I was travelling on a bus from Lanercost School (where I went several years ago) to Brampton (the town where I live) with various people including my friend Smill. As we crossed the bridge, she accused me of never talking on my own accord. I protested that I had spoken first the day we met, but I knew that even then that hadn't been the case.

I was in a pub with a few other people. The barmaid told us off for being underage. She explained that half of the pub was for eighteen year olds, the half with the bar was for people over eighteen and a half, and the basement was for over twenty ones. She lay down and fell through the floor.

A series of dogs attacked me in the street. The first four missed me, but the fifth bit my leg. It wouldn't let go. "This f***ing hurts!" I yelled, hoping no one would mind me swearing, and woke up with a terrible cramp in my leg.

3 October 1999: You Can See Where My Greatest Concerns Lie

Some geens at Churchill College (where I had just arrived) had borrowed my CD collection and kept taking it to strange locations. I desperately tried to get it back and woke up in a cold sweat at 4am, switching my angle poise lamp on to check that it was still in my room.

10 October 1999: My Half-Brother Becomes A Buddhist

My half-brother, having closed his recording studio, intended to spend half his time living with his mother and the other half at a Buddhist retreat. My parents encouraged me to have a birthday party in his house, even though it was November.

Helen G, a girl in my school year, had a party in a restaurant, the fifth one that year. At a previous one, I had left a stole in the cloakroom, so I collected it. There was a series of thirty "Crystal Maze" type activities that Smill and I were trying to complete. We'd done the first twenty seven, Smill had attempted the twenty eighth but failed, and we couldn't find the last two. My mother arrived to take us home.

30 October 1999: The Day I Leave University, I Go Back To School

I was in the Upper 6th and given two responsibilities. I had to be a prefect of 3X (as it was 1999, this was the year below the infamous 2X) and I was editor of the school newsletter, which was five A4 sheets long. I had some others to help me out with this, but I had decided to write about a certain subject for the first five issues, for which we all had to read a certain book. My mother was familiar with it, so she helped me compose the first few paragraphs, but I didn't know how I was going to write five issues on the subject since the book was truly boring and all the rest of the committee agreed. I decided to cut it to one issue, but even that would be a strain.

And, indeed, I was too busy working on it to register 3X one Tuesday morning. By the time I reached the classroom, they'd all set off into the town centre. I went there too.

The town was unfamilar, although it reminded me of that in the computer game "Beyond Zork". It was quaint and near the sea. The outdoor cafes had more right to the narrow roads than traffic did, and the only sign of modernisation was a run-down supermarket (probably Mace).

Helen G and a German bloke called Kraut died. They turned into pencils and floated to the bottom of the sea. He got caught in a hole in the sea bed, but she levered him out. They fell in love and made friends with the other pencil people down there.

In the meantime, I was responsible for their security on earth, by looking after pieces of jewellery belonging to them. However, I lost them. I went to the supermarket on my bike to buy a loaf of bread and a bottle of orange, but I only had about a pound, so I simply took the orange to the counter.

The woman behind it refused to sell me it on the grounds that she didn't know how much it cost. She demonstrated her normal technique of determining a price: she held up a cassette and tested whether various coins would fall through the holes. A 5p would fall through, a 1p wouldn't, but she didn't know what that meant. "Ask the bloke over there," she said, pointing to a guy on the other side of the shop, "then that woman" who was in the middle.

I couldn't be bothered, so I left the supermarket, hurried through the streets and found myself in a deserted pawn shop. On the floor were the pieces of jewellery and my bike. I was going to take them, but I knew that they weren't mine now and I couldn't afford to buy them back.

2 November 1999: Some Britpop Bands Eat Cake

There was a bird and two ducks and one of the ducks couldn't swim underwater. They had to cross a lake, and the duck wouldn't want to attempt it. However, the bird persuaded the other duck to tell it a legend involving an egg, in order to give it courage. The duck did its job, then went to the toilet while the bird said its bit. However, the scared duck worked out what was going on. Everything was all right though.

A line of twelve people, including members of Blur and Oasis, performed a task one by one. They would eat two bites of the underside of a chocolate cake and tell people about their college society, most of which were concerned with rugby. For some reason, I, whoever I was, was worried.

