A Short Break

Due to the arrival of the next generation of Cheese Surfer (Mattie Jr), I will be taking a short break from Cheese Surfing (and probably a long break from sleeping).

It is my hope that the Cheese Surfer will continue after a few weeks, although the needs of Mattie Jr may well interfere with dreaming coherence.

Big House

Cheese: Vignotter (approx. 100g)

I was living in a huge house next to a railway. This place was seriously plush. There was an enormous triple garage, a massive downstairs, with a really nice living room. The place was done out really nicely.

There was a bathroom on a mezzanine floor which was the biggest nicest bathroom I've ever seen. It put the flashest hotels to shame. Really nicely done out with a spa bath, multi-headed double shower and double sinks. It was huge.

I was there with my wife, and we seemed to be sharing the place with another couple, the woman seemed to be the sister of a childhood friend (despite the fact that he didn't have a sister). The place was so big and nice that it didn't seem to matter that we were sharing it.

The railway line was right next to us, but it didn't seem to matter as there were very few trains passing on it, so the noise wasn't really an issue. It was also very hot, which made me wonder if we were abroad somewhere.

As part of moving in, I had bought a new TV (which I've also done in reality recently). This TV was absolutely huge and I had it wall mounted in the lounge. It looked pretty awesome and I settled down to watch football on it.

The woman in the other couple was also pregnant. She was explaining to us about how she was going to feed her placenta to her dog, because it would be 'really good for him', which was a bit gross, but seemed quite normal at the time.

I wondered into the basement at one point, only to find that there was a sports shop down there. They had a sale on so I bought a new football, some shin pads and an England shirt. It didn't occur to me at the time that having a sports shop in the basement was a bit weird.

I came back upstairs and we continued drinking and talking. I realised we'd been up all night and it was starting to get light now. We decided to have some food before going to bed, so we cooked up some bacon and eggs in the beautiful kitchen before going to bed.

As my wife and I got into bed I noticed the time on the bedside clock was 9:34am.

Freakiness: 6
Nightmare Factor: 2
Amusement Factor: 6
Enjoyability: 8
Coherence: 8
Vividness: 7

Another Jane's Addiction gig

Cheese: Montagnolo Affine (approx 100g)

I was in a room at what I think was a party, there was a band getting ready to play, which turned out to be Jane's Addiction. The room was sufficiently small that there were only a handful of people watching, one of whom was Bam Margera from Jackass.

I decided I probably should get too close to Bam Margera as being from Jackass he might decide to poo on me or something. Once the band started playing I did notice he had started to skin up a joint.

The gig was really good and the band were really going for it, despite only a handful of people watching. After a song or two they broke into Ocean Size, one of my favourite Jane's Addiction songs.

When the guitar solo came up, Dave Navarro went really nuts and started playing some crazy stuff which was great. Bam had been joined by Johnny Knoxville and Wee Man who were moshing away quite violently, and I made a point of keeping my distance. It seemed that Wee Man had decided he wanted to go crowd surfing, but as there weren't really enough people, he had to be content with Knoxville and Margera throwing him at each other.

At one point, I had to duck as Wee Man sailed over my head, and thankfully for him, straight into a sofa. I looked across and Knoxville and Margera who for some reason were now wearing nothing but thongs, and Knoxville rather sheepishly put a hand up as an acknowledged apology.

As the solo came to an end, the tempo changed and Dave Navarro started playing some jazz style stuff. The whole thing then went jazz, and the band did jazz versions of their songs for the rest of the set.

Freakiness: 4
Nightmare Factor: 2
Amusement Factor: 7
Enjoyability: 8
Coherence: 7
Vividness: 5

A Prolific Night

Cheese: Ashmore Farmhouse Cheddar (approx 100g)

I woke this morning and at first cursed that the large block of mature cheddar I munched last night had failed to produce results. Then four dreams seeped into my consciousness, while it's common to have more than one dream, it's pretty rare to be able to clearly remember more than one or two distinctly. Four is unprecedented.

Dream 1

I was in a hotel and someone cast me in a play. The play was to be performed that evening, and there were to be no rehearsals for me. I voiced concern that trying to be in a play when I hadn't rehearsed and didn't know the lines probably wasn't going to end well. The director of the play told me not to worry as I only had two lines at the end.

The character I was playing was called Douglas, and my costume looked like baby clothes, as I had to wear grey shorts that had dungaree style straps. The costume was topped off with rubber pants. I was not pleased at the prospect of having to wear such a ridiculous get up and toyed with the idea of soiling the rubber pants just to annoy the costume department. I abandoned this idea as I decided it would be too uncomfortable and risk a rather embarrassing nappy rash. I didn't want people thinking I was one of those freaky 'Adult Baby' types.

The cast were milling about in the hotel waiting for the curtain call. I rushed up to my hotel room to get changed, although I got lost on the way. By the time I got changed and came back it was nearly time for me to go on, as I was in the last scene of the play. The play was very short and barely lasted an hour.

I went on and gave my two lines, which were something about 'assumption being the father of rumour' and 'but without assumption we can never know anything'. It all sounded like bollocks to me.

Freakiness: 6
Nightmare Factor: 6
Amusement Factor: 3
Enjoyability: 3
Coherence: 8
Vividness: 8


Dream 2

I was a castaway on an island, actually to be more precise, I was one of many castaways on a series of large rocks. I had climbed to the top of this large rock, in search of somewhere to sleep, but occasionally huge waves would hit the rock and soak the whole thing.

There was a bigger rock next to mine with a group of people on it. I decided that I would try and get across to their rock. Between waves I made a run for it and climbed down my rock and up theirs.

When I got on to their rock and climbed to the top, there was a swimming pool with lots of sun loungers and a bar. I thought to myself 'this is more like it'. I curled up on a sun lounger and went to sleep.

Freakiness: 7
Nightmare Factor: 7
Amusement Factor: 3
Enjoyability: 4
Coherence: 4
Vividness: 5


Dream 3

I was with my wife, and we were climbing up a very steep, but quite short hill. I realised that it must be a man made mound, probably for an ancient castle. Then I realised I'd been there before (despite not actually recognising any of it). I told my wife there was a pretty cool castle at the top that we should check out.

The mound was very overgrown and covered in trees. There were also plenty of fallen trees and undergrowth that we had to scramble over. We got to the top of the hill, which was actually quite a big area and walked through the woods.

There was a castle at the top, although only the tower stood now - there were lots of big stones and rubble, indicating the castle had once been much bigger. Once we were on top of the hill, I realised there was snow on the other side of the hill, despite not remembering it being cold on the way up, I was now suddenly aware that it was winter and there was snow on the ground.

We went up to the tower that was still standing and took a look round. It was at this point we saw a rather threatening bunch of youths on crap motorbikes (the kind so crap you're allowed to ride them at 14). I'm sure they were harmless but we started heading back down the hill towards the car anyway. I started feeling bad that I'd made a judgement about these kids that was probably very harsh. I worried that I was turning into a Daily Mail reader, and that kinda ruined the dream!

Freakiness: 6
Nightmare Factor: 6
Amusement Factor: 4
Enjoyability: 6
Coherence: 7
Vividness: 7


Dream 4

I was on a street in a town centre somewhere, there were lots of shops. I bumped into an old boss of mine from a few years back (one of the few bosses who wasn't a moron). We had a good chat and caught up. It was really good to see him again.

He asked after other people we worked with, although I explained I'd left that company a while back, so wasn't in touch with everyone there anymore. We went our separate ways and I wandered off down the street.

I went into a cool looking shop that was selling tops and t-shirts. There were some funky patterns and cartoon on the t-shirts. Inside the shop it was was dark, and there were loads of lava lamps and funky stuff that glows in the dark.

I was browsing through the products in the shop, I really liked the designs, but none of them were on normal t-shirts. All the cartoons I liked seemed to be on knitted tank-tops, I remember thinking, I really like that cartoon, but there's no way I'm going round in a knitted tank top.

I'm not really sure how the shop stayed in business!

Freakiness: 4
Nightmare Factor: 4
Amusement Factor: 7
Enjoyability: 6
Coherence: 7
Vividness: 6

Phew!

Wake up laughing

Cheese: Cambozola (approx 100g)

I was at a large institution of some kind, a large school or a college or something. There were a lot of big open spaces and large buildings. People were coming and going, and it was difficult to see exactly what was going on.

I went into a large empty warehouse of some sort. There was a team of people working on a car, I asked them what they were doing, but they didn't really say much, other than that they were fixing up the car.

I wandered off and into another building. I walked into a large auditorium where a lecture had just started, I stood at the back. The man giving the lecture was phenomenally dull and sounded a bit like Brian Sewell, and was just as smug. It was so dull that I had completely tuned out and had no idea what the lecture was even about.

The lecture ended and everyone filed out. Everyone seemed to be heading over to a large field near the coast. There was a couple, I'm sure I recognised the man, but couldn't place him. They seemed to have made some kind of pact.

They both pulled out guns and pandemonium ensued, although they weren't pointing the guns at anyone, or firing them. They ran across the field towards the cliff and no-one was sure what they were doing.

