Where do dreams go?

Once you've had them that is? Do you think they disappear somewhere inside you, filed deep in your subconscious to be trotted out as 'Deja Vu' or any one of a number of similar 'spooky' experiences we've all (I'm sure) had?

Or do they somehow float from the very imaginations within which they are born, rising through one's sleepy skull like a bubble might float from the hand held blowing device of a young child, and floating away into the atmosphere before bursting and raining down their constituent parts upon others and seeding their dreams which are born and die in a similar fashion.

So maybe dreams are more human than we know.

Maybe.

Today's pic is Dali's Metamorphosis of Narcissus - a painting I've always loved and which has always left me feeling I'm looking some kind of surreal dreamscape. Which, being a Dali painting, is exactly what I am looking at, I suppose. Anyway... study it... there's a helluva lot in there.

I had a dream the other night. It was that I'd swum a 1 hour 25 minute Ironman swim. It's some indication of how far my swimming has come that it was not so much a dream as a nightmare. I awoke, sweating and feverish, panting in the transition of my troubled imagination, panicking that I was 25 irretrievable minutes down on my goal time. But I got to thinking about it and maybe it wasn't a nightmare. Maybe I'd do better to slow down the swim a bit and keep fresh for the bike and run. There are a couple of guys at my club who swim that kind of time yet still come in ahead of me on their Ironman.

Food for thought.

I'd love to know what my children dream of. What are their hopes and fears. How do they see their lives shaping in the future. Of course, I ask. Of course, they tell me as best they can. But I'm intrigued to know if they think as deeply about life and our place in the scheme of 'Things' as I often do. Probably not.

Anyway, enough musings. What news do I have for you this week? I have returned from a week in Manchester and a successful production up there. It's always so great to be back home with the girls and there truly is no place like it. Work is busy busy busy and I've been managing to stay off the booze (no alcohol since my monstrous day at Twickenham watching England v Argentina on November 14th) and do some decent training. My calf seems to be healed and I figure I'll know for sure in a week or so whether its something I can consign to the 'old injury' list. I'm determined to have my book ready for my agent's desk by Xmas so that I can get back onto the sauce with some considerable gusto (just in time for my annual forced abstinence throughout January).

I've been road biking and am still feeling pretty strong on the bike but the weather is closing in. I'm planning a 'Winter Century' (a 100 mile bike ride) with some mates on December 5th and have the feeling that will be quite a challenge. Maybe that will mark my return to the ale. Who knows.

I'm currently taking a break at the moment from writing as the wind howls and the rain lashes outside my office window. I'm shortly to be positioned in my 'thinking chair' where I shall take a ten minute power nap following a rather energetic swim this lunchtime.

I wonder if I will dream.