I remember a lot of vague fragments of this dream.

• Yu Lee and I weren't living together, but apart from that our situation was still the same.
• I'm sure I spoke to Yu Lee at some point in the dream, either in person or on the phone.
• I remember getting a phone call from Carlos and talking to him for a while, and then the sound quality got really bad and I had to hang up.
• I remember driving to a car park. I think someone was giving me directions, and I ended up parking in Homebase's car park which was completely empty because it was the evening.
• I remember going into work (WorldPay?) and someone said "Someone's been drinking haven't they?" I felt a bit offended because I'd only had half a bottle of beer and was still in a fit state to drive.

The part of my dream that I remember most clearly was (as usual) at the end of my dream. I was living in a house share with 2 or 3 other people, and one of them was an Italian lady who was teaching me Italian. She wasn't anybody I knew from real life, but the way she acted was similar to my Italian teacher, although she looked nothing like her and was a bit overweight.

It was evening, and I'd just arrived back at home. The Italian lady was in the corner of the hallway and had just hung up the telephone. I had a question so I approached her and tried to explain it in Italian, but I didn't know all of the words. I tried to guess how to say whatever it was by adapting the Spanish words to Italian pronunciation (a trick that works pretty well in reality!) but I'd obviously not got it quite right, and she stopped me half way through speaking to correct me.

Before she'd finished correcting me she stopped mid-sentence, came in close to me and said in a half-whisper "Whatever happens between you and me is our secret. You don't have to worry that I'll tell anyone."

As she said it a series of images flashed through my mind of what she was implying, and then I thought of Yu Lee and thought that it was definitely not something I wanted to pursue.

I don't remember much from the first part of the dream, but I'm pretty sure that I was missing the sun, just as I am in real life. I decided that the only way to fix this was to go and visit a hot country so Yu Lee and I went to UAE (United Arab Emirates) to get soak up the sunshine. I have no idea why I'd go there in my dream because it's certainly not somewhere I plan on visiting in real life!

We could basically take our pick of where to visit so we looked on the map and picked a spot at random. The map of UAE in my dream was actually a map of Saudi Arabia, but I guess that's pretty close really!

I'm not sure how we get there but the next thing I remember is arriving at the beach. When we got there the beach was full of westerners, mainly other English people. I remember being surprised that there were no locals there at all and thinking that it felt comfortable as I know exactly how to act around other English people.

It was really hot on the beach. The main thought going through my head was that I didn't want to get sunburnt, and the first thing we did when we got there was to put on a load of sun cream. After that we decided to go for a wander around and we also wanted to find a place that we'd seen on the internet where there were a series of giant stepping stones in the water. We asked one of the other tourists where the stepping stones were and he told us that they were not at the beach and were a short way up a river. We looked on the map and the river was miles away, so instead we decided to go back to our hotel.

The hotel was quite odd. It was a single storey building that was split up into a number of apartments. Each room was more or less like a self contained flat, but they weren't very big and it felt like a lot of people were crammed into a small space.

In the room was a small black remote control with a red button on either side. I was curious as to what it did so I pressed the buttons together, and as soon as I did so a little symbol with a red flame on it lit up on the remote and the fire alarm went off.

I was totally surprised by the reaction I got. Firstly I wasn't expecting it to set off the alarm, but even more surprising was the reaction of all of the people in the apartment building. Everyone dropped what they were doing and started to run around, and the receptionist was screaming "We've got a fire! I know it's a real one because someone's manually set off their alarm!"

Someone came into our room and I told them that I didn't mean to set the alarm off so they helped me disable it. Everyone went back to what they were doing before and the receptionist seemed to be very angry with me. The man who'd disabled my alarm explained to me how it worked, and he said if you disable it within a second the alarm won't go off, and then he proceeded to press the buttons so that the symbol lit up again and then immediately pressed them again deactivating it. He did this a couple of times and each time I did it my heart skipped a beat at the thought of the alarm going off again.