There were gasps of horror as they both leaped off the cliff, and two gunshots were heard seconds later in what was clearly a suicide pact. Everyone was very distressed at what they had just seen, and people ran to the edge of the cliff.

The couple were swimming towards the shore, and towards the path up the side of the cliff. It was very confusing and no-one was sure what had happened as they got out of the sea and started walking up the path.

When they got to the top, they explained that firing a gun whilst falling was very difficult and they had both missed, also they hadn't realised the tide was in, so they landed safely in the water. Having survived the experience, they both commented that they had a new appreciation of life.

One of the staff from the buildings came out and insisted everyone attend an impromptu service of thanks and celebration of life. We all sat in the sunny field while this guy took this service. At one point he said we should all celebrate the finer things in life, and take great joy from the things we love.

He asked people to shout out the things they love about life. People started shouting things like 'Watching the sunset' and 'Being with family' and 'Being with a loved one'. At this point my sense of humour got the better of me and I shouted out 'Teabagging!'

I managed to laugh myself awake at this point!

Freakiness: 8
Nightmare Factor: 6
Amusement Factor: 10
Enjoyability: 7
Coherence: 6
Vividness: 7

Interview

Cheese: Cropwell Bishop (approx. 100g)

This was a very short dream. I was in a room being interviewed by a man for a job I didn't want. I tried to explain that I didn't want the job, but he just kept going. Eventually I just got up and walked out. While the dream was very short, it was extremely vivid, and I was on the verge of finding my hands and trying to go through Casteneda's first gate dreaming. I was certainly in a position to be aware of what I needed to try.

Freakiness: 8
Nightmare Factor: 6
Amusement Factor: 3
Enjoyability: 3
Coherence: 3
Vividness: 10

Cows

Cheese: Cashel Blue (approx. 100g)

There was a construction site next door to my parents' house. I'm not sure why I was there, but I was attached to in some way.

As I looked out on the street, there was a herd of cows wandering out of one of the neighbours' garden due to a gate that had been left open. I rushed out to try and usher the cows back into the garden. I managed to get all but one of them back in, and I shut the gate. The one that escaped had disappeared down the road, and was running away. I decided not to give chase.

I went back to the large building that was under construction - it was almost finished, and the ground floor was pretty much done. A load of former colleagues suddenly turned up and dropped in for lunch. Some of them explained that things had got very bad at their work and were trying to persuade me to come back and help. I politely refused.

We ate some lunch and then they all had to go back to work, so they left. I decided I needed a dump and went upstairs. There was a really nice bathroom upstairs, with a beautiful toilet that was begging to be christened. However, outside the builders were still putting windows in, and I really didn't fancy being watched while taking a dump - if there's one thing sure to ruin a good dump it's being watched.

I was waiting for them to move out of view, but I was also desperate to go. Thankfully, they moved out of view just in time and I took a really enjoyable shit.

Freakiness: 6
Nightmare Factor: 4
Amusement Factor: 6
Enjoyability: 5
Coherence: 8
Vividness: 6

The Dark Side

Cheese: Swaledale Old Peculier (Swaledale matured in Old Peculier stout - approx 100g)

I was wandering through central London when I saw former mayor Ken Livingstone standing next to me at a pedestrian crossing. I said hello and we got chatting. He was very down on himself after a televised mayoral debate had gone badly for him. I tried to cheer him up a bit as he seemed genuinely depressed about it.

After a while we said bye and went our separate ways. At this point my phone rang and it was my dad to tell me one of my relatives had died, and I had to meet everyone for the funeral. This part of the dream seemed very real, and when I woke up later, for a minute or two I wondered if this person had died.

I got on a train out of London and went to this hotel where everyone was staying for the funeral. I had to check in for the night as the funeral was the next day. I greeted all my relatives and the mood was pretty sombre.

Once I was in my hotel room, my phone rang again and this time it was my friend who lives in Australia. Bizarrely he told me that his relative had died too, which seemed really strange.

The next day, I got up and went down for breakfast, as I walked down, I passed a room with the door propped open. I could see two people inside, and I definitely knew the guy but couldn't place him. He had a much younger beautiful girl with him.

Freakiness: 7
Nightmare Factor: 8
Amusement Factor: 4
Enjoyability: 3
Coherence: 7
Vividness: 8

Chinese Fashion

Cheese: Ticklemore (100g)

I was at some big conference or meeting in China. I'm not sure what it was about or why I was there, but I think it was Shanghai as I remember seeing a Maglev train.

I didn't really know what was going on, but it seemed to be vaguely fashion based as there were an awful lot of clothes on display, and I remember seeing what looked like fashion company logos everywhere.

The atmosphere turned a bit sour when a load of people turned up to demonstrate. I wasn't sure what about at first, but then it became clear that they were a bunch of people who worked in a sweatshop making clothes. There was a man at the front of the group with a loud hailer, who I recognised as Peter Tatchell.

He was making a big fuss about the plight of these people, and probably rightly so, but I couldn't help but think 'Why is this man just so annoying?' He started going up to the various stalls and quizzing the staff at them and the people buying stuff, saying things like 'Do you realise these garments are made by people who are treated like slaves?'

I hadn't even turned up to buy anything, I seemed to be there by accident. Then he made eye contact with me. I realised I had two choices, either start chanting one of his slogans or get press-ganged by him. While I certainly thought his cause was noble, the man was just too much of an irritant for me to join forces with, so I quickly dived behind a stall and hid.

I managed to stay hidden while he marched past. I looked around and saw a great pair of trainers, I had a moral quandary for a second where I realised that it would immoral to buy them, but would it be morally OK to rob them?

Freakiness: 7
Nightmare Factor: 4
Amusement Factor: 6
Enjoyability: 6
Coherence: 3
Vividness: 4

Furniture in the 80s

Cheese: Unsure as it was bought for me, but suspected to be Yorkshire Blue (approx. 100g)

I was in some sort of furniture / home wares store. I was with my wife and a few other people, the furniture in there seemed to be of an out of date contemporary style, probably quite 80s.

I then began to notice that they had some electrical equipment for sale too, and this equipment was also quite dated. There were old style VCRs and cassette tape decks. There were also cassette tapes for sale.

I found a limited edition version of The Stone Roses' debut album with some extra tracks that I'd never heard. I was quite tempted to buy it but then realised that I no longer have a tape deck on which to play it.

I also realised that two of my cousins were there, however they were both there as young kids, not the fully grown up people they are now. They were running round like nutters just as they did when they were kids.

My little cousin launched himself into a large armchair, which duly toppled over and broke. He got up and nonchalantly ran off.

Freakiness: 3
Nightmare Factor: 2
Amusement Factor: 7
Enjoyability: 6
Coherence: 7
Vividness: 7

Strange Visions

Cheese: Idiazabal (approx 100g)

I had the most active night for a while on this stuff, giving me two quite vivid dreams.

Dream 1

I was at a Jane's Addiction gig with my scouse mate who absolutely hammered. It seemed a little strange as the singer had grown his hair very long, and I started to wonder if we'd gone back in time.

We were quite near the front and a large man in a grubby pink boiler suit kept stage diving and crowd surfing. I wasn't sure what the pink boiler suit was about, but thankfully he didn't come too near us.

After the gig we made our way home and went through a shopping mall. I went into Boots to buy my wife a present. We got back to what must have been my mate's flat, but it was an absolute tip. I decided to take the dog for a walk, and took him for a walk on a foot path by a railway line.

When I got back, my mate's Australian girlfriend had tidied the flat and it was absolutely spotless. By this time it was the morning and she was making a cooked breakfast.


Freakiness: 3
Nightmare Factor: 3
Amusement Factor: 6
Enjoyability: 7
Coherence: 7
Vividness: 7


Dream 2

I was at football training, but I didn't know anyone there. After some basic training, we were herded into a room where we were shown a health and safety video. The video showed a petrol tanker ploughing into a petrol station, completely demolishing the petrol station. I was unsure what this had to do with football.

The guy showing us the video seemed very intense and I was taking quite a dislike to him. Out of the blue he started going on about what a great thing the Iraq war was and how it was completely the right thing to do. By this point I really was wondering what on earth this had to do with playing football.

Thankfully, after talking some more bollocks, he shut up and let us go back outside where we had a match to play. The match kicked off, but it was pretty crap and I could barely get a touch. I remember thinking that I was wasting my time.

Freakiness: 4
Nightmare Factor: 3
Amusement Factor: 2
Enjoyability: 3
Coherence: 7
Vividness: 6

Creaky Windows

Cheese: Jervaulx Blue (approx 100g)

I believe this cheese is a variant of Wensleydale Blue.

I was in a hotel room, on the top floor of a very tall hotel. It was a sea front hotel in what looked like a British seaside town, although I'm not sure which one.

The room had a huge window area, but instead of one window it comprised of dozens of smaller windows, each of which had really strange opening mechanisms on them.

While I was in the room the weather started taking a turn for the worse, and I started trying to close all these windows. It was at this point I started to realise that the windows were quite crap as a lot of them didn't close properly and just about all of them were rattling or whistling in the wind.

As I was closing them, I looked out of the window and down on the beach. People were running from the beach as the storm was whipping waves up that were smashing into the seafront wall.

