I was in a large hall. God alone knows why I was there. The floors, walls and ceilings were bedecked with the most ludicrous harlequin motifs you've never seen. Bright, horrifically clashing colours assaulted my senses. There were people everywhere. Was it a museum? I have no idea. The people vanished. The only thing left in the room besides me was a monkey... a.... clockwork monkey? OK, a clockwork monkey. It bit my toe. The bastard won't let go. SHIT! i slam my foot down onto the ground again and again, until the little bastard's smashed to pieces. Then I wake up.

Dreams are fucking fantastic. I could spend an eternity in my dreamscape (which would probably amount to about 10 minutes in real life). My dreams are vividly realistic, and at the same time, utterly incredulous. Oxymoronic, maybe, but I wouldn't have it any other way. To me, dreams are a way for my mind to slow down after a hard day, and clean out all the crap that's been stored up and not used - fleeting ideas, barely heard conversations, misinterpretations of facts... it all has to go, and what better way to get rid of it than to splurge it out in a miraculous cinematic treat for my sleeping thoughts?

And we all dream. Every single night. Problem is, we only remember the dreams if we wake up halfway through. Which is why we remember nightmares, and wet dreams all the way up to the GOOD BIT. Even if we remember our dreams, they fade like ancient memories - at first they are clear in your head, but an hour later, you can only remember the juiciest bits, and you'll probably start to make things up to fill in the blanks. Some dreams are fantastic, exciting, or just plain silly. Others are terrifying beyond belief.

Dreams have the power to make even the most mundane situations completely shit-scary, simply because while you are dreaming, you believe that everything happening at this point in time is completely plausible. So a sixteen foot dog with eyes of fire, muscles like a horse and heavy breathing is deemed entirely acceptable, and when he starts to pad slowly after you, you get fucking terrified. And so you start to run. But nightmares have an annoying habit of entirely limiting your physical prowess. So you can only manage a knackered jog, and all the time, the fucking death hound is there, breathing down your neck, not more than a foot away. You know that if you stop,or even slow down, for just a split second, it will have you in a flash. But you're so damned tired... you can't run any more. NO! got to keep going, the dog... the dog.... and you're heads screaming "WAKE THE FUCK UP!!!!!!!"

But as nightmares go, that one's rather tame. Bad dreams like that can work to your advantage though, if they are a regular occurrence. H.P. Lovecraft, in my opinion one of the finest authors of horror who ever lived, used his nightmares as the basis for many of his stories. He kept a dream diary by his bedside, so that as soon as he woke up, he could jot down his visions in dreamscape. And if you've ever read any Lovecraft, you really will be grateful that your nightmares just involve a sixteen foot hell-dog that you can't get away from. There are some lovecraft works to be found online. There are four short stories at http://www.deliverance.mcmail.com/lovecraft/pnakotus.html - 'The Case of Charles Dexter Ward', 'Nemesis', 'Nylarlathotep' and 'The Outsider'. Stop by and read them, they're very good works ('The Outsider' being one of my personal favourites). It might be worth keeping a dream diary, even if you don't have nightmares on a regular basis - the stupid dreams will make entertaining reading.

It is possible to have VERY realistic dreams. So realistic, in fact, that you become aware of the fact that you are dreaming and 'wake up' within the dream. Your body remains supine in bed, drooling on your pillow, but your mind has total control of your dreamscape. At this point, anything is possible. You want to fly? Just think OK, I'm going to fly. And you can. It's like Virtual Reality gone berserk. These dreams are known as 'Lucid Dreams', and the more of them you have, the more likely you are to have more. I can only ever remember having one lucid dream, but I can tell you, that was enough to freak me out for weeks. I could do whatever I wanted (with the exception of flying, for some reason - everytime I tried to take off, I was grounded again in seconds....). Now, there is a device which I read about in a british magazine called 'Focus', which is a science monthly, reporting on all manner of gadgets and scientific advancements. The idea was you wore this device over your eyes before you went to sleep, and it detected when you entered a state of rapid eye movement. It would then inform you by sending small light pulses into your eyes - not enough to wake you up, but enough to affect your dream. If you spotted the effect of the light, then you knew you were dreaming, and biggedy-bang, lucid city. If you're interested in finding out more, you can check out SpiritWeb (http://www.spiritweb.org/Spirit/lucid-dreaming.html), which has information on lucid dreaming and numerous links to websites.

So The message today is, don't be afraid to embrace your dreams. Sometimes even the completely ridiculous ones may happen for a reason. And also, if you have some really terrifying nightmares, write them down - people, for some reason, love to be scared shitless in their reading. And if you ever find yourself running away from a sixteen-foot nightmare dog, or falling out of a helicopter, or stuck in a Nazi hate-area listening to DMX, just shout to yourself "WAKE THE FUCK UP!!!!!!!!"