3 November 1999: Can I Play With Madness?

I was in a Maths lecture where they were trying to determine the class representative. My friends Marion and Smill wanted me to be one and wrote a speech for me. Even though I was going to leave university, I couldn't refuse, but when I tried to read it, I only managed to say the first two paragraphs, due to constant noisy interruptions. Then the lecture ended.

I saw Alice, a girl in my school year, as I left, and we walked towards her next lecture together, talking. We parted company at the foot of Tennis Court Road and I headed New Museums wards. There I met Yao, a girl I met at Churchill, who was annoyed with me for going off with Alice. It occurred to me to get Yao to be the representative instead, but that part of the dream faded before I could.

I was trying to get home from school on a scooter. I made it up the school drive, although cars kept pushing past me. There was a blind bend, so I waited at the edge of the pavement. Eventually, I got out, but the engine didn't seem to be working, so I had to pedal.

At the top of the hill, I realised I was lost. I went into a shop and tried to orientate myself by looking through a first floor window. I thought I could see where to go but on setting out on my scooter, I got lost again. I found myself in a market square where they seemed to be constructing some things, resembling tombs. I rode over them, very afraid of the consequences.

I was invited to play in the band Madness, but I would be kicked out if I couldn't find their houses. Mercifully, I remembered where they were. On the opposite side of the road from school, there were three houses on the sides of a farmyard. Two were black and one was white, and they occupied a black one and the white one.

I went to a pub not far from my old school / Churchill College, where I found a girl in the year below mine sitting on her own. I hugged her and she just got more upset, but after a while I was able to comfort her. She asked me to go back to college to get her a jumper. "Otay," I said, "then we'll get roaring drunk." But as I said this, I noticed that the bar had closed and people were flooding out. So we followed.

4 November 1999: The Terror Induced By Pink Hair

My online friend Twi and I went to stay with AevilSteve, her ex. Outside his house, on a large patio, his mother was having a barbecue, but Twi and I just went inside to a heauge auditorium, with a cinema screen at the front. BBC1 was showing on it, but the volume was low and we didn't pay any attention. Instead lay down on the floor and talked and Steve joined us a bit later.

Twi started to list the people she'd slept with. (A v. strange list: the first and third names were female and the last was me - although, technically speaking, I guess there's truth in that.) She mentioned a guy with a strange name - Hugh Something-Foreign - and I said, "I knew you were going to say that." She freaked out, and I said, "Relax, you probably just mentioned him in your journal. Which I was reading yesterday."

Then our attention was drawn to the screen. There was a bloke standing on a map of England (not unlike the weather forecast on one of the morning TV shows). In every county was the average number of people everyone had slept with. Cumbria's number was 2, higher than the numbers in other northern counties, but down south, the numbers ranged from 7 to 50-something. Some of the southern counties had been replaced by statistics from foreign countries.

An old woman sitting in front of us had magenta hair. "Kewl hair," I remarked, although I meant it seriously: it looked funchie. But suddenly, everyone in front of her jumped up in horror. "Pink hair! Argh!" And they all rushed out of the auditorium as fast as they could. An old woman a few rows down had hers dyed blue, which just looked garish, but no one was afraid of her, and when she put a hairnet on, people started giving her five pound notes.

I was in Tesco with my mother. We went into this little deserted room where I attempted to get the ink to come out of an ink stamp. I was about to declare it empty when ink splashed on the white walls. We tried to spread it out, dilute it, but there was still a greyish stain. Mum was really worried and I tried to reassure her.

I went to Churchill College and there were three security guards standing outside. They started to hassle me since I was under twenty one and a northerner. Luckily, two other blokes came along, who were Scottish. They bantered with the guards who let me past.

8 November 1999: I Prefer Yorkie Bars To Chris

My family was going to travel back to 1981. As far as I was aware, this was irreversible. Theoretically, I liked the idea, but I was a bit annoyed that I wouldn't be able to tell anyone what I'd done, either in my life as it was now or as it would be then. I could see why: this possibility would be sought after by the military, but I couldn't see how, in 1981, I'd manage to keep my knowledge of the future to myself. Furthermore, there'd be no Internet in 1981, so I posted a message on my website saying I would be gone for quite some time.

