Monday, 9th of July

The week has been subdued, but also quite unnerving. Each night now we’ve had the same dream – The Manor as a God given sanctuary appearing over a hill. In the morning I wake up feeling safe, as if the walls are protecting me and nothing can harm me here, but then the realisation comes of what that means to the rest of the world if we’re the last bolthole. Nothing has happened yet, when I saw it Saturday the TV was still talking about Barclays, Libor and Andy Murray – while we sat together and talked about the end of the world. But surely there’s a way we can still warn people what’s about to happen. Surely there’s some chance we can make a difference.
For now Dexter Phillips doesn’t feel the same and is cutting off our internet access and removing our televison and radio to keep the world out – to “allow us to get used to what’s about to happen’. Everyone is going along with it for now, but there is a dark mood amongst us.

I will blog again when I get chance.

Thursday, 5th of July

We will have everything we need at The Manor, Dexter Phillips told us. The house has its own generator, and there is a well in the garden and livestock on the grounds. There is the of course the slight chance of them being stolen or sabotaged in some way, but we’ve seen those in the world after the incident (that is the phrase he used – ‘the incident’) and such acts of calculated terror are clearly beyond them. We would be safe in The Manor, we could thrive in The Manor, and we could greet the world beyond on our terms.

All we have to do is get our heads around the fact that everyone we’ve ever known, and everything we’ve ever known, is gone.

Wednesday, 4th of July

Dexter Phillips’ message was stark, but delivered with a calm which seemed to me later almost eerie. He was the one person standing in the room – the rest of us sit on the floor – and he moved among us like a hip, young university lecturer addressing an informal study group. His tone had that quality too, conversational, casual, as if what we were discussing was not that big a deal at all. Or maybe that’s unfair, perhaps there was a slight sharpness to his tone – but no more than a weatherman letting the great British public know there was a nasty storm on the way.
The end of the world is coming, he told us, and we are the ones best prepared.

Tuesday, 3rd of July

The world won’t listen to what it doesn’t want to hear, Dexter Phillips tells us. Ask any environmentalist, ask any doomsayer about the economy – people do not want to listen to anything that affects the status quo, to anything which might disrupt their comfort.

But what we have to tell them is huge, the news we have to announce to the world is immense – and for that reason alone it won’t be listened to. The powers that be will just see this strange little community, a commune, a strange cult. You can see the words which will be thrown about already, we’ll just be another band of cranks. Even those out there who are similarly having these dreams will be encouraged to laugh at us. Nothing will happen if we tell the world, nothing all.

As such we have to accept that what we’re dreaming is going to happen and there’s nothing we can do to stop it. And with that in mind we have to be in the right place when it happens.

Monday, 2nd of July

The same dream two nights in a row for all of us. Again we all woke up having seen visions of The Manor appearing over the hill as a haven, a sanctuary. Once more this caused a buzz of excitement around the dining room in the morning. As having spent the last few weeks discussing the same dreams we’ve all endured for months on end, this is something exciting.
Only Dexter Phillips was unperturbed, only he retained his calm. Finally Elvina/Denise asked why – and his reply was astonishing.

Apparently he’s been having this very dream for months, seeing this house as a sanctuary – and that was one of the reasons why he brought us here to Wales. He has determined that London is not safe (indeed no cities are), that it’s tainted. As he explained this to us, he even pointed to me and said that the same thing is in my book, a sense of London as a place filled with danger and fear. That’s why he wanted us to leave. Not that we could all be together in the country necessarily, but so we could all be safe from London.

We are the chosen ones he told us, and so we have to be together and protected away from those in the towns and cities.

Sunday, 1st of July

A new dream!
It is afterwards. After the object has fallen from the sky, after the virus has infected the majority of the human race. I am staggering in the darkness through the countryside. My legs ache and my feet are blistered, as if I’ve been running for days. In the distance I wonder if I can hear these ‘new’ people, the infected ones, but in my rational mind I know that they mainly stay in the towns and cities – better pickings there. They are not going to pursue me over fields and hillocks, and yet still I run.