Once I'd shut up the windows as best I could, I left the room and went downstairs as the whistling and rattling was really annoying me.

I ended up in some dingy office with no windows, which seemed to be a place where I was supposed to be working. Before I could work out what I was supposed to be doing or who to ask, someone came in and asked me if I wanted to join in the office footie match, and obviously I was well up for that.

Unfortunately the footie match ended up being quite shit as I got stuck with a complete bunch of chumps who were lazy and useless. As a result we got completely hammered.

Freakiness: 6
Nightmare Factor: 5
Amusement Factor: 4
Enjoyability: 3
Coherence: 4
Vividness: 2

An Old Bag

Cheese: Reblochon (approx 100g)

I was in a bar that seemed to be under some railway arches - I'm not sure exactly, but it was certainly arched. It was being run by a girl I went to school with.

It was quite seedy and dirty but in an underground chic sort of a way. There was a band setting up inside, and lots of posters and fliers on the wall advertising bands, gigs and clubs. It was during the daytime and the bar was pretty quiet.

I'm not entirely sure what I was doing there, as I don't recall having a drink. Some people, including the girl running the bar, were huddled round. There was a black box - I'm not sure what was in it. They put the box into a really beat up old leather bag, with old fashioned clip fasteners at the top. The bag was leather, but the leather was really worn and the outer layer was flaking away quite badly.

They gave me the bag, and told me to look after it. I wandered off for a while and came back later. It was night by this time and the bar seemed a much more dangerous place. A lot of scantily clad women were hanging around outside - I'm pretty sure they were hookers, but couldn't be sure if they'd just gone out for a cigarette.

The bar was a bit of a dive and people were shooting up heroin inside. I dumped the bag with the bar staff and told them to give it to the manager, then I made a pretty hasty retreat.

Freakiness: 7
Nightmare Factor: 6
Amusement Factor: 3
Enjoyability: 4
Coherence: 3
Vividness: 3

The Terminator and the Journey Home

Cheese: (Cheshire approx 70g)

I was in a very tall building in Los Angeles and there was a Terminator on the loose (like in the films), but this Terminator was not Arnold Schwarznegger, and he also seemed to have a sense of humour.

I got in a lift in the building to try and escape, but the Terminator got in the lift on another floor. I decided it was best not to let on that I knew he was a Terminator so I tried to be nonchalant and not let on that I knew.

He started cracking blue jokes, which were actually quite funny, so I didn't need to feign laughter. I noticed that the lift was moving up rather than down, and we were heading for the top floor.

When it stopped, I got out and wandered off. The building was very high and I there was a great view over the whole of LA. I looked down on big wide highways and the traffic which seemed to be speeding down them, there seemed to be a sense of panic on the streets and I wondered if there had been a whole invasion of Terminators.

I decided to head off and try to get to the airport. As I went back to the lift, the Terminator was there again. This time he seemed to be using the lift as a gigantic bomb. He was loading it with explosives.

He then got in it, shot the cable and the lift disappeared down the shaft with an almighty explosion at the bottom. I figured it was probably best to take the stairs. I hurried down many flights of stairs. At the bottom, there was a gunfight going on between security forces and the terminator. I escaped from the building as fast as I could.

I headed to the airport and got a flight back to Heathrow - although I remember very little of this.

At Heathrow there were problems with connecting flights up to my hometown. The flight took off, but had barely got off the ground when it had to make an emergency landing.

One of the other passengers told me about a secret labyrinth that could get me home - if I could find my way through it. Against my better judgment I went in to the labyrinth. It seemed to be a series of rooms, and each room was some sort of puzzle that you had to solve to get out.

At this point it all becomes a bit of a blur. There was one room that was full of shoes, and I had to put on the correct pair of shoes to get out. Another one was a game of rugby at a high school. Another involved giving some ex-workmates a lift down a road on the side of a big lake.

The last game was in some sort of town centre when I bumped into some old school friends. I figured out (I'm not sure how) that I needed to go with them to a coffee shop and order a black fruit smoothie.

Once I'd done this, I walked out of the coffee shop and was in my hometown and caught the bus home.

Freakiness: 7
Nightmare Factor: 8
Amusement Factor: 3
Enjoyability: 6
Coherence: 4
Vividness: 6

Quizmaster Rooney

Cheese: Isle of Mull Cheddar (approx. 100g)

I was playing football, but not on a football pitch, in a massive building that had all sorts of corridors and rooms, but open spaces too. There were an awful lot of people there, not all of them playing football, and it wasn't always possible to tell who was playing and who was on what team.

I do remember there were a lot of older ladies in twin sets and pearls carrying around homemade jam - they were not playing football. After chasing the ball round this building for a while it came out in an open area, a sort of hall, and then it took on a more recognisable form of football.

I managed to get the ball and almost collided with an old lady carrying cup cakes, but kept my feet and coolly slotted the ball past Ben Fogle who was playing in goal. The goal, for some reason, seemed to also mean the end of the game, and having scored the winning goal I was ushered off into some room for a 'special prize'.

I walked into this room to be faced by Wayne Rooney sat at a desk. I sat down and he started asking me questions about music. He was asking me about Led Zeppelin albums, about rappers and all sorts. The questions got harder and harder and more and more obscure, when he asked me what the name of Freddie Mercury's gay lover was, I started to question what the point of this was and how it didn't seem like much of a prize to me. He told me to answer the question, I said I didn't know. He said 'That's a pity' and yanked a lever - a trap door opened and I shot downwards through it.

I had a soft landing after a short fall, rolled off the mat I had landed on and went through a door. I found myself in an office, but it was still clearly the same building. One of my former colleagues was there and asked me if I wanted to do any freelancing work as the company was short of people. I said I wasn't that keen, but managed to negotiate a very good rate.

He told me to sit at any computer and start working. He said the work was obvious - indeed it was, as it turned out to be games of noughts and crosses.

Freakiness: 4
Nightmare Factor: 4
Amusement Factor: 4
Enjoyability: 6
Coherence: 7
Vividness: 5

The Gunman's Balls

I don't why I'm surprised, but as soon as I post that I'm not really getting any dreams at the moment, I get an absolute belter thanks to some particularly awesome Isle of Mull cheddar (which bizarrely had no effect at all a couple of days ago).

Cheese: Isle of Mull Cheddar (approx. 60g)

I was on holiday with my wife and my parents, and we were driving up the Eastern coast of Spain somewhere. We stopped for a night at a spa hotel, at least I think it was a spa hotel as it was done out in a log cabin style.

The hotel had Christmas decorations up everywhere, despite it being July. I got my wife to ask at the reception desk why they had the decorations up, as she speaks good Spanish. After a long conversation which I only understood a tiny amount of, my wife said that they hadn't got round to taking them down and now next Christmas was closer than last Christmas so they figured they'd leave them up.

The next day we drove up to a nice cottage in the mountains, and then the main bit of the holiday seemed to get skipped as we were then heading back home. On the way home we got stuck in a massive traffic jam just by where the spa hotel was. We tried to take a cheeky shortcut through the hotel to bypass the traffic jam, but ended up having to go back and re-join the motorway further back instead of further forward.

When we got back to England we spent some time in London, and while we were staying in the hotel, a travel program was on, which by coincidence featured the spa hotel we had stayed in.

I wandered out of the hotel and down the street, there was a commotion going on and it soon transpired that a lone crazed gunman was on the loose. Before I knew what was going on, I had been shot, but not very badly, the bullet just passed one of my lower ribs.

I climbed into the nearest car to take cover until the ordeal was over. After a few minutes, the driver side door opened and the gunman got in. Apparently he had run out of bullets. He told me how he was going to go down the street and shoot people in certain cars. He then told me he was going to shoot me in this car. I replied that he couldn't do that now as he had no bullets left.

Instead he jabbed his fingers into my bullet wound, causing the most intense pain I've ever experienced in a dream. I writhed around, and in desperation, unleashed a very hard, adrenaline powered headbutt on him.

He reeled backwards, blood pouring from his nose. I reached over him and opened the door, and then kicked him out of it on to the road. I climbed across the seat and got out of the car. He was trying to get up and escape, so I gave him a good, hard kick in the testicles.

He dropped like a cheap hooker's knickers, and I administered another solid kick to the genitals. He looked up and pleaded with me to stop.

"Should have thought of that, before you started shooting people!" I yelled at him, before kicking him in the nuts for a third and fourth time.

At this point, the police came over to apprehend him. I was a bit worried that I'd be in trouble, but they recognised him as the gunman, so I was in the clear. In fact, the police were very thankful for my assistance in apprehending him.

They cuffed him, and before dragging him off, one of the policemen turned to me and said

"Would you like to kick him in the testicles one last time, sir?"

"Yes, thank you officer." I politely replied, before unleashing a proper mule kick to the knackers. He was no longer able to walk.

Freakiness: 8
Nightmare Factor: 7
Amusement Factor: 6
Enjoyability: 5
Coherence: 3
Vividness: 4

Dreamer's Block (Again)

Despite spending a small fortune in the local cheese shop, I'm getting no luck with the dreams at the moment. I've tried, among others, Brie de Meaux and Isle of Mull Cheddar, but it has been a good couple of weeks since I can recall having any dream at all.

