Dream Journal Ultimate
Date: 12/2/2025
By amandalyle
I’ve apparently made a dazzling new career move — because why stick to a tedious nine-to-five when you can reinvent yourself in the dream world? I’m now a celebrity dream psychic. Yes. Somehow, that’s my job. Fame has taken me by storm. I’ve been swept up in a hurricane of lucrative deals, sponsored posts, and offers so bizarre they surely violate several moral guidelines. I’m the new face of fungal nail treatment. My agent tells me to “own it.” I try not to imagine my name drifting across a giant billboard next to a throbbing big toe. I even have my own candle line: Freudian Fog, the coffee scented Déjà Brew and the deeply questionable Sandman’s Sweaty Palms. It’s absurd. It’s mortifying. It’s apparently my brand now. My manager — at least for this five-minute segment of the dream — is Bentley, my old union rep and accidental life guru. He takes his role far too seriously. Right now, he’s on the phone to Chloe Sims, passing along my “psychic dream predictions” like they’re prophecies etched on ancient scrolls. “Oh my GAAWD!” Chloe squeals. “That is, like… soooo accurate!” Behind me, Mum snorts. “Gullible morons!”. “Well,” I say, “these gullible morons are paying the bills.” Which is tragically, beautifully, undeniably true. With my sudden rise as Britain’s most unreliable oracle, I’ve been handed my own spin-off reality show: Mandy and Mally. It’s just me and Mally — Royal Mail legend, parcel-sorting warrior, man who once fell into a trolley and emerged a hero — going about our thrillingly mediocre lives. To keep things “fresh,” we decide to perform the entire show through interpretive dance. It’s a terrible idea. Five minutes in, We’ve descended into chaos — Mally is shuffling across the hallway pretending to be a postbox having a meltdown, while I attempt the emotional journey of a misdelivered parcel. Eventually, we collapse into hysterics, crying with laughter. “Beats Royal Mail, right?” I say between gasps. “Never been happier,” Mally wheezes. Our laughter smears the scene into darkness like wet paint. Now I’m in B&Q with Mum and my husband, Mat, who is huffing and puffing like an angry steam engine. After ten minutes of browsing lampshades, he dramatically sinks into a bargain basket — literally sitting in it, legs dangling, playing some tragic game where he’s a medieval pigeon collecting crumbs. He’s muttering at the screen like he’s been personally wronged by digital poultry. Mum is hunting for living-room décor for her grand “makeover.” I find her perched proudly in the middle of a staged display — a nautical set-up complete with a fake fireplace, driftwood accents, and a cushion that says Anchors Aweigh. “I think I’ll take this one,” she says, settling into the armchair like she owns the place. “Oh, Mum…” I say gently. “It’s just the display.” She deflates. “Oh. Shame. I thought I could just live here.” At her feet is a tote bag filled with random tat — tea towels, a rogue spatula, possibly a mouldy Werther’s — but nestled among it all is something that makes my chest pinch. Dog-Dog. Well… a Dog-Dog wannabe. My son’s beloved comforter. The one that’s followed him into teenhood, pulled out at weekends, nestled under his arm like a relic of innocence. Dog-Dog began life as a plump little folding travel pillow, but after years of bedtime affection, my son pulled out every last tuft of stuffing until Dog-Dog became a deflated, floppy limb blanket. A sentimental tortilla. A comfort relic. A survivor. But this version? This… fluffy, perky, aggressively intact stranger? Too clean. Too soft. Its eyes point in opposite directions like it’s monitoring parallel dimensions. I lift it. Sniff it. No pee-pee pong. No faint aroma of sleep, childhood, or questionable hygiene. Just supermarket fabric softener. A fraud. “Just get it,” Mat sighs from the bargain bin. “He’ll never know.” I drop the imposter back into the cage. “He deserves the real thing,” I say. “Not an understudy.” Even the imposter seems relieved. The scene drifts away, like Dog-Dog’s wandering eyeball. Then I’m somewhere unfamiliar again — lost, naturally — when a man the size of a double wardrobe waves me over. “Would you like to come inside for refreshments?” he asks, grinning with the innocent charm of a golden retriever in human form. I follow him into his pristine, soulless new-build. Everything is white: white walls, white counters, white sofas. Even the air feels bleached. His wife stands at the kitchen island chopping carrots with the quiet intensity of a woman imagining each carrot is my head. Before I can decline whatever “refreshment” he’s about to offer, the beefcake steps back, inhales like he’s preparing for a performance… and suddenly — oh God, it begins. He grips the hem of his shirt and lifts it slowly. Painfully slowly. Agonisingly slowly. And in the background — though I suspect it’s just in my own deranged mind — “I Just Wanna Make Love to You” starts playing. Loud. Sultry. Bluesy. The full 1997 cola advert fantasy. He pulls the shirt up over his abs like he’s unveiling a family heirloom. Then, in one fluid, cinematic motion, he pops open a cold tin of cola, tilts his head back, and swigs. Seductively. Obscenely. Like he’s being paid handsomely for every glug. A trickle escapes the corner of his mouth, sliding down his chin, dripping onto his chest. The droplets glimmer over his rippling muscles like tiny disco lights. His pecs twitch slightly — possibly from the cold, possibly from instinctive showmanship. I stand rooted to the spot, slack-jawed, as the music crescendos in my head. Normally, big muscly men don’t do anything for me. Normally, I’d roll my eyes. Normally, I would run for the hills. But not today. Some primal dream-logic force takes over. Before I can stop myself, I reach out —without dignity, consent, or common sense — and climb him. Like a tiny deranged koala scaling a eucalyptus tree. He laughs, a big warm laugh that rumbles through his chest and vibrates right through me. His wife stops mid-carrot-chop. She stares. The knife gleams. The unspoken message is: Get. Off. My. Husband. I slide down his torso with the elegance of a slug on glass. “Thanks for the… cola demonstration.” He winks, oblivious to the domestic homicidal aura radiating from three feet away. “Anytime!” he booms. And that’s when the TV flickers on. The kitchen freezes — wife, beefcake, me. On the screen: My face. Underneath it, the single word: FRAUD. A cheap mugshot version of me — bad lighting, limp hair, expression like I’ve just realised I left the oven on. I hear a faint whisper behind me, soft and horrified: “Oh my gawddd…” Chloe. My phone rings. Bentley. I answer. He speaks just one word: “Run.” The line goes dead. I stare at my own accusing face on the screen. FRAUD. IMPOSTER. ME. Or at least the version I’ve been peddling. In a house that looks like it was assembled from catalogue pages, with a man built like a Greek statue and a woman itching to chop something more satisfying than carrots — I realise I’m always running. From myself. Towards some shinier, cleaner version. Another display home. Another fake Dog-Dog. Another persona to slip into like a borrowed coat. I look at my reflection in the glossy black TV screen. This time, there’s no place left to run. And that’s when the dream collapses — quietly, like a costume falling to the floor.