Those Places of Which We Dream

Like footsteps before bedtime - you know when you walk through the dream? I wonder many things, tell me a story please? I had a dream which I wish I'd written before so that you would believe me, but I told enough people and I guess a blog is essentially for myself so it is alright.

I dreamt that I was walking up the road to Christchurch lying grey against the morning sky. It was overcast and heavy, the high pressure which in Dublin make 8 degrees feel a heck of a lot warmer than it really is. I could feel the dusty taste of my childhood on my tongue; the taste of clean dirt that recalls the community centre and all those videos projected against the dull yellow breeze-block walls that remind me of the problems, the struggles, that may not affect everyone but are part of my heritage.

On my left was a post office or a bank. Suddenly all these policemen growled in on their motorbikes, lining up in a row outside the homeless hostel. Then I knew there was something wrong. I knew there was a bomb. I turned to run, and stupidly, despite my assurance that I am calm under stressful situations, I ran towards them. Last minute, I realised what I was doing and fled. The noise was out, the revving heavy on the sullen air. I had to run towards the bomb. A policeman grabbed my right arm but it was too late and time to dive. I threw myself onto the concrete path, and lay for several seconds, expecting. What an awful wait. But nothing can make you feel ready. When the building exploded, rubble rained down and I found myself choking as the dust began to settle. The policeman still had his hand on my arm, and I wondered if I would survive until I was found. I tried to make a little cocoon of air with my crossed arms, hugging it and breathing til they came.

Even though the dust was settling in my dream, I awoke in full flight and managed to give myself a blackeye before I realised what was going on. I was sweating and upset, by my shoddy reaction and by the intensive feeling that something big was about to happen in the world and in somewhere I knew well. The knowledge was irrefutable and I consoled myself that it had to be one or the other, couldn't possibly be both.

I realised that the reason the policeman still had his hand on me was because he was dead.

I took myself into work, destraught. I told my colleagues and I wrote to my sister. We have an old tradition that if one of us dreams of something bad we tell the other, and provided that we didn't both have the same dream, that it won't happen if we tell it.

That morning there was a bomb which exploded in my home area. Also that morning, was the bombing in London.

I know that it seems like a coincidence, but the thing is I had a similar dream on the morning that London announced that it was going to have the Olympics last year. It's not that my dreams precede the event, but it does affect me. What is the link, why do I dream of it?

I have more general news to tell but it can wait. This was all I wanted to share for now.