The other night I nailed a full 125g of stinking, sticky mature Brie de Meaux, convinced that such a high dose of mature cheese would have me surfing creamy dream waves all night, but in the morning I could not recall anything at all.

I will further arm myself with more cheese at the weekend, and up the dosage.

Franz

Cheese: Cheshire (approx. 50g)

In what was a truly bizarre and disturbing dream, many things happened, and on waking I found it very difficult to piece them all together.

The central theme of the dream, as I recall, was my 10 year old ethnic Bolivian second cousin was marrying his 34 year old primary school teacher, and to be fair to my little cousin, she was an absolute hottie. However, everyone, including myself, was very concerned at the prospect of a ten year old boy getting married.

There were many comings and goings as we tried to get to the bottom of what was happening, and indeed how such a union could possibly be performed. My cousin didn't care though, despite being only ten, the benefits of shacking up with a red hot babe were clearly not lost on him, and he was truly excited by the prospect. He seemed to be genuinely enamored with his would-be bride too.

The wedding was clearly very close, as everyone was dressed in their finest and we were in some plush hotel, which I could only assume was the wedding venue. While all this hoo-ha was going on and everyone was trying to get to the bottom of what was happening, I suddenly noticed German football legend Franz Beckenbauer, the only man to captain and manage World Cup winning teams.

However, this was not Franz as he is now, but a much younger Franz early on in his playing career (well before growing his ridiculous 70s sideburns). I got talking to him, and he told me he was there as a guest of honour at a football tournament going on in the hotel grounds. He said he could show me where the tournament was happening.

As we walked out of the hotel, I asked him if he was going to return the 1975 European Cup to its rightful owners. He smiled and mumbled something about it not being his fault. He said he got the ball when he brought down Allan Clarke, I said 'That's absolute bollocks, he did you like a kipper and you were nowhere near'. He smiled again.

Round the back of the hotel was a massive field with about 20 5-a-side pitches and game happening on all of them. As I wandered round, I noticed one team had a few guys I was at school with in.

One of them was taking a throw in, and managed to throw it from nearly the half way line right into the net. The referee correctly disallowed it as you can't score from a throw in.

Freakiness: 8
Nightmare Factor: 6
Amusement Factor: 3
Enjoyability: 4
Coherence: 3
Vividness: 7

World Cup Dreams

I've been working away quite a bit recently, hence the lack of posts. Once I've finished my stint (in a couple of weeks) I'm hoping to be more prolific in my posting (and the World Cup has finished too).

Cheese: Mature Cheddar

I was watching the World Cup final, and I'm not sure how or why but South Korea were in it, and doing really well. Everyone seemed to be supporting them.

I was watching with my late grandfather (my favourite aspect of dreaming is the ability to bring the dead back to life, albeit fleetingly). He was getting really into it and was regaling me with stories of when he used to play centre half for his university college.

It was the end of normal time and extra time was about to start, and I decided to go down to the pub to meet my mate Al. We got down there and the footie was still on. Everyone was supporting Korea and they got a penalty.

When Ji-Sung Park stepped up to slot it in, everyone went absolutely nuts, and Korea won the World Cup. After the trophy was collected, me and my mate decided to order some food at the pub.

I went up and ordered two food dishes and two drinks. They said they would bring the drinks over to us. We got into a long and involved conversation about the football, and a while later our food arrived, and we realised we still didn't have the drinks.

I went back to the bar to see what had happened to the drinks. I explained to the bar maid what had happened, she asked me what drinks I'd ordered - a J20 for me as I was driving and a pint of Tetley's for my mate. The bar maid then tried to charge me, and I explained we'd already paid.

At that point the bar manager intervened and I explained to her what had happened. At that point she asked me if I was driving, I said yes, and she told me I shouldn't drink and drive. I told her I was having the J20. She then tried to claim that J20s were 2.9% alcohol. I told her to fuck off and said that even if they were 2.9% alcohol, which they weren't, it would still be well under the drink drive limit.

She then started lecturing me about how I shouldn't drink at all if I was driving. Eventually I got the drinks off her and went and sat back down again. We ate our food pretty quickly, and I explained to Al what had happened, he thought they were an absolute bunch of jokers.

We left, and as we walked back to the car Al decided to show his dissatisfaction with their treatment of us by urinating against the back door of the pub. 'I'll give them customer feedback!' he yelled as the hot steaming piss gushed down the back door.

Freakiness: 4
Nightmare Factor: 5
Amusement Factor: 7
Enjoyability: 6
Coherence: 7
Vividness: 7

Cable Car to The Jungle

Cheese: Cambozola (approx. 75g)

I was in a ski resort of some kind. It definitely had an Alpine feel to it and I think it must have been close to Christmas as there seemed to be a lot tinsel and general Christmas type stuff around, although I wasn't really paying attention closely enough.

I was on a mission to climb a very large mountain, and this trip started with a cable car journey. The cable car took us high up over the resort and over some Alpine forest, before we disappeared into thick cloud.

The car didn't come out of the cloud until we arrived at the top. It was at this point that I realised I was in some sort of jungle or swamp. I was suddenly very hot, and had to take all my thermal layers and coats off.

Once I was ready I joined the rest of the climbers and we tried to make our way through the jungle. It was a bit of a swamp and there was water up to my ankles almost the whole time. It was hot and sticky and very tough going.

The water seemed to be getting deeper as we went along, which made no sense as we were supposed to be going up hill. At this point, a few of the explorers decided they'd had enough and headed back. I decided to join them as I'd lost faith that we knew where we going.

We headed back to the cable car, which we got back to much quicker than the outward journey. As we headed back we all started putting our jackets on in preparation for the cold, and the man in the cable car started serving us hot gluwein which was really nice.

Freakiness: 5
Nightmare Factor: 5
Amusement Factor: 6
Enjoyability: 7
Coherence: 4
Vividness: 6

Dreamer's Block

I've not posted for a while, mainly because I haven't had too many dreams that I can remember clearly enough or were vivid enough to post. I've been very busy with various other things, so Cheese Surfing has taken a bit of a back seat, but I hope to get things back on track.

Cheese: Cheshire (approx 70g)

I was in an airport with my Aunt and we were boarding a plane to fly to New York. When we arrived we were met by another Aunt - my Aunt who lives in New Jersey and is on the other side of my family. She was waiting for us in a white Cadillac, and it seemed apparent that the three of us were going to take a road trip across the US together.

Very quickly we seemed to be on a fairly desolate highway (despite starting on the Eastern sea board, which generally does not have such roads). I was driving and the three of us were chatting away. Iggy Pop's 'Passenger' was on the stereo.

We stopped at a number of Motels along the way to be greeted by varying degrees of inbred hick morons, whom we tried not to offend in fear of them chasing us with shotguns. Unfortunately in one place the said idiot hicks did get upset and we had hot foot our way out of there, jumping in the car and driving off at great speed.

The hicks got into their pick ups and started to chase us. What had started out as a pleasant road trip seemed to have turned into a cross between Thelma & Louise and The Hitcher (although Rutger Hauer was nowhere to be seen).

Looking back at the hicks in my mirror, one of them seemed to be Kiefer Sutherland, and he was shouting at us, but we couldn't tell what he was saying. One of my aunts and I started shouting back as we have links to Sutherland clan, and we thought if we could persuade him we were one of his clan he might stop wanting to kill us.

At this point, I realised that they were driving properly crap pick ups and we were in a pretty quick Cadillac. I just put my foot down and they soon disappeared from my rear view mirror. Shortly afterwards we came to a junction that sign posted Los Angeles one way and San Francisco the other. I commented how there was no way I was going to choke on smog and get shot by a crack dealer, so we headed towards San Francisco.

It wasn't long before we were heading into San Francisco and driving down the ludicrously steep streets. It did occur to me that we'd driven across America in absurdly short space of time. We parked up and there was a gay club across the road. My aunts were well up for going in for the comedy value. So we went into the gay club which happened to have John Barrowman DJing. At this point I decided there was no other course of action available to me other than to get raucously drunk. Which I did with aplomb.

Freakiness: 6
Nightmare Factor: 7
Amusement Factor: 6
Enjoyability: 6
Coherence: 5
Vividness: 7

Living in the Garage

Cheese: Manchego (approx 80g)

For some reason we were moving and we found this really unusual house, which looked really nice when we went round to look at it. It was very large and spacious but had a really unusual layout with lots of rooms coming off the garage, including the kitchen and living room.

When we moved in, it seemed that all the rooms came off the garage, so going from the bedroom to the bathroom meant going through the garage. I'm sure it hadn't been like this when looked round, but maybe when we looked round we just hadn't looked closely enough.

Not only that, but the house seemed to be underground so there were no windows, which seemed really bizarre. Again we didn't seemed to have noticed this when looking round.

As we were moving stuff in I noticed a number of wasps in the garage and manage to find an enormous wasp's nest, but not normal wasps massive scary looking wasps.

I decided to try and take it down with the aid of an insect killing aerosol, although when I did this, the wasps just seemed to mutate into even bigger freakier wasps. At this point I also noticed a load of massive spiders in the corner of the garage.

