Low life
Nightmare
Jeffrey Bernard
T have been dreaming a lot recently and lies really beginning to get me down both physically and mentally. But fear not, I wouldn't dream of boring you by actually relating my dreams, suffice it to say that most of my dreams are nightmares. I can't remember one of the sweet variety. The thing is, apart from being exhausting it takes me about five hours to recover from them the following day. They leave a bad taste in my mind. I dread the stream of unconscious filth that is released as soon as I close my eyes. To put it briefly I dream mostly about putrescence and loss. Some- times we have a double bill of X certificates and the supporting feature will concern one of my phobias such as heights, slugs or maggots. But why have these horrors been escalating recently? The clinic tells me it must be a bedtime snack but I don't believe in old wives tales and I fail to see how cheese on toast can open the flood-
gates that release all this nasty rubbish. A couple of weeks ago I asked the good doctor to give me some sort of tranquillis- er. I have been making the annual and futile attempt to drink less but when I do cut it down I can't sleep and I lie awake itching and watching the pictures on the wall jump about. But since taking the mixture, a liquid tranquilliser called Chlor- methiazole, the nightmares have become more frequent and I shall have to revert to my own prescription of Nightcap.
Years ago, in the Royal Free Hospital, while I was having my pancreas looked at, I underwent daily bedside visits from the resident psychiatrist who, like all psychiat- rists, was trying to persuade me that I was mad. (These people can't bear you to be independent of them.) In the course of one of our chats I mentioned the fact that I had filthy nightmares and he said, 'Good. That means you are getting rid of the filth.' Well, it seems to me that the filth is simply being swept back under the carpet again. Another annoying thing about my dream- ing hours is that there is a conspicuous lack of erotica. On the rare occasions that I do screen a blue film they always have unhap- py endings. Either that or the end titles interrupt. Did you ever see The Lady Vanishes?
The other morning two bailiffs arrived to slap a writ on me issued by a publisher and I am not exaggerating when I tell you it was positively light relief after the previous night's entertainment. Unlike Byron I would dearly like someone to stamp on my dreams. What strange things they are. They are not projected in black and white, neither are they in what you could call technicolour. They have no soundtrack but you know just what all the characters are saying, never mind thinking or threaten- ing. I did on one occasion wake up laughing but that was frustrating because I couldn't remember the joke. And twice I have woken up crying and probably de- served to but also can't remember why.
Alcohol-induced sleep in my experience is far safer. On occasion regrettably so. I wish I had been woken by a nightmare when I took the last train to Newbury and was aroused by the ticket inspector at Exeter and it's not a lot of fun to aim for Ipswich and find yourself in Kings Lynn at midnight with no money. Shorter trips are merely a nuisance but. I suspect that both ends of the Northern Line, Morden and High Barnet, are the journalist's graveyard, much like the elephant's graveyards in Africa. And talking of night- mares it was Norman's birthday last Sun- day. I sent him a black-edged card with the words Sincere Sympathy embossed on the front. Although it sent a shudder down his spine — he's childishly superstitious — he bought me a couple of drinks, the unheard of second one when no one was looking. He doesn't realise it's better to wear your heart on your sleeve than in your head in the middle of the night. I wish those hilarious bailiffs would come back. They will Oscar, they will.
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