Horror dream diary: DrGaz’s Final Resting Place.

My nightmares are generally rather macabre and I often remember them in quite some detail. This is an account of a recent dream where I visualised my own death. As disturbing as this may sound, for some reason in the dream it didn’t bother me too much. I don’t know why.

Music occasionally features prominently in my dreams. I often wake with a distinct melody in my head. This dream is no exception.

I dreamt that I was part of a brass band that was practising one evening in the streets of Cambridge. My instrument was the tuba, and our suited, bespectacled bandmaster was rehearsing us through a melody – two melodies in fact, both of them very similar with only minor variation between the two.

"My lungs would be the cause of my on death..."

As I played, the bandmaster walked angrily up to me and criticised what I was doing. He told me that I was playing the melody incorrectly and that I wasn’t blowing hard enough. Shaking his head he turned to another official and muttered something about my lungs being not up to the job. Between them they conceded that my lungs would be the cause of my own death, and this was not far off in the future. They resolved that now would be a good time to choose a burial plot for me. According to the band-master, Mrs Baxter, (whoever the hell Mrs Baxter was) had decreed that I was to be buried rather than cremated.

"I approved their choice of plot for my final resting place..."

We all trooped off together to the local graveyard where I approved their choice of plot for my final resting place. It was next to the main path and on a grassy incline.

At this moment in the dream my mind was filled with a vision of the future. I saw myself dead, lying in state in an open coffin, my suited-and-booted corpse looking not a day older than I am now. The coffin lay at floor level and was enveloped within a sealed ornate box with glass sides. The box was lavishly decorated with carved wooden framework and gold leaf.

I remember that in the dream I felt positive about what I saw. I even remember thinking that they’d done a pretty damn good job of me! The dream ended at this point, and I awoke with the tuba melody in my head. I have no idea what this all meant. Maybe I should lay off the fags.