The spiders seemed to be making their way towards the wasps, and before I knew what was going on there was all out war between the wasps and the spiders. The spiders just wrapped all the wasps up in webbing, and before long, the wasps had been easily contained.

I went back into the living room and couldn't help but think 'I can't believe we sold our house to live here'. Thankfully when I woke up, we hadn't.

Freakiness: 8
Nightmare Factor: 8
Amusement Factor: 3
Enjoyability: 2
Coherence: 3
Vividness: 7

Dreaming Gate One and a bit

I almost got through Castaneda's Second Gate of Dreaming the other night, but unfortunately was unable to hold the state long enough.

Cheese: Gorgonzola (approx 80g)

I had 2 dreams back to back, in which I closed in upon Castaneda's Second Gate of Dreaming, but was unable to maintain the state long enough.

In the first one, I was on a track going through a wood. It must have been around this time of year as the trees had just come out, and the leaves were still a bright light green.

I managed to find my hands almost straight away, and looked up in front of me to see white horse about 100 metres or so up the track. I figured that was probably my scout, and tried to get there.

There was a dip in the path before the horse, and then a brow to get over again once in the dip. As I briskly walked through the dip, the horse briefly disappeared from view, as I came up the brow, the horse had turned into a cow.

Once I got to the cow, I wasn't really sure what to do, I was expecting it to lead me off somewhere, but it just stared blankly at me. I tried to talking to it, but it was just a cow, and not a magic talking cow.

At this point I was unable to maintain the state of dreaming, and briefly woke up again. I felt I had been close to the second gate, as I was almost conscious during the dream.

I started dreaming again, and this time was crossing a street and saw an old friend from school. Finding my hands was easy as I put my hand out to shake his, and watched our hands touch and shake.

He looked exactly the same as he did 15+ years ago. We briefly chatted about what we'd been up to, and I was amazed and how vividly I could see his face. Unfortunately the state did not last, and I drifted off into dreamless, non-REM deep sleep.

Freakiness: 7
Nightmare Factor: 3
Amusement Factor: 3
Enjoyability: 7
Coherence: 6
Vividness: 10

Is There Anybody Out There?

It seems that there is. While visiting some of my favourite relatives, I met some readers - Jo and Dena (I hope I've spelled that right!)

It seems my cheese fuelled scribblings of insanity are not purely for my own enjoyment, which if nothing else makes me feel a little less indulgent. Although it also did make me realise that I'm not just talking to myself, and therefore feel obliged to provide something more of an explanation of why I'm undertaking this rather bizarre project.

First of all, I'm not really one of those people who thinks that dreams have some sort of special meaning - in my view my dreams are nothing more than a combination of my feelings and experiences processed by my brain when it is in neutral. I know there are some people who think if you have a certain type of dream it means you're anxious or paranoid or whatever, I look at it from the other direction, if you're anxious it will just come out in your dreams.

OK here's the deal, we all spend roughly 25 - 35% of our lives asleep, taking average life expectancy into account, that's around 20 - 25 years. A very long time, just ask someone in prison. Obviously you don't dream the whole time, but it's entirely likely that we spend up to 4 years of our lives in a dream like state.

How many of your dreams can you actually remember? Maybe one from the last few nights, and maybe a handful of others? Given the amount of time in your life you spend dreaming, it's a lot to forget. In many ways, that's the primary personal purpose of this blog for me, to enable me to get more out of my life by recording my dreams which would otherwise be forgotten.

Another reason is that often I will see or hear something that triggers a memory from a dream - sometimes a dream from many years ago, which can be a constant reminder of all the rich experiences were merely just forget because we happened to be asleep. It is my hope that after a while, when I have that experience of remembering a dream, I'll be able to look it up on this blog.

As for the cheese, well that's to try and give the dreams a bit of edge and make them a bit more vivid so they can stand out a bit more. I have had some amazing experiences dreaming on cheese. I'm also hoping (in vain) to start a whole movement of Cheese Surfing.

I would encourage anyone reading to post their own dreams, whether it be here, or by starting their own Cheese Surfing blog. If you would like to post anything here, just let me know in the comments section, and I'll sort a post out for you.

Refurbishment

I know it's been a while since I posted, but the dreams seem to have dried up a little recently, I shall have to try some more potent cheese.

Cheese: Edam (approx 50g)

I was in some bizarre shared house, although I'm not sure whether I was a student again or not. There was a very messy living room with a makeshift sofa made out of a bed. Everyone had just moved in, and was trying to decide who would get which room. It must have been a big house as there was about 8 people there.

It quickly transpired that deciding on rooms was going to be a problem as there seemed to be more rooms than people. The discussion got quite heated, although I wasn't really contributing to it, there already seemed to be too many people talking.

I remember looking around in the kitchen diner area, and it was a real tip. The kitchen area was pretty disgusting, and I was thinking 'I really don't want to live here.'

Thankfully, the guitarist from Right Said Fred was there (Fred Fairbrass according to Wikipedia). While everyone else was arguing he said to me and my wife that he was having his house refurbished, but was looking for someone to rent a room. I told him we were up for that. He said that the downstairs of the house wasn't finished yet, but the bathrooms and bedrooms were, and we could go and have a look.

We set off to his house on foot, and it was a hot and gloriously sunny day. His house happened to be on a road adjacent to my parent's house, by complete coincidence. When we got there, the house was indeed amazing, it was huge and beautiful, but the downstairs was a complete building site.

By complete coincidence, the work was being overseen by my dad's cousin (he's not a builder or an architect, so I'm not sure why) who also lives just round the corner. He was there with his younger daughter, making sure everything was being done to spec.

He saw us and stopped and chatted. He said he was confident the work would be completed in a few weeks and he was really pleased with how it was going and it would look amazing. We agreed to move in.

Freakiness: 5
Nightmare Factor: 4
Amusement Factor: 6
Enjoyability: 8
Coherence: 4
Vividness: 5

Bloodball

Cheese: Yorkshire Blue (approx. 50g)

I was in a sports hall - it was a big one. I was playing in a football match, but despite being indoor it was on a big pitch, and we were playing about 7 or 8 a side.

I wasn't sure what was at stake but the game was being taken very seriously, and there were quite a few people watching from a balcony above, including well-known biologist David Bellamy.

The game was becoming increasingly bad tempered and the tackles were flying. Some guy came flying into me, I managed to get out of the way, but I noticed he had sharpened blades attached to his boots.

There was a break in play, and I took the opportunity to put on some seriously hard core shin pads that completely covered my legs from the knee down and would have provided me with ample protection from the blades.

At this point I noticed our captain was Vinnie Jones. He was giving us a proper pep talk and telling us to get stuck in and not be bullied by 'these cunts'.

Shortly after play restarted, Vinnie was fouled and he reacted by head-butting the offending player. Everyone piled in, and I used this opportunity to grab hold of the ball and take a quick free kick. Amazingly the referee waved me on, and I dribbled up the field and put in a firm finish past the keeper, who happened to be a guy I'd worked with years back.

I didn't care though, I'd got the winner, although I wasn't going to hang around to celebrate as things were really kicking off, and I decided to bid a hasty retreat before getting sucked into the ruckus.

Freakiness: 6
Nightmare Factor: 7
Amusement Factor: 5
Enjoyability: 6
Coherence: 4
Vividness: 4

Blast from the Past

Cheese: Lincolnshire Poacher (approx 100g)

I was at a large stadium with my wife and we were coming out of a Whitney Houston gig (I don't know how I was ever persuaded to go to a Whitney Houston gig). I don't remember the gig itself, just leaving.

We went to the car park to find the car, and on the way I saw an ex-girlfriend from years ago. She was with her husband or boyfriend. She clearly clocked me, but didn't react and just blanked me. I wasn't going to say anything to her, but I did point her out to my wife once she was walking away.

We got in the car and started to drive off. For some reason this stadium was in the middle of the country, so we pulled out of the car park on to a tiny country lane, which bizarrely was completely deserted once we got round the first corner. I think everyone else was heading back into town via a main road on the other side of the stadium.

It was a beautiful day, with bright sunlight, which was also strange given that gigs take place in the evening, and this one had finished but the sun was still high in the sky.

A few miles down the road, and I noticed something flapping out of the back of the car and stopped to secure it. There seemed to be a massive piece of netting, some of which was in the boot, but the rest was trailing out of the boot of the car. I decided to take the netting out and fold it up properly.

The netting was only about 2 or 3 foot wide, but it was literally a couple of miles long, and I had to walk for what seemed like miles down the road to lay it out so I could fold it properly. The whole folding process took absolutely ages, but eventually I got it all folded up and put it in the boot, and we drove off.

Freakiness: 4
Nightmare Factor: 5
Amusement Factor: 5
Enjoyability: 6
Coherence: 6
Vividness: 5

Monsters in The Parasol

Cheese: Isle of Mull (approx 100g)

I was driving down a motorway in a camper van with my wife and some friends and Giles Brandreth. I'm not sure what Brandreth was doing there, but he was pissing me right off, the irritating twat!

