversation begins, the scene is set, the exposition run through: I have just returned from travelling, I am being welcomed back for the first time by family and friends and colleagues. I have come back, but only temporarily, just to see everyone for one weekend, a fleeting visit before I go back to whatever country I was in at the time - when I was in Cambodia I knew this in the dream, and knew I had to get back to Vietnam, when I was in Bali this is what I told people in my dream, and knew I had to fly back to New Zealand, and so on and so forth.

I spend time catching up with everyone and begin to get back in to my old routines, and then the dream switches. I have been at home too long, what am I doing here? I'm going to miss my next flight, it's going to cost me a fortune in plane tickets to get back to where I was and carry on. The dream always ends with me walking over to the noticeboard in our kitchen and pointing at the calendar, then I say, "I'm not going to be able to get back in time." I wake up in a state of panic, at first not realising that I was dreaming, believing I'm at home. Then it takes me a few seconds to process the room around me and work out what country, what island, what dormitory I'm in. The relief is always immense when I realise I'm still away and that I haven't missed any flights, every time I have the dream it makes me thankful all over again to be travelling.

I must have had that same dream about 20 times now, and I doubt I've seen the last of it yet. I'm no practised dream interpreter, but I don't think it takes any great philosopher to decipher what it means. It means I'm where I'm meant to be, doing what makes me happy, in places that I can't bare to leave, on a trip that I don't want to end. But it also means that if I could fly home for the weekend and see you all without jeopardising the future of my travels, I'd be there in a shot. If it's any consolation my dears, I'm visiting you all in my dreams.