The Alien Planet

I am a commander on-board a large space vessel. It does contain military personnel but this does not appear to be a military vessel and it contains a huge civilian population and their families.

The dream starts from outside the vessel looking down onto it. It is a large, old ship that has seen many years of service. There are no obvious features to it.

We are travelling towards a rocky planet and appear to be trapped in the gravity of either the planets or the star. The old engines are struggling to keep up so we decide to throttle back and go into orbit to give the engineering teams time to work on the ship.

Fast forward and we have landed in one of the boats on the surface of an apparently habitable planet. We do not need any special equipment to breathe, for example. We have landed near an abandoned modern village but the buildings are in disrepair. The groups consists of military personnel and a small group of families who needed a break from their time in space. It is dusk at our location. We take shelter in the abandoned buildings and settle down for the night.

At night, things take an altogether odd turn. Unusual light effects fill my room and seem to walk along the walls. At first I wonder if it is an alien intelligence but I feel it must be an hallucination. I feel no threat or danger from these effects. It is obvious from the noise in the area that I am not alone and this reassures me, but also worries me. What could be causing these hallucinations? The children seem to be enjoying the light show.

The night seems to be over quickly and one of my men enters my room to tell me that they are preparing to move on. As I am still experiencing the hallucinations I order him to go on ahead and take the families. The sun is starting to rise.

As the sun rises the hallucinations slowly die away and I prepare myself to move on and catch up with the rest of the group, which I can see in the distance out of the window. I have a better view of our location and it is a dry, dusty planet. While I'm getting ready another soldier enters the room and explains that he also stayed behind for the same reasons that I did. We both leave together and start running to catch up with the other group.

As the sun rises the temperature of the planet starts to rise dramatically. It becomes clear that the group will not survive the daytime temperatures without water and shade and so we increase our speed to catch up.

During our travels the light becomes brighter and brighter. It becomes obvious to me that the intensity of the light could damage our eyes and we have not brought any eye protection with us for the civilians. We are now too distant from the landing boat to return before the heat becomes a serious problem.

The sun rises fully above the horizon when I notice that there is a smaller, redder star alongside it. We appear to have landed on a planet with a binary star system: something I should have been aware of as the commander of the mission. The temperature of the planet is now intolerable as we reach the larger group. I am concerned that it could even be a trinary system and so prepare to give the order to take cover for the day.

I arrive at another abandoned village and cannot see any of the group. Myself and the other soldier enter an abandoned building which has very small windows. There is a group of families already huddled inside. I shout out of the door to the rest of team and receive an answer. The whole group have taken cover in the various buildings. I tell everyone to breathe through their noses and keep their mouths closed to reduce dehydration, and to use a rag to reduce the amount of dust they breathe in if possible. Via our radios I inform the soldiers that we will have to stay in the shade for the majority of the day and wait for the suns to start setting before moving on. It will be impossible for us to leave the building in search of water given the high temperatures, but that the team should keep an eye open for a possible route out of the town, and not to put their eyesight at risk.

There is some cloth covering the window to reduce the amount of incoming light. The families seem scared as they huddle inside the buildings. It comes to mind that the baking heat may cause the temperature inside the building to increase dramatically, and we may need to abandon the buildings altogether. There is no obvious route out of the village while the suns are still up and we have no idea how long the days last.

And then I woke up.

But what does it all mean?

The Lovely Dragons

My story begins at home. I am in the front garden when a fantastical episode occurs: colourful dragons start landing in the field not far from me. They have incredible, vivid colours. At first I am amazed that nobody else seems to have witnessed such a spectacular event, but I quickly get over it and rush to see the dragons up close.

Without any obvious health and safety assessment I climb aboard one of the dragons, who luckily doesn't seem to mind, and we whizz off on a wonderful airborne adventure. They seemed friendly.

On my return I tell my parents of the marvellous event, but they don't seem too interested. I insist that what has happened was real and go to get my new dragon friends to show them.

All the while there is a dreamy uncertainty behind my eyes.

The fun continues around the house and around the houses of my family as I show off my new friends, but something just doesn't feel right.

My parents bring my world crashing down when they tell me that the dragons are not real, despite the fact I have brought my new friends home with me many times. They get quite angry with me as I insist their games are not amusing. They ask me to think seriously about what I am doing.

I think back about my adventures and have flashbacks of dragon-shaped balloons. I am deeply confused, and worried. It becomes clear quite quickly that I have had a psychotic episode. This realisation reminds me that this is not the first time and I accept that my dragons are not real, along with some other fantastical happenings that had occurred.