The motorway was completely deserted, I'm not sure why as it was the middle of the day, but we didn't see a soul. I'm not sure where we going, but we stopped by the side of the motorway next to some woods for a picnic.

It sounds strange to have a picnic by the side of the motorway, but as there was no-one on the motorway at all, it was actually nice and quiet. We got a folding picnic table out along with garden chairs and a parasol. It was all very civilised. Although Brandreth was annoying everyone by going on about the process of sun drying tomatoes.

There was a very strange noise coming from the woods. It sounded like a roar, but different. We were all a little bit unnerved. We then heard a similar noise, but closer. It then dawned on us that we seemed to be the only people in the world and maybe it was an idea to move on.

We packed up all the stuff in a bit of a hurry, and just as we were climbing into the camper van, a Tyrannosaurus Rex came out of the woods looking like it was hungry. We all piled into the van and I put my foot down. As I looked in the rear view mirror, I realised we'd left Giles Brandreth behind.

The T-Rex stooped down and took hold of Brandreth in its jaws. As it lifted its head high up, I couldn't believe how spindly and pathetic Brandreth's legs looked poking out of the T-Rex's mouth as they kicked for dear life. The T-Rex tossed him up the air and he was gone in two bites.

"Fuck, it's diced up Brandreth!" I shouted.

It clearly wasn't done and came running down the carriage way after us. There was no way we were going to outrun it in a battered old camper van. I could see a junction up ahead, and thought maybe I could give it the slip.

It came up on the inside, I swung hard left, through its legs, across the chevrons and on to the slip road heading down to the roundabout at the bottom. For a moment I thought the camper van was going to tip over, but I held it firm.

The T-Rex lost us for a moment, and although it saw us go down the slip road, I took a right at the roundabout, under the motorway, giving us enough cover to give it the slip. At this point, I started to wonder where we were. We were on the banks of a river, and I could see more dinosaurs across the river.

It was clear we weren't safe on land. After a quick discussion, it was decided the best thing to do would be to find a boat. I looked at a road sign and I can genuinely say for the first time in my life I thought "Thank God, we're in Hull!"

As we drove along the side of the river, we came to some boats moored by a jetty. We pulled up and quickly got on board the biggest boat, loading on as much stuff as we could find. We then headed out to sea.

Freakiness: 8
Nightmare Factor: 9
Amusement Factor: 5
Enjoyability: 5
Coherence: 8
Vividness: 6

Carny Fun

Cheese: Norwegian Jarlsberg (approx 100g)

I had this dream a few days ago, it was quite bizarre and a little difficult to piece together afterwards.

I was at some sort of festival or carnival with my wife and some friends. There were all sorts of rides and weird and wonderful sights there. Clowns, people on stilts, people breathing fire, game stalls, everything really.

My wife was wearing a very short dress and was quite drunk and was generally leading the merry dance as we wandered from stall to stall and field to field. She seemed to be loving it and absolutely in her element.

At one point we went into a circus tent where comedian and television presenter Rufus Hound was the ring master. He was taming lions, in a big hat that had 'Lion Tamer' written on it in big neon letters.

Unfortunately he wasn't very good at it, as one of the lions chewed his arm off. But credit to him, he fought back with the other arm, and continued to whip the lions with one arm, while the other spurted blood. The loss of blood was causing him to become less coherent and clearly less conscious. Thankfully Jimmy Carr came in and managed to drag him out.

Unfortunately Jimmy Carr was not eaten by the lions, although we were all shouting at the lions to eat him.

When we left the tent it was dark, and we went to a stone circle where my mate who now lives in Australia was twirling his firestaff standing on top of one of the stones. When he saw me he got down and we started chatting. He said he was in town for the carnival but was going back to Australia very shortly. He said he had some spare tickets and me and my wife should go with him.

I was well up for a free trip to Australia. He said to meet him at the airport. We continued to explore the festival, my wife was also up for going to Australia, but was also easily distracted by the bright lights of the carnival. She was also pretty wankered on what I think was strawberry cider.

Co-ordinating her became rather difficult. I managed to get her in the vicinity of the car so I could try and get some stuff packed, but I started to realise that getting home to pack and then getting to the airport wasn't going to happen.

We tried to head home but there was a massive queue leaving the carnival, my mate rang me while we trying to get out, and we'd missed the flight. I was gutted. The festival had been ace though, and I'd got to see my friend.

Freakiness: 8
Nightmare Factor: 7
Amusement Factor: 7
Enjoyability: 6
Coherence: 2
Vividness: 5

Ice Assault

Cheese: Yarg (approx 100g)

I was at my work, it was cold outside and there was thick snow on the ground. We all had to go out on some sort of treasure hunt type thing where we had clue and had to search for more clues. This treasure hunt was being run by former Blue Peter presenter Sarah Greene.

When I got back to the office, I was on the first floor and the floor started to collapse in the corner, next to where the next door office is doing building work. As a result everyone had to leave the building.

As we filed out, some unpleasant bully started throwing snowballs at Sarah Greene. I decided to stop him by pushing on the roof of the smoking shelter, causing an avalanche of snow to fall on his head, completely burying him.

Through the snow he threatened to kick my ass, so I just picked up a massive lump of iced-up snow and chucked on the pile of snow he was already under.

Freakiness: 6
Nightmare Factor: 5
Amusement Factor: 6
Enjoyability: 6
Coherence: 3
Vividness: 3

New Adventures in Chaource

I had a really cool dream at the weekend, wrote down a load of notes as soon as I woke up, but didn't get round to writing it up until yesterday, when I came to look at my notes I couldn't remember anything. I'm going to have to learn to write up faster!

Cheese: Chaource (approx 60g)

Dream 1

I was driving in a car with some of my American relatives, we were going to a wedding of some people I really couldn't stand (although I'm not sure who they were). I made no secret of my disdain in the car.

We drove through some torrential downpours which led to concern about getting very wet when we got there. Luckily my uncle had packed some polythene rain ponchos to keep us dry.

We eventually parked up somewhere, donned our ponchos and proceeded to walk to the wedding. Some way down the road we realised we'd forgotten to buy a parking ticket. My uncle explained that we just needed to leave a note of his zip code on the car, and then it would be OK. I memorised his zip code went back to the car and left a note.

We then walked up to the wedding. Everyone was wearing really bad 70s suits, with very frilly dress shirts. I just thought everyone looked like a twat. It then started to rain very heavily and everyone except us got wet, because we had our ponchos. This was excellent because everyone hid under the tables, but we were able to snaffle everything at the buffet, as there was no-one else eating. We had to do this quickly, as the food started to get soggy.

Freakiness: 6
Nightmare Factor: 4
Amusement Factor: 4
Enjoyability: 6
Coherence: 7
Vividness: 6


Dream 2

I was out with a friend of mine and we were drinking in some old pub somewhere - well I was drinking, he doesn't drink. There were quite a few people dotted around that I knew, including a really mouthy kid from school who used to get on my tits.

At one point, some lesbian started kicking off with me, accusing me of being a homophobe, despite the fact that I'm not and hadn't done or said anything which justified her accusations. The mouthy kid from school tried to stir saying I'd said this, that and the other, I think he just had a chip on his shoulder because he came out as bisexual a year or two after we left school.

I told him to shut up. He didn't, so I punched him in the mouth. Not hard, but enough so he would get the message.

At this point, the lesbian's partner showed up, and she was heavily pregnant with her bulge on full display. She was a proper angry lesbian and started asking me if I was going to punch a pregnant woman, obviously I said no, then she said that she 'bet I had at some point'.

Then she started saying that I must have a problem with a pregnant lesbian. I told her to fuck right off and that she had no place judging me, and if she wasn't an utter scumbag, she'd be more concerned with her unborn child than abusing random strangers.

My mate started laughing at her and called her a pathetic retard. She disappeared after that. My mate gave me a lift home, but on the way, I realised I'd forgotten my coat so we had to go back. The pub was dark and deserted when we got back, it was quite freaky, but I got my coat and my mate gave me a lift home.

Freakiness: 8
Nightmare Factor: 8
Amusement Factor: 3
Enjoyability: 4
Coherence: 6
Vividness: 5

Dreaming Gate 1

A breakthrough. With the help of some particularly strong Lancashire cheese, I was able to pass through Castaneda's 1st Gate of Dreaming. I have only achieved this on a few occasions in the last few years.

I succeeded in finding my hands which bring about a much more heightened and intense state of dreaming. Unfortunately, the heightened level of self awareness it brings so far leads me to realise I'm dreaming, and it makes it difficult to sustain the state.

Unfortunately it's been so long since I read any of Castaneda's work, I couldn't remember what to do next - find and follow a Scout. As a result, I got stuck having gone through Gate 1.

Cheese: Lancashire (approx 100g)

I was sitting on the back seat of a bus, I must have been in a heightened state, because I realised I was, and instinctively thought to look at my hands. I looked down at my hands and turned them over (I think this may be the beginning of Gate 2).

I looked up and the back of the bus where I was sitting was pretty busy. I was in the middle of the back seat, there was a dodgy looking man facing me to the left, a mother and her child to my immediate left and an old lady facing me to the right. I didn't pay too much attention to them as I was trying to see where the bus was going. It was heading down a suburban street towards a T-junction.

