Dream of frustration at being prevented from entering rooms in a large building, told at Volcano Theatre, Swansea, 12th October 2024.

I am outside a building which is as an amalgamation of places and buildings that I know. I go inside through a pointed-arch door, the door has a cold, round, brass handle on the left-hand side. The door is made of old wood with three decorative vertical panels. Inside there is a white corridor and a door. I want to it but, although there is no-one around, I hear a voice which says ‘you don’t want to go in there’. There is then a group of people around, like on a tour, and one of the group says ‘I am scared’ and is not able to go into the room, and again I am told ‘you don’t want to go in there.’ I go further down the white corridor and there is a wooden door which leads onto a room like a broom cupboard. A hand opens it but a person says to me ‘you don’t want to see it.’  I then go down the hall, there are now no people around and I see a small door to a crawl space. I open it and listen and call ‘hello’ to see if anyone is there. No-one answers. I crawl along and the space is not straight. I go up, over, down, it is a windy maze. There is then an old room, like a library but without books, it has wooden walls and a long oak table. The table has a red fabric runner along the middle of it, with tassels on the side. The library is dimly lit, no-one has been there for years, but it is not dusty. As I am about to explore it I am yanked to another part of the house. I am screaming with frustration and anger that I cannot get into the rooms, which are all locked. They have beautiful doors, arched and old, which makes me want to go into them. There is no answer as to why I can’t go in. In the end I find a narrow corridor, which gets me away from the people who are stopping me going through the doors.

This dream was told as part of the Minotaur Ballet Surreal Swansea exhibition of contemporary Surrealist artworks and performances, 8th - 26th October 2024, held to mark the 100th anniversary of the founding of Surrealism.