Swansea Science Festival, October 2019

Two dreams were told, discussed and painted in the lounge of the Noahs Yard cafe bar in Uplands, the buzzing cafe quarter of Swansea, which is the area where Dylan Thomas was born. With wonderful audience participation for this evening event!

I am driving on a motorway or American freeway, with lots of lanes. All is grey. My daughter is in the passenger seat on the left. There is a grey bridge ahead and under it the road is blocked by some cars. I stop before getting to them and get out of my car, going round to the passenger side. There is a group of young men, who are from Swansea. One man sprays petrol on my car, and strikes a match to set fire to it. I try to stop him, saying he will kill my daughter. They say they are doing this as she wouldn’t go out with one of them, or be friends.

I am on the slope of a hillside looking down on trees. I see some water on the right and walk towards it and realise it is a brightly shining railway line. Walking down the slope I see lots of people and they ask questions to me out loud. People are looking at me for my reaction, it is a challenge that will be on a TV programme. I have to choose if it is to be this challenge in the woodland. I see my friend Jayne, a friend from when I was three, and consult her on the decision. I say that ‘at last I get to work with you on this, we will work here,’ and I accept the challenge. I then run back up the bank, and to stop myself falling backwards I grip the bottom of a small white window frame. Through it I can see a steep drop and at the bottom another railway line. I am then lying in bed in what feels like my brother’s old bedroom. I put a triangle of pillows behind me, making a V-shape, so I can lie back upright. On the wall there is a large incomplete illustration in pencil of two women. I want to draw them, copying it, and am concentrating on doing the details of the arm and hands.