Dreaming within a Dream

Last night I dreamt I was back in World War 2 on a military submarine, not as a naval officer, but as a teenage member of the wives and children quota also on board (not sure about the military Health & Safety logic of that one...). Needless to say, being a teenager stuck in an enclosed space, I soon started getting up to mischief with the other kids on board, with five of us recklessly heading out AWOL on the submarine dingies to live it up sailing the seven seas, fighting off great white sharks with our dingy oars, somehow managing to even squeeze in a trip to George at Asda, and at the same time inadvertently straying into enemy German territory and having to be retrieved at great risk to our host submarine. On being returned to our sub, we were all naturally prepared to get our wrists slapped, only to find out from my very pissed-off mum that (even as juvenile, non-members of the armed forces) we were due to go before a military tribunal the next day, with execution a probable consequence of our treasonable actions in accidentally entering enemy waters – a punishment which didn’t quite fit the crime I thought... Naturally I was shocked and panic-stricken, but still somehow drew strange comfort and reassurance from the fact that lasagne was on the submarine menu for that evening, so at the very least I would have a decent last meal.

As it happened, the next day my real-life American ex-marine big boss was overseeing the tribunal, and was all in favour of execution by firing squad for all of us, but was overruled my the other military judges on the grounds that we were all still minors and hadn’t acted with deliberate treasonable intent. Instead, we were all sentenced to community service for the remainder of the war, with myself being packed off back to dry land to serve in a private old people’s home. In fact this turned out to be an absolute cushy little number, as I got plush free accommodation (with TV in room) and three meals a day plus regular pay to basically just sit around and watch ‘Countdown’ with the elderly residents, and occasionally help one of them to the loo etc. Soon after though the war ended when we nuked Germany, and I woke up – or so I thought – at my lovely Auntie Anne’s house in the idyllic English countryside, which I had apparently been visiting at the time of the whole submarine debacle dream...

I started writing down my dream as per usual before I forgot it, but kept losing my notes and getting distracted by my mum going on about making a family day trip to Blackpool the next day. Given that Blackpool is a nasty, has-been, chav-infested shithole with a sewer for a sea, I naturally wasn’t particularly enamoured by this idea and wanted to stay with my wonderful Auntie Anne instead, but apparently wasn’t permitted to bow out. Luckily though, the next day I overslept till 5pm (much to my own amazement), waking to find that in the end only my mum and her new husband Rolf Harris had bothered with Blackpool after all, and all my relatives on my mum’s side, my brother and his fiancé, and even a few of my old mates (specifically Charlie, Heather and Hayley) were all assembling at my Auntie Anne’s (beloved matriarch of the family) house for a traditional family gathering instead, and my Auntie Anne was making one of her famous Sunday roasts with all the trimmings – oh joy!!!!!!

And then I woke up for real, completely disorientated as to where I was and what time of day it was, and rather disappointed that I had missed out the roast after all...