My parents left my brother Noj and I at our house with my friend Chris and a bloke called Jonathan. We were supposed to study, but our house turned partially into a night club. Noj stood in the living room / dance floor with Jonathan. Chris and I sat in the front room / chill out zone. Yes, I confess, it was about to get dodgy, but I said (sappy film style-ee), "We can't do this. You have a girlfriend." My parents got home a minute later and I was very relieved. I was even more happy when they gave me four Yorkie Bars.

I found an old list of most-frequently-dialled phone numbers. My friend Roe was on it, at number thirteen, but most of the rest of the names meant little to me. The name at the top was Maddy. I had a vague notion that she'd been in the year above mine at school but left at the end of fifth form to go to Australia, but my mother later told me that she was someone completely different.

Corresponding to the names were birthday cards and presents for me from each of them. The bloke at number five, Dave, had sent me a very strange card. It was just a folded piece of paper with his handwriting on it. On the front he'd put his new address; on the third page he'd said the usual happy birthday stuff; but to the second page he'd sellotaped a plastic bag containing brass hinges and screws. When I asked Mum about Dave's identity, she said he was my great uncle.

It was a Monday morning at school, and I had double French in the carrels. The teacher left twenty five minutes before the end of the lesson and when the bell rang I left and started along the corridor. I passed her, feeling slightly scared, but she said nothing.

I saw my religion teacher on his way to the basement. "Where's Religion this morning?" I asked. We had Religion the lesson after next. "Down here," he said, vaguely. I assumed he meant the side-chapel, but I couldn't be certain.

My next lesson was in the lecture theatre with an unfamiliar female teacher. There was a new girl in the class, at whom the teacher fired a load of unfair questions. However, she asked the girl to estimate the standard deviation of a set of figures, and she got the right answer.

9 November 1999: Fame For Being One Of Chris's Mistakes

I was standing on an unfamiliar university campus. There was lots of grass around, it was a very nice day and I reading a glossy magazine. The first feature was an interview with Chris, about his love life. I was given two lines under the heading "Mistakes". For some reason, I was exceedingly happy as a result. [A v. good sign.]

21 November 1999: Being A Lesbian In A Toilet

I was staying in Edinburgh for a week, and there were only two days before I was to leave. I went into a souvenir shop. On two occasions I picked up tartan postcards to send to people, but put them back, remembering I would get home before they would. I took two notebooks to the counter. They cost just over one pound each.

I paid the woman with a twenty pound note. I was leaving the shop, when she said, "Wait, it hasn't been accepted. We only take Scottish money." She drew my attention to a pile of bank notes in one corner of the shop, on a ledge. If it made a beeping noise, it meant the note hadn't been accepted.

So I retrieved my twenty pound note, and tried the placing a tenner I'd received as change there instead. Still the beeping noise. I tried some other twenty pound notes in my wallet, but they were all English and the result was the same. Eventually, I found a fiver, which made it make a beeping sound but at a lower pitch. "That's been accepted," the woman said.

"But it isn't enough," I suddenly realised. My purchases had cost just over £5.33. I started fumbling through my wallet, looking for change, but she told me to replace the five pound note with a twenty v. quickly, in order to confuse the machine.

I was watching / in a film, in which the main character, a teenage girl had her younger brother (he was about five) killed by someone who invaded her house. However, my brother Noj suddenly discovered some trick he could do with Coke flavoured jelly to improve the situation. The following morning, that before speech day, I was in the kitchen, when I observed three strange people entering the glass doors of the living room. I had seen people entering the house before, but hadn't asked about them, and had hoped they were just my imagination. This time, I asked Mum, but she told me they were my relatives and their friends, simply here to put into effect the plan. Sure enough, more people arrived, all of them old, most of them women with curly silver hair, only distinguishable from one another by their individual garish taste in frocks. They sat around the kitchen table, and Grandad started saying geenish things. I had doubts whether Noj would still want to perform his jelly trick, but at 8.30, he started making the jelly.

Then a speech day esque ceremony, except it wasn't in the usual location of Sands Centre: the auditorium was more like The Green Room in the nearby museum, except with a raised stage. I was sitting in the front row, and what was supposed to happen did: Noj did his trick, and the girl in the film left the auditorium with the most popular boy in school. At this point, it turned into soppy American High School movie ™. I had seen it four times before, and I knew how it ended: the girl and boy went to the water's edge at the nearby beach and kissed. It was an ending I liked.

