Oxygen Thief

Lucid, frustrating dream

I get the feeling that because I can't remember my dreams for long, I think that I never remember them. So because I can remember the dream I had before waking I'll write it down.

I was on holiday in a resort in somewhere wild, somewhere like Mongolia. My girlfriend and I were sharing a hotel room, and that morning her parents were coming to take us on a drive somewhere. Her parents were definitely Katie's parents, and possibly so was she. Anyway, we got ready and went down to the car. I realised with dread that I'd left my wallet and camera in the hotel room and so I went back to get it. When I came back down, they were gone.

Figuring that maybe they'd driven up the road to turn round (I don't know why; the hotel was at the end of a cul-de-sac) I walked up the only road away from the hotel. Soon it turned into a track and I found myself walking across a very windy beach. The shelf into the sea was very steep, and the sand was very soft. The water was grey and whipped by the wind. Past the beach the track started up and I walked all the way up into a small village above the beach, on the side of a hill. There were lots of partially bearded Mongol faces, and lots of people were drinking some kind of yogurt drink. I stopped briefly in some kind of lodge for travellers at the top of the village but realised finally that the car wasn't here and went back to the hotel.

The car was still not there, but with a doubly sickening sense of dread realised that I'd left the camera - her camera really - back in the lodge. So I started back, but this time on the beach I wasn't concentrating on where I was going so I started slipping down the sand into the sea. At first it was just breaking over my legs, which I didn't mind for some reason, but with each break the backwash pulled a little of the sand back into the sea and me with it, until it was breaking over my chest and I realised I was being pulled out to sea. Panicking I started thrashing at shore and attempting to shout, but it's very difficult to shout when you're trying not to go under, and due to the wind, the noise of the sea and the language barrier I had no confidence in shouting for help. Instead I started swimming purposefully to shore but bizarrely my front crawl just seemed to be scooping sand out of the sea to accumulate beneath me. Thanks to the sand island that had formed underneath me I was able - I don't know how - to get out of the water. On trudging up to the lodge I found my old colleagues from CLMP in the lodge. Glen said, "Looking for this?" and held out the camera. I practically cried with relief and they took a photo.

The only real-world links I can find are:

• Noriko left her sunglasses in the cafe on Sunday and it was so hot that getting them back felt like a mission
• Last night I talked a bit about CLMP, but didn't mention any other staff or even think about them.
• Also last night I drank 2 bottles of Yakult for the first time since leaving Japan.