Thursday 17 April 2008

Unfair cop

A diversion back to dream blogging. Here's last night's:

The morning after a night out drinking with a mate, we were sat having breakfast and coffee, idly recounting what we could remember of the night before. Suddenly, a quiet but nagging thought at the back of my mind made itself known: had we been in trouble with the police last night?

Yes my mate exclaimed, we were detained for being drunk and disorderly!

We discussed this with much amusement - clearly we were still pissed - but couldn't even remember whether we had spent the night in a police cell, or been released and found ourselves back at my flat.

Later, we had a further visit from the police, who took us down the station (though it was lit more like a quiet country bar) to run through the events of the night before. They made us wait for a long while, and then came in and started telling us things and asking us questions: their manner was overly jovial and matey, but with more than a hint of a sinister edge. They showed us CCTV images of us, clearly the worse for wear but appearing to have a good time, as they reeled off a litany of moral judgments on the vagaries of being drunk and disorderly.

I don't think they charged us: maybe a caution, then we were released. We were discussing the whole scenario, then suddenly it struck me: sure, we had been drunk, but nothing they had presented us with showed us to have been disorderly, not by any stretch of the imagination. So we had been cautioned for something we hadn't done, but had allowed ourselves to have been sufficiently daunted by the police to not even think of questioning what they were saying. We went and got drunk to commiserate.

Basically what my brain is telling me is, as far as I can see, that I question authority (of whatever kind) far less often than I should in situations where it counts. As a result, every so often I find myself having to dig myself out of a scenario which I've allowed myself to get into but which I could have avoided had I stood my ground.

Frustrating as that is (i.e. very, since it relates to something recent and specific), I was glad to realise once I regained consciousness this morning that I hadn't actually been detained last night, so vivid was the sequence of events in the dream.

6 comments:

Reading the Signs said...

I don't know - I really feel that dreams are coded messages, but sometimes it feels as though they have more resonance when I don't try to interpret. I've recently begun keeping a dream journal.

trousers said...

Hi signs - they seem to work in a number of ways for me:

often, like this one, they convey a general truth but relating to a specific situation;

often, probably like this one, what I see as the obvious meaning isn't the only one, and there are deeper subtexts lurking around

often, hopefully not like this one, I see a meaning but someone else can point out something in it which is far nearer the mark than my own interpretation

often, unlike this one, they're so bizarre that there seems to be no point in even trying to decipher them

There's plenty of others I could add to the above, but that would quickly become tedious (if it hasn't already). I think this blog is, intermittently, starting to function like a dream journal :)

DJ Kirkby said...

a very lucid dream! I am impressed that you try to interpret yours, I wouldn't even attempt that with mine! MUST do a blog post with one or two of mine for your entertainment sometime...

zola a social thing said...

I had a dream.
In it I found the missing sock between Trousers and Reality.

trousers said...

Oh please do, dj, it's usually the case that other people's dreams are entertaining to read. As far as interpreting goes, dreams like this one don't require much effort (bearing in mind my response to signs), it's more the case that the meaning, at least in its most immediate sense, leaps out. When things are on your mind, dreams tend to mirror them right back at you - or at least that's what happens for me.

zola, I'm not worthy.
Mind you, I'm sure the Sock Rabbit stole from me the item of footwear/missing link that you mention. Reality? Who kneads it...

DJ Kirkby said...

I've tagged you.