But then I realised what a geen the boy in question was since he had treated the girl really badly up until now. I followed them to a fairly large shop near the beach that sold confectionary: there were loads of sweets right in front of the counter. The boy started stealing them, and encouraged us to do the same. He threw Bounties, Mars Bars and Wine Gums into a shopping basket he was holding. I started doing the same with mine. It was quite a thrill, and the male shop assistant's eyes were constantly on the ceiling. But, as time to make a run for it approached, I realised that he must have noticed me, and would stop me when I tried to leave. The girl, both the boy and I noticed, wasn't taking part. I spotted her at the back of the shop, heading towards the door. She was slightly transparent in certain positions, and I wasn't sure whether the boy could see her or not.

When she reached the exit, I made my decision. I emptied all my sweets into the boy's basket and dashed towards the door. I was still carrying one fun size chocolate bar, which I attempted to drop a number of times without success, before finally depositing it just inside the shop.

Outside, the girl and I went to a ladies' toilets, and she looked in one of the cubicles, hoping to see the ghost of her dead brother. It was then that I remembered how scared I'd been the first time I saw this film: I kept expecting his ghost to appear. And now the ending hadn't gone to plan, there was still potential for frightening occurrences. But the girl and I hugged and kissed, then I went to the gym for "soccer practice".

Except it wasn't. There were both girls and boys present, it was played with two inflatable footballs, but they were carried not kicked, and in order to prevent them being moved, full scale fights broke out. Needless to say, I was somewhat scared. In the middle of the gym were two trampolines, and I observed a boy carrying the ball leap up onto and off both of them, and touch the ball to the opposite walls. This, I imagined, was how points were scored. Oddly, no one tried to stop him.

At one point, a ball came into my hands, and I put into practise the same movement. Not as gracefully as he did, but I managed it. A couple of times, I failed to get onto the trampolines, but I managed on second attempt.

Then I found myself sitting up on the trampolines with some other people, just watching the game progress. It was then that I realised how far they were from the ground. A guy below yelled that they were only six feet up, but he must have been about six feet tall, and he seemed miles away. I reasoned that he must mean six feet from the reach of his arms, but it still seemed further.

He threw the ball up to the trampoline and I caught it and leapt off. Then someone pointed out that I was on the wrong side of the gym. So I went to the other side, but all but one of them were all wearing red shirts, while I was in blue. When I next touched the ball to the wall, I noticed a list of names on it, which people had signed. I couldn't find mine, but I made some sort of mark beside the nearest one, Cara W. I reasoned that this way she'd get called back to practices, not me, but I didn't want to be there anyway.

Afterwards, I tried desperately to find the changing rooms. After a while, I found Louise from Churchill. I asked her if she was looking for the changing rooms, but she was fully dressed (although strangely, in a magenta sweatshirt and navy blue trousers) and said no, and did I know where her tutorial was. She showed me her timetable, and it appeared to be in a room beginning Q. "That's in the biology department, I think," I said, although she should know better, being a biologist. It then occurred to me that it would be somewhere in college, but I didn't say that.

We parted company, and I ran into the gym teacher, who pointed me in the direction of the changing rooms. I had to go outside onto a balcony type thang then through a door.

From there, doors were arranged on the inside of an n-shaped corridor, which resembled part of a stately home - the doors were wood and the walls were wood-panelled, with artwork on them. The first two I passed had chalk scrawlings on the doors, and I noticed the word "BOYS", but I wondered if these had been altered at any point. However, two semi-naked boys emerged from them, fighting, so I moved on. The third, fourth and fifth had no markings on the door. The sixth and seventh, the last ones on the first stroke of the n, had "ducks" among the scrawlings, which I remembered was slang for boyfriends. Round to the other side.

There, none of the doors appeared to lead to any sort of changing room. I spotted some flier, signed by "the college women" protesting about the state of two of the changing rooms, so I looked inside the doors that were mentioned. They were no bigger than closets and full of junk. I saw a teenage girl behind one of the other doors, but that room looked unlikely too. I had no idea where I'd left my clothes.