On my way to school the yards were eerily quiet. I met a friend outside who also had had similar problems to myself on a number of occasions. We entered the school to see that today was exam day and neither of us knew anything about it. I experienced more confusion as I did not understand how I could have forgotten about the exams, but I did not panic and assumed that the school could take what had happened to the two of us into account.

Fast forward to myself and my friend, my parents and her parents all sat outside of the reception at my school waiting for someone to come and see us. It was clear that my father was aggravated by having to deal with me again. My friend and I kicked a ball back and forth to pass the time.

At this time her parents dropped the news that she was to go back to Mexico and leave the United States for good [my school was in England]. She did not take the news well. I too would be leaving the U.S. back for England but I was happy to leave and get back home.

She sat with me and we started talking. Her parents had explained to her that due to her disability it simply wasn't reasonable for her to be taught at a regular school. I felt that they were directing this information toward me also. Their tone suggested that my friend and I had some sort of speech problem and others struggled to understand us. However, neither our parents nor each other had any trouble communicating. She was clearly upset. I told her that no matter what they say I have no trouble at all talking to and understanding her. I began to question this information: neither of us appeared to be experiencing any problems. I thought back again, as I did with the dragons, to try and remember the reality of the situation, but I seemed to be inventing a speech problem that my friend had which I was sure did not exist before I invented it. A distrust of what people were saying had set in. She was the only one I could trust.

I made my excuses and went to the toilet where I was convinced I would be able to hear people talking about us, which would offer a clue as to what was going on.

I sat, thinking about everything I had been told. I was certain the dragons weren't real but everything else I had been told didn't make any sense. I thought about it further and realised that I was way too old to still be in school - why are people trying to convince me otherwise?

I then heard two school friends enter the toilet. I knew them. They thought it would be funny to lean over the cubicle and take pictures while I was sat on the potty. This angered me greatly and I grabbed their phones and threw them out of the door, smashing them. Unfortunately they were not broken and the phones were reassembled and they tried it again. I grabbed them again and threw it at them this time, hitting one in the head. They went outside of the toilet to wait for me.

I waited in the toilet wondering what was going on. Although they are both known for such stupid pranks I started wondering if they were filming me so that "they" knew where I was. I peaked outside to see if they were still waiting. They were. For some reason one of them had blacked himself up. I really don't know why. I also realised that I was now in a supermarket.

I found two tins on the toilet floor so I grabbed one and threw it at the two and managed to hit one of them in the head again. They stayed where they were as they could see I had a second tin in my hand.

The commotion got the attention of a security guard, who looked like Omar Epps. He could see I was in trouble and seemed genuinely concerned for my welfare. Trusting him I threw the second tin at the two waiting for me and darted for the exit, knowing he would detain them and let me escape.

I was now in a large shopping centre. I, again, doubted my surroundings; confused as to why I was here or where I was. I started to walk around hoping to find clues as to what was going on, and even tried to find out what the correct date was. I was still convinced that it was many years later than I had been led to believe.

I found a small solicitor "shop", very much like the gold purchasing shops that have appeared in shopping centres in recent times, apparently an ambulance chaser, and I walked inside. I asked the solicitor for help and tried to hurriedly explain the whole situation as I was acutely aware that people were looking for me. He told me to calm down, raising his left hand, and was clearly doing something with under the desk with his right hand as his eyes wandered around the outside looking for someone. It was obvious he was making someone aware of my presence. I left quickly.

And then I woke up.

But what does it all mean?

Poor mousey

The scene opened in the back garden. Exciting I know. The fat balls that the birds consume in insane quantities needed refilling. Probably related to the amount of wildlife we seem to have in the garden.

While doing so I noticed a small netted box with a couple of the balls inside. On investigating I noticed a lovely ickle mouse had been trapped inside without access to water. It didn't look too well and had gone grey and some of its fur seemed to have fallen out.

Upon removing the netting the mouse climbed out.

Concerned about the poor little bugger, and also totally curious about watching a mouse drink water because I'm cool, I picked him back up and took him into the garage where I planned on finding him something to drink from.

I tried keeping him in the box but he did a strange and uncharacteristic backwards leap into the garage where I had no chance of seeing him again.

And then I woke up.

I realise that capturing the little bugger just to quench my curiosity may be construed as a little cruel, but I only wanted to watch him have a little drinky then I was going to let him into the garden again, honest!

I also realise that a mouse can probably find its own water.

But what does it all mean?