I was aware of two noisy children sat the other side of the dodgy man, but I could see them as he was in the way.

Unfortunately I was not able to maintain the state for very long.

Freakiness: 8
Nightmare Factor: 6
Amusement Factor: 2
Enjoyability: 5
Coherence: 10
Vividness: 10

Strange Parties

Cheese: Brie (approx 60g)

Someone I knew from school was having a birthday party. There was a cabaret act, and some guy turned up before hand with a trunk full of stuff for his cabaret act with the names of famous people he impersonated on the side - Frank Sinatra, Elvis, Elton John etc.

People started to arrive for the party and after a while the cabaret act started. Everyone stood at one end of the room watching the cabaret act. I was at the back. The entertainment seemed to involve people in freaky black and white masks.

For some reason I was lying on the floor at the back, looking up. One of the acts seemed to peer over the top of everyone and was looking down at me. He threw a piece of paper at me, which on closer inspection was some sort of origami figure. He motioned me to throw it back to him. This game of catch continued for a while.

After the cabaret act had finished everyone got drunk. I woke up the next morning still in the venue where the party had taken place. In the reception are there was an elderly Indian couple with a camcorder. They had recorded the previous night's festivities and were showing people what they'd filmed. I watched some of it and there was footage of the party and people talking and drinking. There was also some footage of the entertainment, which seemingly had been a Chinese Dragon, which I hadn't realised as I'd been lying on the floor.

Freakiness: 8
Nightmare Factor: 4
Amusement Factor: 6
Enjoyability: 5
Coherence: 4
Vividness: 5

Seriously Odd

A very freaky dream, from what could be a potentially volatile cocktail of cheese.

Cheese: A cocktail of Brie, Stilton and Cheddar (had as part of a cheeseboard in a restaurant)

This dream was quite strange, but I do remember a specific segment very clearly. We were hanging around in a house (not a house I've ever seen before), there was me, my dad, my sister and a couple of other people (although I can't remember who).

There had clearly been a party as there were empty cans and glasses everywhere. It must have been the next morning, as it was daylight and we were all in our pyjamas watching TV.

There was a knock on the door, we got up to see who it was and it was a family down the street who had invited us over for lunch. It turned out the dad was Ray Winstone. We said we'd get ready and come down.

A bit later we all piled into the car (I'm not sure why, when we were only going down the road). Ray Winstone was outside and pointed out that we were still in our pyjamas and called us a bunch of "fackin' muppets".

None of us had remembered to get dressed. Ray also had his two sons and daughter there. His daughter was Lucy Davis from The Office (despite the fact her dad is Jasper Carrott). Slightly embarrassed we went back inside to get dressed.

I went out the back of the house to find my wife. It seemed the garden backed on to a lake and she was in a rowing boat on the lake. Unfortunately the rowing boat had run aground, so I had to wade in to rescue her. I had to try and pull the boat off the pebbly lake bottom and was digging away the stones to do this. Eventually I managed to get the rowing boat afloat again, and was pushing it back towards some sort of jetty.

At this point I was attacked by a crocodile, which I was surprised about given that crocodiles tend not to reside in fresh water lakes in Northern Europe. I kicked it off the first time, but then it came back for another bite. The struggle was so intense I woke up with a shock again.


Freakiness: 7
Nightmare Factor: 7
Amusement Factor: 5
Enjoyability: 5
Coherence: 8
Vividness: 7

Snowboard from the Past

I've been busy for the last week or so, therefore I'm doing a double-hit. Here's post one.

Cheese: Cheddar (melted on toast)

I was snowboarding on piste on a mountain somewhere, I was with a number of people, but the only one I recall was a former friend from school who I was very good friends with at school, but I don't think I've seen them for about 12 years.

I went up and down one slope several times, it was very long and quite steep in places. It was a bit hairy but also great fun. There were often snowball fights going on at the bottom of the slope. Bizarrely there was also a shoe shop there.

After a few runs me and my friend decided to go up to the top of the mountain. We disappeared into the cloud and kept getting on more and more lifts. Eventually we broke through the cloud and into the sunshine.

We got to the top of the mountain where our log cabin was. Strangely there was also a road going up there too. We decided to snowboard all the way home. Before doing so we packed all our stuff into my car which someone else was going to drive down for us.

At that point my friend disappeared off the edge of the mountain and flew down the incredibly steep snow clad sides. I tightened my bindings, pulled my goggles on and let fly down the mountain side. The adrenaline rush was so great I woke up with a shock.

Freakiness: 6
Nightmare Factor: 6
Amusement Factor: 6
Enjoyability: 8
Coherence: 4
Vividness: 6

Dreamer's Block

I've had a bit of dreamers block recently, some very nice Wensleydale Blue seemed to have no effect at all.

However a bit of Swaledale Goat's Cheese seemed to provoke some dreaming action.

Cheese: Swaledale Goat (approx. 80g)

This dream was not very coherent at all and I can only remember bits and pieces.

I was trying to fix an IT system that was immensely complex, trying to figure out how it worked was proving very difficult indeed. It had clearly been written in a very cryptic way.

I was just starting to make some progress on it when a senior IT manager from my work came over and told me that if I didn't have it sorted in a week I'd be sacked.

I reacted very badly to this and told him fuck right off. To hammer the point home, I stood over him and glowered down on him. He started to back track very quickly. I was the only person around who could sort this out (as I'd been brought in explicitly to do so).

He then said that obviously 'I wouldn't be in trouble' if I couldn't do it in time. I called him a silly cunt and told him that he'd better get 'the fuck out of my face'. This was extremely cathartic!

He disappeared off and I continued to work. I made some decent progress until my cousin Louis showed up unexpectedly from Chicago and asked me if I wanted to smoke a bong. It was packed full of lush smelly skunk. I was fairly reluctant as I was working, but he persuaded me to at least take a break for a bit, even if I wasn't going to smoke the bong.

We went outside and found ourselves in the middle of a concert. After a few minutes of wondering what was going on Blind Melon came on to play (despite being defunct since the death of their lead singer in 1994). During the gig I had an epiphany about the IT system I'd been looking at and went back inside at the end of the gig to go and sort it out.

When I got in there, my wife had already fixed it all, in exactly the way I was going to do it, despite the fact that she has no previous commercial IT experience. I was very proud of her, but also slightly annoyed that I hadn't got to implement the rather clever solution myself.

Freakiness: 7
Nightmare Factor: 6
Amusement Factor: 5
Enjoyability: 8
Coherence: 3
Vividness: 4

Interview Dream

Very strange and long-winded dream last night. Not sure I can remember all of it, but here goes.

Cheese: Blue Wensleydale (approx 100g)

During my lunch break, I'd gone for an interview at a place I used to work at years ago. I'm not sure why I'd gone, I really hated working there. I turned up to be interviewed by my old boss, who was a nice enough guy but was really wet and pathetic and right pain in the arse to work for as he had no idea how to manage and had no idea how to organise his own work, let alone anyone elses.

For this reason, I wasn't that keen, but he did explain he'd employ as an outside contractor. I told him there was no way I'd even consider it unless he paid £500 a day - I was very surprised when he happily agreed to do so. Even doing that job could be tolerated for that sort of money. After being treated like shit in that place it felt very satisfying to take that sort of money off them.

He told me that the project would last 12 - 18 months, and involved writing a back-end to go behind a Flash-based web application. I gave him the whole interview spiel about a very similar project I'd done, and went into all sorts of technical detail which I won't bore you with. At this point, I was thinking 'Kerching! gravy train alert!'

He was keen and offered me the position, but said I need to meet some woman first, and took me off to meet her. Although where we went was not around my old work - it was the same company, but clearly it was a different location. We walked through various buildings and offices and I saw a few familiar faces, but no sign of this woman.

At this point I realised I'd been out at lunch for about an hour and a half and still wasn't even on my way back in. I made my excuses and headed off. I was driving back (randomly past my old flat - no where near where I work or where I used to work), and I got stuck behind a bus at some little contra-flow traffic lights. It was on a hill and my car started sliding down the hill a bit. So I put the handbrake on.

I then went home, I'm not sure why when I was supposed to be going back to work. There was a bird loose in the house. This was most annoying and I had to try and coax it out.

Freakiness: 7
Nightmare Factor: 8
Amusement Factor: 2
Enjoyability: 4
Coherence: 8
Vividness: 7

Control Dream

Particularly vivid dream, but without the aid of any cheese whatsoever. Maybe I need to up the cheese dosage.

Cheese: None

I was in Australia with my friend who lives in Sydney. We were doing a road trip across Australia and were doing a lot of driving through the outback. The weather was very hot but it was sunny and beautiful. I particularly remember strong sunlight making the earth and the sky particularly intense with colour.

After a while of cruising through the outback we got to Sydney. At this point I realised that I was driving my car and start to freak out a bit about how I was going to get my car back to the UK. I'm not sure how my car got out there in the first place, but this didn't calm down my panic around how I was going to get it home.

After a while we got a ferry to Korea, and I figured I could drive back from Korea. Once we were in Korea, we went to get something to eat, but making ourselves understood was very difficult indeed. I was desperately trying to explain that I'd have anything as long as it wasn't dog.

