Crazy dreams

My dreams are very different from other people's. Everyone else seems to dream about real events and real people, while my dreams are totally abstract - bizarre figments of my imagination.

I often dream about an awkward workplace situation, even though I haven't had a paid job for some 16 months. I'm sitting at an office desk with no idea what I'm meant to be doing. Or I'm in a works canteen where everyone is stuffing themselves but I don't know where the food is being served. Or I'm at work trying to read an important report in a language I don't recognise or understand.

Where does this stuff come from? I've never been in any of these situations so my brain seems to go on a solo run as soon as I fall asleep.

I never dream about actual workplaces I've been in, or the people I've worked with. I never dream about the genuinely embarrassing, awkward situations I've encountered.

I dream about Jenny very occasionally and once I dreamt about a Facebook friend, but that's about it. I don't dream about my family, my friends, my neighbours or people I've met during the day. My dreams are nothing but a kind of nocturnal spam.

I've never heard of any other adult whose dreams are so abstract, but surely they must exist? Or does everyone dream about Aunt Gillian upsetting the teapot when she paid a visit yesterday? Or does everyone dream about winning the lottery or meeting their favourite celebrity?

I think I need some urgent adjustments to my dreaming software. It's seriously defective and needs to be replaced by something more normal. I want to dream about Annie Lennox. Or Bonnie Raitt. Or even Aunt Gillian will do.

A coating of sugar

It's always a let-down when a well-written and believable novel finishes with a totally contrived "happy ending". Probably because that's what the publisher wanted.

A book full of adultery, accidents, abortions and animosities magically terminates with all the festering problems conveniently resolved and everyone sailing on serenely. Pull the other one, it's got bells on.

The writer Winifred Holtby once said her idea of a happy ending wasn't one where everything comes right but one where the hero or heroine remains undaunted by things going wrong. I couldn't agree more.

The logic of the "happy ending" is fundamentally flawed. If the point is to encourage your readers and fill them with optimism, well, it may do that for five minutes, but then anyone with any intelligence will realise the contrivance and reflect that of course real-life is different.

If you want to encourage your readers, far better to depict someone who's been thrown the worst life can offer and has found the inner resources to deal with it and emerge stronger and more capable. Isn't that more inspiring than a bogus "all's well that ends well"?

A couple of months ago I read a typical "happy ending" novel. A women who's desperate for a child but can't get pregnant with her husband goes to bed with another man (married) and has his child. I assumed that once the truth got out (as it did) all hell would break loose and both marriages would be on the rocks.

But no. Very fortuitously the woman's husband doesn't mind a bit. And the other man happens to get killed. Everything wrapped up very neatly - except for the grieving widow, that is.

I'm sorry but a tricksy finale like that simply spoils the whole book for me. Life just isn't like that. If only they'd asked Winifred Holtby for the ending.

Escape clause

Calling someone an escapist used to be insulting. It meant they lived in a fantasy world of their own because they couldn't cope with "real life".

Not any more. Nowadays we're all escapists. We all find "real life" so inadequate and frustrating we've got umpteen little worlds of our own that we retreat to at a moment's notice.

If we're not celeb-watchers, we're soap addicts, compulsive readers, armchair philosophers, bloggers, therapy buffs - anything supplying that little extra something that makes life a bit more complete.

Few people still pretend that the everyday routines of housework, car-washing, earning money and paying the bills are what life's all about. Self-maintenance and survival are not enough to make us happy. Of course we need more than that, we need things that express our unique tastes and interests.

Then again, who says all these personal pastimes are escapist? Feeding our minds is as much a part of real life as hoovering or chopping vegetables. We're not escaping from real life, we're adding to it.

And I'm not saying that all these everyday routines are fruitless. Of course a lot of us love cooking, raising children, or the job we do. But nobody thinks any more that that's it, that's life, and anything else is just frivolous nonsense.

More and more, we live in parallel universes. While one part of us is getting through the daily chores, another part is monitoring our other life, anticipating the next soap episode or internet search.

Only trouble is, while we're all so busy with our private indulgences, everyday life is going to pot. While we're updating our Facebook pages or doing our Tai Chi, jobs are disappearing and houses are unaffordable. Real life is screaming for help.

Losing the plot

The 9000 people who've complained about the cot death story in Eastenders* just don't seem to understand what fiction means.

The furious complainers, led by the parents' website Mumsnet, have accused the BBC of portraying bereaved mothers as "deranged and unhinged" and showing "a lack of understanding."

The plotline involves Ronnie Branning, who lost her baby in a cot-death, swapping him for another couple's new-born son.

The BBC, in a fit of spineless timidity, has now said the story will be ended prematurely in the spring.

But why are they being so supine? Eastenders is a work of fiction. It doesn't necessarily reflect real life. It may often wander into the realm of the implausible and the fantastic. That's what fiction does.

The idea that Eastenders has to faithfully mirror life as it actually is (if that can even be accurately pinned down) is absurd.

It's equally absurd to insist that a fictional creation should not offend the sensitivities of a particular group of people.

Apart from the fact that it's hard to know what will or won't offend the viewers, avoiding offence to every motley group in society would be an impossible task. Someone somewhere is always going to feel insulted by something.

And again, the point of fiction is not to avoid offence, it is to create imaginary scenarios and situations. Being nice to people is the job of politicians and vicars, not dramatists.

The overheated followers of Mumsnet really ought to calm down and not expect soap operas to be something they were never intended to be. Eastenders isn't a helpline or a counselling service, it's a piece of vaguely credible make-believe. Nothing more, nothing less.

Pic: Samantha Womack as Ronnie Branning

* Eastenders is a long-running British TV soap opera set in the fictitious Borough of Walford in East London.

Living the dream

The allure of the "dream" purchase or the "dream" lifestyle is still very potent. We all like to think that just round the corner is something so perfect, so tailor-made to our personal wishes, that we'll be happy ever after.

Doesn't quite work out like that though, does it? After the first flush of excitement, of starry-eyed euphoria, sooner or later reality takes over and we find that the apparent dream job, dream car, dream partner or dream house has its less than perfect side, those irritating or inconvenient things that come with the package and just have to be accommodated.

But however many dreams fall short of our hopes, we still keep chasing after them, quite certain that next time our desires will be met and everything will fall into place.

I suppose my earliest experience of such disappointment was being a local newspaper journalist. I fondly assumed I would be covering dramatic, life-changing stories, but my actual daily fare was golden weddings, church fetes, excruciating amateur drama and cats stuck up trees.

I thought bookselling might be my dream job until I realised abusive customers, low salaries, penniless "browsers" and talentless books were all part of the deal. But I spent many happy years selling books despite the less glamorous reality.

And does any dream partner ever turn out to be perfect? I doubt it. The fact is that even the most attractive, charming, intelligent, practical individual will eventually display plenty of embarrassing and infuriating weaknesses. You soon realise that you have to love someone for what they are, not what you want them to be.

As for dream houses, I've lived in enough different homes to know they all have their failings, however stunning they seem at first glance. The estate agent's glossy brochures, like fresh paint and plaster, can hide as much as they reveal.

But the idea of a "dream" opportunity still casts its spell over us, despite all our experience and common sense. You can't open a magazine or switch on the telly without seeing blissfully happy people with effortless, silky-smooth lifestyles. Surely we could have that too, it's out there somewhere, we just have to find it. And pigs will fly.