Interview

I'm at work, and I think I'm working at Jagex. We're doing some kind of weird project where various members of staff go to a room in pairs and are interviewed about a piece of technology that had been developed here.

I decide that I'm going to volunteer to do an interview, so I look at the list of technologies that I can talk about. There is nothing left on the list that I've actually worked on before, but there are two items that I recognise: Courtney Brown v1 and Courtney Brown v2. The weird thing is that this is the name of my parents picture framing business from when I was a kid. I decide to talk about Courtney Brown v1.

When it's time for my interview I'm called to a small room and there is another employee waiting outside. We go in together and sit down opposite a strange webcam with two lenses (maybe it films in 3D?) and the interview begins. They ask us a few questions and I know the answers to them because I spoke with my parents about it when I was younger. I also remember them having two sheets of labels on the table that said "Courtney Brown" on them. One of them was plain and one had a stylised logo with a picture frame on it. I realise that the plain ones are the version 1 labels and the ones with the logo are version 2.

After the interview someone starts talking to me and I remember thinking that they are just talking rubbish. He is standing right next to Andrew Gower (the founder of Jagex) who is being filmed, and I don't want to get in the shot.

Barbecue Chicken

This is the part the I remember by far the most vividly from this dream.

After my interview I go back to my room. We must be at some kind of event because lots of employees are sleeping in a large dormitory in some kind of hostel. It's about 7:00am and when I get to the room half of the people are sleeping and half of them are awake.

I lay down in my bed and close my eyes, but after a couple of minutes I hear an annoying mechanical sound. I look up and two other employees are sat on their bed playing with a small machine. The machine is some kind of tennis game, and when you move some levers on the bottom a little metal figure moves around, and you both have to try to hit the ball past the other player. Every time they pull the lever there is a loud noise as the parts move around.

At this point someone comes in with a plat of barbecue chicken wings and offers them around, and I haven't eaten breakfast yet and I'm quite hungry so I take a couple and eat them.

After eating the chicken wings I have this sticky brown sauce all over my fingers. I look over at the two people playing the annoying tennis game and they are still playing. I get up off of the bed and walk right towards them, and put my hands out and wipe every last bit of barbecue sauce all over their toy! I don't say a word and make eye contact with them the whole time. At this point their mouths are hanging over and they're looking at me like I'm crazy.

Once I'm done making a mess of their game I walk back over to my bed and get back in it an close my eyes. They watch me the whole way, but a few seconds afterwards I hear the click clack of the figures moving again.

Ramps

I get up eventually and go to find Yu Lee who is also staying in the same building. I'm not 100% sure what happened here but I remember shouting through the walls of each bedroom trying to wake her.

The next thing I remember is being outside. I must have gotten outside before her and wandered off because I'm trying to find her, and I call her to see where she is.

There seems to be some kind of festival going on, but to be honest this bit doesn't make a lot of sense. It's something to do with there being ramps all over town, most of them with a stream of water gushing down them. Part of the event is to walk up the ramps.

When I finally get hold of Yu Lee on the phone I ask her why she isn't at the spot where we agreed to meet, and she says that with her bad back she's not sure that she can make it up the ramps. I tell her I'll come and find her and we can find one that's not too steep and I'll help her up it.

This dream was creepy!

It's night time and me and Yu Lee are alone at home. I hear some weird noises over and over again in the garden so I go out to investigate.

I walk down to the end of the garden and shine me torch and there is a pretty big rabbit sitting at the end of the garden. I shine my torch right on it and I can see that its eyes are swollen and bleeding which is typical of rabbits that have myxomatosis (I used to see rabbits with this disease all of the time when I worked at the science park).

Wild rabbits with myxomatosis are blind or nearly blind, and normally if they've had the disease for a long time they become really dopey, like they've given up and lack the energy to do anything. When you approach them they will often just sit there, or slowly hobble away from you. Initially the rabbit in my dream acted just like this and didn't react like a healthy rabbit.

I stood there for a few seconds looking at the poor rabbit and feeling sorry for it. Then the rabbit started to get agitated and made a noise that I can only describe as screaming. It was not the kind of noise you would expect from a rabbit.