It’s incredibly dark. Of course it’s been dark for a long time now, but the countryside is like stumbling through sheer blackness. I have fallen and tumbled so many times, I even think my shoulder might be fractured. But still I go on, even though I know there’s only a small chance I’m being chased, it’s still enough to spur me forwards.

Suddenly I find myself at a ridge. Hearing (or imagining) some nearby sound, I desperately try to scrabble up at it, kicking away with my feet and aching arm. Finally I pull myself to the top and beyond is like heaven.

There’s a house, a grand old house, but one that is actually lit and so looks protected. The light from it shines into the sky so ethereal. With a gasp of joy I start pelting towards it.

I dreamt this in my room within The Manor, a large house in West Wales. The house in my dream – and we all had the same dream last night – is clearly The Manor.

Wednesday, 27th of June

What I noticed this morning was how much we have all started resembling each other. As we sit around the dining room (or what was the dining room, there is no table and we sit in a large circle on the floor) and talk about our dreams, we manage the same facial expressions. There is something wide-eyed and disbelieving of the things we’ve seen in our heads, but also a complete belief in the meaning of the dream and the importance of getting every single detail out there. Even when we disagree, when we see things different in our dreams – the same tone of voice echoes around the room. We have seen these things in our minds, we have written them down and painted them, and can still conjure them before our eyes if we concentrate. As such we’re very protective when someone tries to disagree with us and our vision. But it’s a protection which comes with a caveat, as we know that everyone feels the same about their dreams and so even when debating, we end up bending our own personal visions around to accommodate the others in the group.
The only person who looks different is Dexter Phillips himself. He looks calmer than the rest of us, more serene. His voice never takes on a hectoring tone. But then he is the one who stands in the meetings, he is the one who can interject to take them in new directions. Undoubtedly he is the person in charge.

Monday, 25th of June

So, what about what about the thing which raises itself up from below? The beast which, in my Surrey Quays dreams, smashes apart the tarmac seemingly determined to destroy us all? In that particular dream I’m stood outside the shopping centre, feeling a terrifying sense of dread that seems shared by everyone around me. Then, suddenly, the world shakes and the pavement bursts to reveal something. What it is I don’t know, but I’m sure I have seen it in my night visions and think that it was so terrible that my mind has just blocked it out.
We have all had variations of this dream, we’ve all experienced the dread of this primal force rising up from below our feet – from the very core of the earth – to devour every one of us.

But what does it mean? The vision that’s most persuasive suggests something will drop from the sky and unleash a virus likely to destroy us all. So what is this terrible thing from below? How does that fit in? Sometimes, now we’re all together (and the power of these dreams seems a hundredfold more intense, now we are altogether), we all get the sense that something is watching us. Others think that we are monitored by forces (government or other) somehow, but I occasionally have the thought that it’s the thing below looking up and wondering how we’re coming along.

Thursday, 21st of May

The world afterwards is a dark and nightmarish place, where those few of us who survive and aren’t infected (what is it about us that makes us immune to infection? Do the dreams give us some kind of protection?) live a life on the margins. The air is heavy and clogged with ash, and all around us is the next stage of man – one which has given us all semblances of civilisation, and where cannibalism and horrific violence are not only the norm, but a source of great pleasure. We real survivors have to creep around them, knowing that like all hunters their senses are heightened, and if they were to intuit our presence their fingers would dig deep beneath our flesh and rip our bones from their sockets.
Out here in Wales the dreams are so intense that we can spend the first half hour of a morning just holding each other as a group, trying to briefly protect ourselves from what’s to come.

Wednesday, 20th of June

And yet the consequences of this, whatever it is, aren’t confined to London. Those of us in the Capital see the survivors as a rampaging crowd, a violent and ruthless band of feral beasts – but everyone across the world also sees their fellow man in the same terms. But I don’t see that as an echo of what’s happening in London, as the others have dreams where they are ripped apart by their friends and family. In their minds, in great detail, they are tortured and killed by their loved ones. These aren’t complete strangers, these aren’t far away echoes, this is something that happening to them.
Something is going to crash into the planet, and with it will come this plague of violence.