The next thing I remember was waking up in hospital back in the UK. It was July 22nd and I worked out I'd been unconscious for over 2 months as I think it had been May when I was in Korea (I'm not sure how I knew it had been May in Korea).

I was quite shocked by this leaped out of bed and tried to book a flight to Korea so I could go and get my car back.

Freakiness: 7
Nightmare Factor: 6
Amusement Factor: 4
Enjoyability: 6
Coherence: 8
Vividness: 8

Guest Post: Caramac Kryptonite

Guest Post from RG:


Culprit-Pizza Hut Pepparoni Feast

For some reason I was at the local fire station waiting for the bus, the bus arrived and everything was fine and dandy. All of a sudden the bus turned into one of those cooling towers and the driver carried on as normal. All of a sudden the bus was propelled into orbit via the steam within the cooling towers.

For some reason I was unable to move or speak, but I was watching Thundercats on my MP3 player, this may have some reasoning behind my paralized body. I then ended up in Birmingham, Me, Liz and some others from work were going to get a train to go to see Avatar at the cinema. We bought loads of provisions; this consisted of the basics, Coca cola, Caramac bars and space raiders. We were then running to the cinema to watch Avatar.

All of a sudden the cinema was transformed into the train station. We were running to the train station and we missed the train from the Birmingham NEC, so we run up some stairs and then all of a sudden a 100 statues came to life and started to attack us. The statues were similar to the blue guy from Watchmen. They were around a 100 metres high, grey statues and they began to omit large lasers through their mouths. The lasers were Green and cut through everything in their paths.

They then released some hybrid Tigerlions. We were all scared and hid behind the columns in the station. The Tigerlions were sniffing about. This is when we decided to use the Caramac bars and space raiders to our advantage. We smeared the Caramac on a train at the station along with ample supply of beef space raider crisps. This scent attracted the Tigerlions and then the train blew up.


Post by RG

Return of the Cheese Surfer

The Cheese Surfer returns. I did bring back some mind bendingly strong cheese, but I accidentally left it in a fridge in London. Oh Well.

Last night's experience was with a lump of good old English Cheddar.

Cheese: Cheddar (approx. 60g)

This dream was very hazy, some of it was clear, but I think I had it sometime before waking up, so it was difficult to recall.

I remember climbing up a big wide stair case. I was going to work, but this wasn't my office, and I wasn't wearing work clothes. I took my shoes off at the top of the stairs and went through a door on the right into the office (which wasn't my normal office). I was a bit worried that I didn't have my work clothes on, but it was soon apparent that no-one else did either.

The office was black, but had large windows on the right as I walked in, so it was very light. I sat down at my desk and turned my computer on.

After a while trainers started being handed out to people - everyone had left their shoes at the top of the stairs on the way in. These trainers were proper pimp trainers, with gold stripes and pink bits on them. They looked absolutely ridiculous - Usain Bolt on acid.

We all got different pairs, and I put on the pair I'd been given, which thankfully were fairly plain, they were white Nike trainers with a gold stripe down the side. After a while I realised I was wearing two right foot trainers.

Suddenly walking became very difficult. It wasn't just me either, people were going arse over tit all over the shop!

This is all I can remember.

Freakiness: 6
Nightmare Factor: 5
Amusement Factor: 7
Enjoyability: 5
Coherence: 3
Vividness: 3

A Short Break

The Cheese Surfer is taking a break for a week's holiday.

However, I do hope to return with some mind-bendingly strong cheese.

Caerphilly

Dropped some Caerphilly last night. Some interesting results.

Cheese: Caerphilly (approx 50g)

The dream was mainly based around travelling and cars. I'd somehow managed to crash my Ford Mondeo, but thankfully a friend from work (Liz) offered me a lift (I'm not sure where I was going).

Liz was driving a very small car, I'm not sure what kind of car it was, but we had to stop to refuel, and the process of refuelling became highly convoluted. It seems that Liz's car was some sort of hydrogen cell powered car that needed refuelling with a kind of special gas.

We had to connect all sorts of pipes together, and there was quite a lot of water leaking out as we tried to get the fuel pump working properly. Eventually Liz left me to it, as she had to go home for something. She left me vague directions to drop the car off later.

After managing eventually to refuel successfully, I drove off in Liz's car, but took a wrong turn and got quiet lost. I ended up by a large lake out in the countryside somewhere, and was really struggling to figure out where I was.

Thankfully, nearby John Travolta and local news reader Christa Ackroyd were having a picnic. I asked them where I was and they told me. At that point, I realised I could just get out my iPhone, figure out where I was, put in Liz's postcode and figure out how to get there.

I thanked John Travolta and Christa Ackroyd and got back in the car and headed off. It was very easy and I found my way back to Liz's house. I parked the car in her driveway, waved at her through the window and walked home.

The fact that my iPhone was in my dream probably means I'm a complete geek.

Freakiness: 5
Nightmare Factor: 4
Amusement Factor: 6
Enjoyability: 6
Coherence: 8
Vividness: 6

Picos Blue

Tried out a Spanish Blue cheese with some interesting effects.

Cheese: Picon Bleu

This dream was very intense at the time but became very difficult to recall, despite my notes, within a few hours of waking up.

There was a kidnapped child, which I found in a log cabin in a forest. It was unclear whether I had been looking for the child or just happened upon it. The log cabin was very smart, quite large and very well equipped.

While trying to figure out what to do with the kidnapped child, Vernon Kaye arrived to fit new uPVC double glazed doors, as the old ones were pretty draughty. I told him if he started talking about Bolton I'd punch him in the mouth. Within a minute I'd punched him in the mouth and told him to get on with changing the doors.

I'm not sure why I was telling him this as it wasn't my log cabin. At that point I could hear some soldiers coming through the woods looking for the child. I don't know why, but my instinct was to run. So I ran off through the woods.

I came to a frozen river (I'm not sure why it was frozen as it wasn't at all cold). In the ice I could see the face of a woman - not a frozen body in the ice, but the moving living image of a face in the ice. I tried to talk to her but I the soldiers had caught up with me.

The General was standing across the river from me, for some reason it was Jack Davenport - the guy from Pirates of The Caribbean, Talented Mr Ripley (and less impressively, Coupling). He nicked me, handcuffed me and put me in the back of a personnel carrier with Lenny Henry, who told crap jokes until I woke up.

Freakiness: 6
Nightmare Factor: 8 (Lenny Henry bad jokes, very scary)
Amusement Factor: 4
Enjoyability: 4
Coherence: 3
Vividness: 6

Unintentional Surfing

I was not intending on doing any explicit Cheese Surfing last night, however, I unwittingly went for a surf by eating a large pizza shortly before bed, which was stacked with Mozzarella.

The results were the most bizarre and out there experience I've had since starting to log my dreams.

Cheese: Mozzerella

This dream started in some sort of book club or maybe a film club. There were a lot of people there and it was being chaired by Heather Locklear, who I found dull and pretentious. Mind you, this is my true opinion of her (she married that tit Sambora from Bon Jovi - an utterly shite band).

I'm not sure where we were, but it was a long way from home as I was staying in a hotel. There was this woman from work there who I really can't stand and she started heading back to the same hotel, but luckily I managed to give her the slip.

I got back to the hotel which was really big and really plush. I also seemed to have picked up a seriously sexy Asian bird - she was wearing a suit and was really hot. I checked into the hotel with the Asian girl - this wasn't by intention it just sort of happened.

We headed off to our room, we were going to get in a lift, but instead headed round the corner and seemed to go through a maze of corridors and stairs to find our room. The room seemed to be hidden, as we needed a ladder to get into it.

I climbed the ladder and went into the room, it was strange, because I had to climb the ladder to get in, but then dropped down into the room. It had bunk beds and a nice bathroom. It didn't look like a hotel room. There were posters of footballers all over the walls.

It was strange because they were footballers from the 90s, there was Peter Schmeichel, Robbie Fowler and a massive one of Gary McAllister. Once I started looking closely at these posters, they started moving, particularly the one of Gary McAllister, who seemed to be making a typically forthright run through the midfield for Leeds. I can't remember what the Asian girl was doing at this point.

The next day, I headed out of the hotel (the Asian girl seemed to have disappeared by this point) and went for another meeting of the book/film club, but this one was in a field somewhere, it was a not sunny day. After a while, I got bored of Heather Locklear prattling on and decided to head off.

I walked back to town - it was a really long way through the countryside, but on a dead straight path, so I could see all the way back to the field from several miles down the track. I got back to the edge of town and seemed to find myself in some American teen drama TV program, as I was surrounded by hot women who couldn't act, and were all about 27 despite playing 16 year olds.

I hung around for a while and then went into an out house. There were a couple of fireman there who were testing out some new fire suits and a new hose. They were testing out the waterproofness of the suits by taking it turns to power hose each other. This looked awesome and I had a go. I remember being sent flying across the room by this hose, but inside the safety of the suit it was great fun!

Freakiness: 8
Nightmare Factor: 4
Amusement Factor: 7
Enjoyability: 7
Coherence: 8
Vividness: 9