The rabbit ran past me towards the house. I realised that the rabbit was massive, more like the size of a dog than a rabbit. I picked up a stick to try and chase it off and approached it again, waving the stick at it. Every time I tried to scare it off it ended up moving closer towards the house until eventually I had it cornered.

I was trying to scare it away and leaving an obvious escape route but the rabbit was just huddling in the corner and making the screaming noise. Every now and then it would start to run away from me and end up kind of running on the spot as it was running face first into the wall of the house. I was banging my stick on the decking now and was aware that I was making a lot of noise, especially considering how late it was.

Eventually I scared the rabbit off and it ran between my legs and off into the night.

I went back inside the house and we settled down to do whatever it was that we were doing, and suddenly I heard a repeated banging sound. Yu Lee asked what the noise was and I realised it was the rabbit.

I don't know why but the idea of the rabbit banging on the walls of my house filled me with dread. I knew I had to go outside and get rid of it somehow, and I was disgusted at the weird, diseased rabbit that kept on roaring at me in the garden. Even writing this now is sending shivers down my spine.

The feelings overwhelmed me and I woke up with my heart racing.

Polayamory is the practice of having intimate relationships with more than one person.

Background

I don't actually remember this happening in the dream, but I remember remembering it in the dream!

Yu Lee and I had gone through a bad patch where we weren't quite as close as we used to be. In that period I'd met up with Lauryn (my ex-girlfriend from school) and we'd spent a bit of time together. I'm not sure how the decision had come about, but for some reason we decided to get married (whilst I was already married to Yu Lee)!

After that me and Yu Lee had gotten a lot closer again and I wasn't 100% sure that I wanted to go through with the wedding.

Wedding Day

I'm at somebody's house but I have no idea who's. Ai Seng is here, and Jo's family are here too but Jo isn't. (Note: I've never met Jo's family in real life so these were just made-up dream characters.) Everyone's come for my wedding day.

We're sitting round a large dining table when the door bell rings. Someone gets up to open it and it's Dad and Sue who have come from Spain for the wedding. I say hello and talk to them for a bit and then Dad says he needs to park the car in the garage so I go with him.

Dad backs the car into the garage and then gets out while the car is still reversing. The car moves backwards by itself and Dad steers it by pushing the front of the car left and right. Someone enters the garage through a door in the back (from the house) and Dad tells him to stop and put his hands out and stop the car with his hands. The guy looks a bit nervous to try it but follows instructions and after a split second of pushing the back of the moving car (which was moving right towards him) it stops. "It's an automatic so you can do that," Dad tells me as if it's common knowledge.

We go back in the house and are sitting round the dining room table again, and I'm feeling nervous about the wedding. We are going to get married in the cathedral because I wanted to get married in the same place that me and Yu Lee got married (even though in real life we got married in a civil ceremony) and I suddenly start to wonder if it's even possible to marry a second wife in a religious venue. I tell this to Dad and he says he isn't sure.

Conclusion

I'm sitting next to a girl who has her phone out so I ask her to google whether or not the wedding can go ahead, but she's not really competent at using her phone and it is taking forever and is frustrating. We are typing phrases into google like "Polyamory church wedding uk legal" but we can't seem to find out if it's possible. Dad tells me I should ring the venue and ask as the ceremony is only a couple of hours away.

I'm feeling increasingly nervous now. I don't really want to get married to Lauryn but my guests have all showed up and I would feel silly to back out now. I ask my Dad to call the cathedral and ask about marrying a second wife and he agrees to do it.

He's on the phone for a couple of minutes before he hangs up and tells me that it's not possible. He tells me that I'd better start looking for a registry office now as we don't have long left but I tell him it's off and that I'm not going to go through with it.

The last thing I remember is calling Lauryn and telling her that we can't get married after all because it's illegal. I feel relieved.

The first thing I thought upon waking was "Me and Yu Lee didn't get married in a church!"

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.