Tuesday, 19th of May

But how can all of us - who in geographic location, range across the UK, Ireland, Germany and the States – see the same thing striking the Earth? Clearly when the sky rips jagged, torn apart in a mix of reds and blacks, it cannot be the same meteorite we’re seeing. One of the theories which has been suggested is that it’s a meteor shower, that there are dozens of huge projectiles coming at us from different angles. What we’re witnessing is a huge celestial storm hitting the solar system and destroying our planet as we know it.

Except, those of us domiciled in London see it far more vivid and colourful than anyone else. (We have now taken to drawing the pictures of our dreams and the hues are far more vivid for those of us in the English capital). The theory I subscribe to is that what those overseas are seeing is an echo of the London dream. We are all in this together, but because the others are less familiar with London they transplant the image to their own locale. They are seeing it, but not quite seeing it.

I believe that this thing is coming to British shores, and it will hit a city of eight million people with huge force.

Monday, 18th of June

This is what the apocalypse looks like.
When we close our eyes, this is the consensus of what we see.

Something will fall from the sky. Those of us in the commune will be stood outside our homes (or perhaps the houses of our loved ones) when something will tear up the sky and smash into the Earth. Then there will be destruction and devastation, whole cities will burn and ash clouds miles wide will spread over continents. There will be survivors though. All of us in The Manor seem destined to live through this cataclysm. However a large number of the other ‘lucky ones’ are infected with something, so that humanity is still alive but the nature of it is completely ordered. The majority of those who are left are wild with bloodlust and determined to tear their fellow man apart.

Sunday, 10th of June

We are in Wales.
Dexter Phillips wasn’t lying when he said he comes from money, as I am typing this from a grand (if slightly needing maintenance) house on the West Wales coast. There is a Welsh name for it, but Dexter – and apparently the entire Phillips family – refer to it as The Manor. It’s the kind of place that once upon a time would have had servants, but now we are self sufficient. There is a rota for cooking breakfast and dinner, and in-between we talk about our dreams and what they mean to the wider world.

After Dexter Phillips and Denise, Julie and I were the first to arrive. We were surprised to find ourselves given single bedrooms. Even when we reminded Dexter that we’re a couple, the sleeping arrangements didn’t alter. The most important things, he said, are the dreams and nothing (including amorous encounters) must be allowed to get in the way of those.

Arriving over the course of the week was Jessica, a hairdresser from Hull; Tom an Australian accountant; and Hans, a footballer from a lower league German team. There are more on their way, we’re promised, but the dynamic between the group as it is now is good. When you’re seeing the same pictures each night, then you do have a lot in common.

Maybe it’s the clean coastal air, or maybe it’s the fact that so many of us are together – but the dreams seem even more intense out here. They are the same dreams, I am still seeing London and my home within the city, but that seems a long way away now.

Wednesday, 6th of June

A quick note that I’m typing hurriedly in the corridor of a train, having excused myself to go to the loo.
I had a call from Alison!

Yes, Alison, my Australian girlfriend who disappeared from my life (and everybody else’s) at the start of the year. I hadn’t thought of her in days, but my phone went off yesterday evening from a  with-held number. At first I couldn’t hear her, it was just static. I was just about to hang up thinking it was a dreadful line, when I heard her voice in the background. It only lasted a few seconds, but she said: “Have a great time in Wales! I’m sure you’ll find what you need!”

Has she read this blog, is that how she knows? But then how can she have found me in Budapest? That wasn’t on this blog beforehand. And of course the biggest question, why does she reach out so obliquely?

I haven’t told Julie about this, I haven’t told Dexter Phillips about Julie either – and yet I can’t help thinking this has something to do with our dreams.