24 November 1999: I Prefer Physics To Chris, And That's Saying Something

*?$#! Just when I thought I'd got rid of him for good, I had another flipping dream involving Chris! We were in the study while eight boys from my former school year were playing consequences in the living room. However, I am proud to say (and you will be sorry to hear) it was incredibly boring. So boring that he started copying out manuscript and I got a job in Sainsbury's in Cambridge and went to a Physics lecture. This is a V. V. Good Sign. It got even better when the Physics lecture turned into a rock concert.

30 November 1999: I Prefer Smill To Chris, And That's Really Saying Something

I was at my friend Smill's house. She took me to an alcove where there was a big photocopying / binding machine, which made me a twenty-four page full-colour booklet about how to pass A Level General Studies.

I went to Tesco with my friend Marion, who was supposed to tutor me, but according to the booklet, there was only 3% of the content she could help me with. She found this hilarious, and kept laughing as we traipsed up and down the aisles. At the checkout, there were three forty-somethings loitering, as if to help pack bags. The woman bleeping our items asked Marion if she was at school. "No, I'm at medical college," she said. The people stared at her, and then she realised something: "Oh, you want my student card!" "It would help," the woman said in a condescending tone of voice. As our shopping was bleeped, the people asked me about my decision to retake General Studies when I already had an 'A' in it. "Yes, but I want to actually do some work for it this time," I told them.

As Marion struggled to leave with the trolley, I was trying to keep hold my watch which had broken into little pieces. [This is bit is interesting, as there are three possible meanings. 1) Time is slipping through my fingers. 2) I'd misplaced my watch (which I found to be true the following morning). 3) The previous evening, while on the phone to Chris, I'd dismantled my parents' alarm clock and couldn't fix it.]

[Speaking of which, even though loads of people from my former school year featured, he was nowhere to be seen. This is a V. V. V. Good Sign. But his usual role was taken by Smill, which I'm not sure is much of an improvement. Especially bearing in mind the ending . . .]

In the car park, I saw Helen Wi and Les, who were in my school year. We watched Helen G driving away in her new car, which had eyes as headlights. "Car trends," I sighed out loud. "Last year it was . . . " "Covered rear windscreens," Les supplied. "That's it," I said. "Now this." But when I saw that the eyes roll realistically as the car moved, I had to admit, "That is too cool."

It was the last day of school ever and my friend Marion and I were on a sheltered patio beside an unfamiliar quadrangle. With us was Katie, also in our school year, who was being v. badly beaten up by two boys wearing towels until a teacher came along and told them off. I kept wondering where Smill was. After a while, a load of Churchill College students surged into view. I recognised them but didn't know their names.

The headmaster made a really touching speech, and then school was over. I found myself with Smill and Herman in Brampton market place. The sun was blazing, but Smill's car was parked on Main Street so we headed up High Cross Street in the shade. That day had been sports day and Herman started telling us about him just beating Will in the "funny race".

I knew it was time to end the dream (my mother had woken me a few minutes ago), so I said, "I love you" to Smill.

"I love you too," Smill told me.

"Don't miss 'Smill and Zed's Lesbian Love Affair', the sequel to this masterpiece!" I said to the viewer. "Same time, same place, but tomorrow!"

"Get up, Zed!" my mother said.

"You know, I really don't need to retake my General Studies A Level," I almost told her, before realising I hadn't been planning to in the first place.

1 December 1999: Beyond Beyond Zork

I was playing / in "Beyond Zork", a text adventure. I intended to keep a meticulous record of the map and all the objects I found and what I did with them. But I found several strange new objects.

2 December 1999: Psychedelia

After a short period in prison, I saw a famous painting which had Deep Significance. I had created a picture out of sand some time ago with identical contours to those in the painting. To prove the strangeness, I shook the sand and formed almost the same pattern. But when I shook the sand for a third time, the pattern was completely different.

5 December 1999: Zed And Chris Argue About Printing

Blarg! He returned!

I went to my online friend Twi's "what's new" page and found excerpts from a diary she kept in 1993 posted there. I was really excited, but didn't get a chance to read them before I lost that thread.

I was at a party at the house of Alice, a girl in my year, which didn't look anything like it does in reality.

I saw a girl I haven't seen since Primary School there, and we said hello to each other. I got off with two blokes and kissed another on the cheek. So much for my lesbian love affairs. Two-and-a-bit hours before the party ended, they ran out of alcohol so everyone drank strange water instead. When it was over, I stuck around to clean up.

