The theme of this dream was illness.

In the first part of this dream, I'm staying at a house with several other people. One of the others is staying in the basement, and shortly after he goes down to his room I hear him being sick. I tell one of the other people in the house and he goes down to investigate. I hear them start talking and then they seem to be just hanging out.

A while later, when I see the guy who went down to check on him I ask him what happened. He tells me that the first guy was violently sick all over the concrete floor, and then they were just hanging out down there.

All I can think of is the mess, and how it will be soaking into the concrete and difficult to clean up. I can't understand why they are just leaving it there.

In the next part that I remember, Yu Lee and I are out in the city centre, doing some shopping. In the dream world, the city has two major sections: a lower section and an upper section. We take the escalator up to the higher section, and as we are arriving at the top we hear an announcement.

"All children in the upper district are being evacuated due to an illness. The illness is highly contagious and transmitted through touch. Do not touch any children in the upper district or you are likely to fall into a coma." (Or words to that effect.)

I have a bit of a moan to Yu Lee about foreigners bringing their diseases to the city as we push through the crowds of people. There are a lot of children about, and it's quite hard not to bump into them as it's so crowded, so after a while we decide to head back down and get out of the city centre.

Later, we have gotten out of the city centre and are on a busy main road (similar to East Road in Cambridge). I ask Yu Lee why we're walking this way as it's not really the way home, but she basically dodges the question and doesn't answer it.

A few minutes later we come to a large shop. I can't remember the name of the shop, but it has lots of different types of things in it for your home, like a slightly more upmarket version of Wilkinson's.

"So this is why you were taking us this way!" I say as I figure out that this was the plan all along. I never want to go in these kinds of shops, and Yu Lee tricked me into coming here!

When we enter the shop, there is an entryway with glass doors and a few items on display, and then some stairs down into the rest of the shop. In the entryway I notice a skateboard, quite a large eighties style board, and although it was probably propped up on something, it looks like someone has put it down in the middle of the floor so that someone will step on it and slip down the stairs. We step round the skateboard and head downstairs.

When we get near the bottom of the stairs there are two large stacks of clothes, mainly jeans, blocking the way forward. There is another customer at the bottom who looks puzzled as to the way out. After a couple of seconds of trying to squeeze past the piles of clothes, a store assistant comes over and moves the pile. He has a distinctly unimpressed look on his face.

Once the shop assistant has moved the clothes we push past the other customer and into the shop.

I dreamt that I was playing a computer game, and in the game the ocean had been drained of water. I was at one edge of the sea bed, at the foot of a slope which would have once lead up to the beach. In front of me was a strange city with many towers and buildings that resembled something between mushrooms, sea shells and stalagmites.

The city was made of a dark blue, stone-like material, and the sea bed was also a dark blue-grey colour. I could see far into the distance as there was nothing on the sea floor, and in the distance I could see the rocky slope of another coast line.

I my dream I'm at someone else's house, although I have no clue who's house it is. In some parts of the dream it seems that I forget this and think of it as my own house, but overall there is a definite feeling of being somewhere else.

Wine

The first part of the dream is the only part where I remember it as being our house. It is either my birthday or Christmas, and for some reason my next door neighbours have dropped round a bottle of wine as a present. When I get the bottle of wine out of the gift bag it's clear that it's been opened already, and for some reason I'm convinced that they've refilled the bottle with a different kind of wine. There is a hand written tag tied around the neck of the bottle which says something like "Give it a go, and if you don't like it, try a different one!"

I open the bottle and taste it, and it's a very fruity, light bodied red wine. It's not what I would normally drink, and it tastes cheap, but it's definitely drinkable.

Watching a Video

The next thing I remember is sitting on a sofa in front of a widescreen TV. I'm with Stefan, and we want to watch some kind of video (possibly a movie) together. The video is on a tablet (computer) and I have connected it to the TV with a HDMI cable, and I'm trying to get it to play properly through the TV. The video is working but there is not sound coming out of the speakers.

