03.11.2003 - 3:12 p.m.

The world may be a ( mostly ) great place, full of architecture and balloons and stuff, but being awake is always going to be a close second to being asleep. Sleeping is one of the best things you can do when it�s night time ( the alternative for me is being spaced into a higher dimension, but that doesn�t happen too often ) and my bed is a sanctuary of calm and peace from work and idiots and stuff that winds me up on a daily basis, apart from that it gives my body a chance to repair itself and top up the seratonin tanks which can�t be a bad thing.

The other really great thing about sleeping is dreaming, as the saying might go "I go for the rest, but I stay for the dreams" I am blessed with vivid, colourful and interesting dreams, dreams now, not nightmares, which thankfully only happen once every few years. ( not counting being ill with fevers )

I find video games a wonderful distraction to break up the daily grind, a little island of fantasy in the reality ocean. And a new game, heavily played, will undoubtedly influence what I dream about, for this reason Vice City was a great buy. And as a bonus I got to spend several nights running around being naughty in dreamland, it was proper virtual reality, like what we can�t experience because computers aren�t powerful enough, but it was there and I got to live it for a few hours in the night, waking up was a terrible thing.

But for the most part they are weird, never scary, my teeth don�t fall out ( I�ve never understood that, it�s happened to several people I know, I guess it�s an insecurity thing ) and I�m usually armed for part or all of it although I rarely get to shoot anyone, I have been chased and shot at but it was all in fun and they never hit me, so not scary.

Spent most of last night stalking round a very large deserted building full of narrow concrete stairs and small, damp ridden rooms in a kind of first person 'Resident Evil' style. There was only one door I didn�t go through which led down some precarious stone steps to a dark cellar, the torch batteries on my gun were failing and it was getting creepy so I chickened out. I found a way out of the building later and to a cramped underground motorbike shop where I helped myself to some kind of big black V-max style motorbike and ended up racing up the Kilburn High Rd. I fell off at the first attempt halfway up the high rd and ended up running as far as the north circular trying to hijack a car, at which point I found myself back outside the bike shop. On the second attempt I managed to stay on long enough to reach the M1 and reached about 160mph, weaving in and out of the traffic before I was rudely awoken by my alarm. Bastard.Bastard.Bastard.

The best thing was ( apart from the glorious technicolour, sounds and atmosphere ) I could hear my thoughts as I experienced what was going on, this was especially noticeable when on the bike, as I saw things going on I was commenting to myself like "what crappy driving" and "shit, nearly lost it that time" obviously no-one could hear me as I had a helmet on, but I knew and it was very weird.

This is the kind of thing experience I�d like to reach with narcotics, but despite the wonderful feelings they generate they cannot compare with sleep and the strangeness it brings, shame really. I have to turn my body off to let my mind soar, but saying that sleep + dreams is loads better than reality + drugs.