I left work and went back to school. I found myself standing beside a swimming pool with some girls in my year. Alice said she needed a flat dress, could she borrow mine? We all entered the pool one way or another. I dived in, but resurfacing was difficult. In the pool, several videos were floating around: the aim was to catch one and watch it. I couldn't get hold of one, but after half an hour, everyone (about twenty people) got out of the pool and sat down on two rows of chairs, to listen to Chris make a speech.

Except me. I was standing beside him and a printer, watching my website's cast list / a Physics practical print out. "Thirty lines to a page?" he asked, incredulously. "You need 31 to 60 to a page."

"If I have any pages of that length, they'll just print out on two sheets," I said.

"No, you need 31 to 60 to a page," he insisted.

"If any of my pages end up that long, I'll change it," I said. "And I won't sit down unless you apologise."

"Sorry," he said, and good as my word, I sat down. Everyone laughed.

He started speaking about all the people in my year. First Katie, then Natalie. There was a really strange photograph of Natalie, and a Maths lecturer appeared to explain the mathematics of how it had been produced. Chris continued to talk about people and I was impatient for him to mention me.

At three thirty, fifteen minutes before school ended, the only people left to be mentioned were me and a cross between Marion and Smill who was called Lorraine. But before that could happen, a German infant school teacher and members of her class put on a play. One six year old boy said something in English, and she suddenly realised that he didn't know any German. She started panicking like crazy, and everyone went away, expect Lorraine and self.

We crawled through a gap under a v. large concrete block. We were going the wrong way, I knew, but I didn't say anything. We crawled under another to try and orientate ourselves. We found ourselves outside York University which looked more like school.

Lorraine handed someone a piece of paper on which she'd written that Chris should be head of sixth form (or something) next year. She had written in pink ink, and when I looked at the graphics I'd been creating in Flash, I noticed that they were pink too.

6 December 1999: I Think About My Guestbook Too Much

Not again!

So, the answer to the most obvious question is yes. And, I must confess, the answer to the question that arises from this affirmative response is yes as well.

However, it was in public (a bench outside school) and v. PG-rated and I was v. mature. I said, "This is seriously not a good idea because tomorrow, fifty people, possibly including yourself, will be laughing at me as a result." Well, I didn't really, but I should have done.

He said, "You need more friends" and went home.

Apart from that, I was trying to phone my friends Will, Smill and Roe, but I couldn't really be bothered and the phone was being strange. On attempting to dial Will's number (which was 150201 in the dream: it's nothing like that in reality, that's my guestbook number with the last three digits reversed), I kept pressing the wrong buttons.

I was at a school / college, at a service in the chapel. I really didn't like being there, and when a girl I knew left half way through to go sky diving, I left to do my English homework. It was the same assignment that I'd done as an eleven-year-old, but it was really long.

A few girls I knew, under the assumption I was giving people rollerblading lessons in a park, asked me if I was charging money. I said no, feeling really guilty because I hadn't gone rollerblading in the park once, never mind taught anyone to do so.

30 December 1999: Another Dream About Printers

I was in the kitchen at Naworth Castle playing Risk with my parents and my online friend Meaghan. Meaghan, I realised, was trying to eliminate me from the game, and although she only had one army, I was dead scared. Then the game turned to draughts and she was cheating. I protested, but my family shouted me down. I ran from the room, and a bloke invited me to play Monopoly in the basement instead.

I was in the Dacre Hall at Lanercost Priory (a nearby church) with my brother Noj. We watched the opening credits of "The Raccoons". I was hoping the son of the aevil guy (Cedric?) would appear, but he didn't. I saw some letters on the stage, and snatched them, to Noj's dismay. Further investigation showed that one was for Noj, telling him he'd won a competition in which he had to suggest funchie CDs. The prize-giving proceeded to take place.

I was in the library in the town where I live, but there were loads of football hooligans there, so I ran away.

Guess who featured next? With the Mini at that. But certainly not Like That: he was using it to try and run me over.

I went to London and tried to buy an article of clothing in a shop. I got incredibly paranoid about people trying to steal my wallet.

Then I was with a bloke from Churchill College. "I've decided I want a second chance with my life's work, my novel," he told me, as he tried to retrieve the manuscript from the bottom of a lake using a fishing net.

It must have been typed on a dot matrix printer, I thought, then woke up.