As I'm trying to get it working, Stefan keeps turning the volume up on the tablet so that it plays out of the tablet speakers, and I keep on having to take it off of him and turn it back down. I explain to him that I want to watch it through the TV but he doesn't get it.

After a lot of fiddling around I manage to get it to play out of the TV speakers, but Stefan is still staring at the screen of the tablet.

"Why are you doing that? Don't you want to watch it on the big screen?" I ask him.

"I dunno, it's just easier."

Play Fighting

I am sitting on the floor next to a coffee table and there is a young girl there with us, probably about 12 years old. We are messing around and start play fighting, but I think I hurt her and stop. It suddenly occurs to me that she is so much weaker than me that I have to really hold back or I will hurt her.

Initially she is upset, but then she gets over it. She's watching TV and I grab the remote control and turn it off to see what her reaction is. She immediately jumps on me and starts play fighting again and I'm relieved that she's not still upset. This time I don't try to win!

Cats and Dogs

The last thing I remember is sitting in the front room (the room with the coffee table) and there is a dog with us. At this point I'm pretty sure that the owner of the house is away and we are house sitting for them.

I walk out towards the kitchen to make a drink, and as I get to the hallway I see a cat coming down the stairs. I think to myself "I didn't realise they had a cat," as the cat walks out towards the back of the house.

It's the summer and the house is really warm so all of the doors and windows are open. Yu Lee is outside in the garden.

I see the cat walk out of the patio doors and into the garden, and all of a sudden I realise what is about to happen and everything goes into slow motion. The cat dashes out into the garden and at the same time the dog runs towards the window in the living room and jumps out. I can't see what's happening but I can hear it, and I can see Yu Lee's face as she look at it.

I hear a terrible noise as the dog grabs hold of the cat, and then I hear another noise over and over again as the dog is shaking the cat in its jaws. Yu Lee is in shocked and just watching with her mouth hanging open.

The noise goes on for quite a few seconds (that seem like an eternity), and then all of a sudden a part of the cat comes flying off, into the house and hits me. I'm disgusted by what's just happened.

This is the last thing I remember before waking up.

Yu Lee and I are at Bob and Steph's house, visiting them, and there are a couple of other people there too. I'm not sure how the conversation gets onto it but we are talking about sex. I don't remember much of the conversation, but I remember Bob telling me some very personal things about their sex life.

After talking for a while Yu Lee and I go upstairs to the bedroom that we are staying in so that we can put our stuff away. For some reason, Yu Lee decides that now would be a good time to have sex, so we get undressed and get into the bed. Yu Lee is being really loud, talking loudly and bouncing around on the bed. I tell her to be a bit more discreet and she says that the others won't mind as we were just talking about it.

I am totally not in the mood as I'm busy trying to get her to be quiet. We never actually have sex in the end.

There is some kind of disaster, and I have to go into a building that is falling apart to rescue someone.

I arrive at the building which turns out to be a block of flats, and once inside I realise that the man I'm supposed to rescue is a few floors up, but that the normal way of getting to his floor has been destroyed. I don't remember if the building is on fire or just crumbling, but everything is a mess and it's difficult to navigate.

I end up going to the floor above him and going through one of the rooms and out onto a balcony. I climb over the railing and drop down into the balcony below.

As soon as I land on the balcony I see the guy I'm looking for and tell him that we have to get out of here. I go to climb back up onto the balcony of the floor above but the man tells me that he doesn't know how to climb up, so I talk him through what I'm doing. I climb up onto the railing and quickly grab hold of the ceiling of the balcony. Then I carefully reach out and grab the railing of the balcony above and pull myself up. (As if I could do that in real life!)

The man is scared but he has no option, and although it takes him a while longer than me, eventually he manages to pull himself up onto the balcony above.

When we go back inside, the building is even more of a mess and there is a real sense of urgency to get out. We head straight for the stairs, but on our way there we come across a room with the door open and piles of rubble everywhere. I stop for a moment as I notice a small child cowering between the piles of rubble.