Tuesday, 5th of July

Well, the decision has been made, we are going to Wales. While everyone else was watching the Queen celebrate her sixty years on the throne (or sixty years since they first actually put the crown on her head – I believe they’re different dates, and I’ve stopped paying attention to the mundane or predictable parts of the news) we’ve been packing. It has been a week that has seen both Julie and I racked with dreams. When the alarm has gone off in the morning, we’ve crawled with red ringed eyes into the waking world, still shaking from the night before. Each of us has lost hours of the day on the phone to Dexter Phillips, relating our dreams to him and hearing what went on in his head last night – as well as what other members of our group have told him. Then at the end of each day, mentally and physically exhausted, we curl up next to each other and fearfully await the next instalment of our night-time terrors.
Clearly something has got to give. We cannot concentrate on our life anymore at work, indeed the whole of waking life at the moment is hard after being torn apart by our dreams. And so tomorrow neither of us will go to work, we will each close the door to our flats for the last time, and start the train trip to West Wales.

Thursday, 31st of May

The dream in The City last night, where I’m standing outside The Royal Exchange and have a hoard of crazed humanity charge at me. Only this time the dream went much further. I could feel the crowd above me, their sharp nails slashing into my skin and their fingers gourging into my eye sockets. My God! I could even feel them start to bite my flesh. I was being eaten alive by this insane pack of animals in human skin.
This morning I was still shaking when I called Dexter Phillips to tell him about it. He pointed out a case in Miami this week where a guy on bad acid ate a passing motorist’s face. There was apparently also a man in North Jersey who stabbed himself and threw his skin and intestines at the police. Dexter’s view is very much that there is something happening out there which our dreams are tapping into.

Wednesday, 30th of May

The Surrey Quays dream once again, only this time it got further than it has ever done before. In the dream last night I felt the sheer dread of what is about to happen, saw the frightened look in the pregnant lady’s eyes, and tumbled onto my arse as the ground ripped itself open. But last night I also saw – or think I saw – the thing beneath the ground. I couldn’t tell you now what shape it is, or what it remotely looks like, but I could tell that its hot burning eyes were boring straight into me.

Tuesday, 29th of May

In my dream last night I was stood outside the Surrey Quays shopping centre knowing that something awful was going to emerge from below. Of course I’ve had this dream so many times, I’m aware what’s going to happen before there’s a single tremor or hint of disturbance. But last night was different, the fear and intensity of the vision was so incredible that it was impossible to believe for even the fraction of a second that all would be well. The dread seemed to transmit itself onto the faces of all the passers-by. Every one of them looked absolutely terrified, as if they knew without a doubt that the steps they were taking right then were the last ones they’d ever take.
I woke with a yell of fear, covered in sweat. Julie was beside me, crying in her sleep.

Monday, 28th of May

Last night was the dream where I’m stood out on my street. I am alone, stark naked and staring at the houses opposite fully aware that something terrible is coming my way. It is going to crash from the sky and destroy all around me. What is it? I still have no idea, but as I stand there and feel the breeze tingle every inch of my skin, I know how dreadful it will be.
Just as dreadful is the fact that I’m alone. I know that somewhere there are other people having the exact same experience to me, but they so far away and I am completely unable to contact them. Instead I am utterly by myself, there is no one sympathetic around me. All I can feel is hostility. There are eyes peering at me naked and vulnerable, but each of the gazes is hostile and frightening. These people – hidden away behind their doors and windows – also sense this coming doom, but they are not responding with fear, they are lashing out with hatred for those who are not like them. Stood out on my street, I am very much not like them. I am trembling and afraid.

Sunday, 27th of May

Julie and I have stayed up late talking about it, we’ve called into work sick so we can stay at home discussing it. Sometimes we feel that Dexter Phillips may just be a crank and to give up our careers (admittedly, Julie’s career has had a lot more hard work go into it than my career) is sheer insanity. Equally, what are we going to say to our families when we disappear into the middle of nowhere in West Wales?
But then, the dreams come, so intense and unbelievably scary – so full of portents of danger – that something drastic seems like the only possible response to them.