I tell the man that I need to go and get the child, and I don't remember whether he waits for me or leaves on his own. I climb over the mass of rubble and make my way to the child, and talk him out of his hiding place. He's holding a Game Boy and doesn't want to leave without it, so I quickly look around and find some more Game Boy cartridges and gather them all up and put them in my pockets. I remember that one of them was a Game Boy Camera, like I used to have when I was a kid.

We leave the room just in time. The room collapses and rubble comes crashing down as we make our way out of the building.

I don't remember many of the details of this dream, but me and Yu Lee were playing some kind of computer game. Yu Lee's family were in Cambridge for some reason and they asked Yu Lee if she wanted to go somewhere with them.

Just as Yu Lee was making plans to go with them, I found a really cool secret area through a hidden door in the game. Yu Lee asked me to wait for her to get back so that we could explore the secret area together but I was teasing her and telling her that I was going to go in while she was out.

Eventually curiosity got the better of her and she told her family that she had to do something so they went off without her. We went into the secret room and it was just a single room with an item in it, and although the item was cool, we were done with the secret room in a couple of seconds, so she missed out on seeing her family for nothing.

My Last Day

I am working in an office, probably as a programmer, and although my workplace has aspects of my past jobs (WorldPay in particular) it is no place that I have worked in real life. The head of my department is Captain Janeway from Star Trek: Voyager!

It's my last day of work before I leave to become a freelancer full-time. I don't think I'm doing a lot of work but am mainly just hanging out with my colleagues. At one point the head of department (Captain Janeway) walks into the room and I tell her that it's my last day. I'm not 100% sure how the conversation gets onto it but we end up arranging to go for dinner a couple of weeks after I leave.

All of a sudden the fire alarm goes off and people start to head for the exits. I know it is just a drill so I'm in no particular hurry, and I say to the head of department "If I'm going all of the way outside I'm not coming back in."

She says "That's fine," so I collect all of my things and make my way out of the building.

I remember that when I start packing up my laptop I notice a large sticker on the lid with some information on it, something to do with the source code I work on here, and thinking that the sticker no longer has any relevance to my life.

As I'm making my way out of the building I walk past the receptionist and tell her that this is my last day. She tells me there is a package for me and throws me a small brown box with an excessive amount of parcel tape all over it. She asks "Who's going to collect your mail now?" and I think to myself "She's right, that's the main advantage of working here!"

Walking Through the Ruins

When I leave the building, the outside is a lot like my secondary school. I see Faiza outside and approach her. Faiza wasn't exactly one of my friends at school, but was someone that we would talk to occasionally. She also used to live on the same road as me.

We start walking together and we are definitely back in Slough, although I don't think I've lived here continuously since school because I tell her "I'm back living here again."

As we walk down my road (which, by the way, we approach from the opposite end to where my school is in real life) the buildings are all in a state of disrepair. Many of the buildings are dark and dirty and almost look like they've been on fire, and some of the buildings are clearly falling apart.

As we walk down the street I point out my mum's house and tell her that is where I'm staying. I remember thinking that it is the only house on the whole street that's in good condition.

I'm not sure where I'm heading but I walk straight past my Mum's house and continue down the road. One of the last buildings on the left is even more damaged than the rest of them, and I say "Look, this one's actually held up by the scaffolding!"

I don't remember the rest of our journey but I arrive at someone's house, possibly Faiza's house. Whoever I'm supposed to be meeting doesn't seem to be there, but they've poured me two half pints of beer in typical half pint glasses that you would find in a pub, and they are obviously two different beers as the colours are slightly different. I think that it's sweet of them to do that, especially considering they don't drink.

I'm pretty sure for the whole of this dream I am at my mum's house at 35 York Avenue (Slough).

Pipe Organ

This part of the dream is a little hazy. Yu Lee is showing me a video of her work (she still works at Babraham in the dream). I'm not 100% sure why she is showing me, but I think it's supposed to be funny or ironic.

In the video, Yu Lee is playing a tune on a keyboard. It looks like a piano, but as soon as she starts playing I realise that it is some kind of organ. The camera zooms out a little and I can see a load of metal pipes coming out of the top of the organ, and as the camera zooms out further and begins to rise it becomes apparent that the pipes are huge.

The camera keeps rising until it is quite high, and I can only guess that the organ is at the base of a tower. The camera rises past a platform which the pipes pass through, and on the top the pipes end in crude metal figures that look half way between scarecrows and robots. The pipes lead into the characters so that they sing when the pipes are playing.

The video ends and I comment on it, and then we are all alone in silence in my mum's house.

Mum

I'm not sure what happened exactly, but now I am upset and need my mum for something, so I call her and speak to her on the phone. It feels like some kind of crisis is happening, although I think it may all be in my head.

I speak to Mum on the phone for a while and she tells me that she'll come back home. She says that she was only staying away for a while and that if we need her she'll come back right away.

Some time passes before Mum gets home, and when she does she goes straight to the kitchen and starts doing something. I approach her and can see straight away that she's crying. I ask her what the matter is, and she says "I'm really sorry but I can't come back yet. I'm here now but I'm going to go soon. I'm just not ready to come back yet. Sorry."

We talk for a while, and I tell her that she doesn't have to come back to his particular house, that we could move somewhere else close by, but she says that she needs the house to be around the corner from her work.

Yu Lee and I are going out to a restaurant, and it's supposed to be a very popular restaurant that is normally packed. When we get there it looks like a pub and there aren't a great deal of tables in the restaurant. Luckily for us there is one table for two left so we sit down and eat a meal.

I don't remember anything about the meal, but after we are finished eating someone comes out of the back of the restaurant and asks Yu Lee to come with them out the back. Yu Lee is gone for quite a while, and eventually I get bored of waiting and decide to go and look for her. As I go to walk out to the back of the restaurant the waiting staff stop me and tell me that I'm not allowed to go back there, so I tell them that my wife went out there and I am looking for her. After arguing with them for a couple of minutes Yu Lee appears in the doorway and we go back to sit at our table. It turns out that someone had come to the restaurant to deliver package and only Yu Lee could accept the package for some reason.

While we are sitting at our table, one of the ladies that works there tells everyone that she needs to come round and collect our email addresses. She works her way around the tables and writes everyone's email address on a piece of paper.

After that we pay our bill and leave the restaurant.

House Hunting

I dreamt I was with Yu Lee, Shivani and Nisha. For some reason Shivani and Nisha were looking for somewhere to live and we decided to go with them to look at houses.

All of the houses we looked at were really weird. Most of them were small, and they all had strange features so that they could make better use of space. The main one I remember was in Cornwall, and was very close to the sea.

When we went inside the tiny little house, at first we couldn't find the bedroom. We looked around for a while, and then noticed something strange in the living room. The end of the living room had a wall that was angled at 45 degrees, so that it sloped up from the floor and away from the room. At the top of the slope was a small platform with a bed on it and a tiny window right next to it.

We climbed up onto the platform and when I looked out of the window there was an amazing view with waves crashing against cliffs.

Going to the Shops

Later on I was at home (wherever that was!) and I was going to meet up with a friend. He was going to come round and then we were going to go to the supermarket for something.

When he got to my house I realised that his mum has brought him and was going to take us in her car, and for some reason I really didn't want to get in the car with her. I told someone else in the house to tell them that I'd gone already and snuck out the back and made my own way to the supermarket.

Later on in the dream I am in a car and someone else is driving me. We are on our way to another shop, this time a smaller convenience store like a coop. When we get there the car park is tiny and quite secluded, and there is a small triangular pond. The edges of the pond are basically platforms raised off of the pond bed on stilts so that the inside of the pond is quite a bit bigger than the opening.

The driver of the car tells me he is going to park in the pond and I tell him not to, but he insists that he "always parks like this in dreams". Although the dream character tells me we are in a dream I think nothing of it.

As the car moves over edge of the pond I think to myself "I hate it when this happens" and brace for impact. The car crashes into the water and gets wedged under the platform at the edge of the pond. I feel trapped, like there is no way out.

Shortly after that we somehow escape from the submerged car and go inside the shop. We are looking around when the security guard starts staring at us, and I know it's because he saw us park in the pond. He approaches us to throw us out and I wake up naturally.