Traumatic night!

I had a series of disturbing dreams last night. In the first, yet another of my friends had died and I was in floods of tears and being comforted by my friend Barbara, who kept digging lovely clothes out of her cupboard and asking if I remembered giving them to her, which I did. I was always sending Barb clothes and items of jewellery and in return, she would scour the charity shops and source interesting items for me. Yet Barbara died three years ago, so it was odd that she was comforting me in the dream. I woke up hot and sweaty, terrified that the friend I dreamt about was going to die in real life. I suppose the reality of the loss of your 'chosen ones' which is what your friends are as opposed to family, who you are landed with whether you like them or not, gets more acute as you get older. I just can't emotionally afford to lose another friend.

Eventually, I got back off to sleep and had another bizarre dream. In it, I was with a new-agey kind of man (I love the type), handsome, in his forties, very into astrology, spiritual things, healing etc., and was very attracted to him. He offered to give me a massage and led me into a room with a massage table in it, and brought in a bag of essential oils. Meanwhile, I had stripped down to my knickers and felt ashamed that I was wearing boring cotton ones instead of something more glamorous. Suddenly, he decided there were some people he had to introduce me to, so, despite my efforts to grab my clothes, he hauled me down the corridor topless and into a room where several people were gathered. They didn't bat an eyelid at my semi nudity, but I was very uncomfortable and ashamed. We then went back to the massage room and suddenly, we were kissing. It was a gorgeous kiss, skilled and sensitive - with no tongues, in case anyone is wondering!

Next thing, I was dressed again and in another room with him, with yet more people, and it suddenly dawned on me that he had psychically linked with me. It was like a physical sensation, a kind of tickle inside my head and I realised that to forge a psychic link, you needed a physical one as well, which he had achieved with that kiss. He had his arm round me and I knew we would end up making love that day, but guess what? I woke up with a start and a shudder because something - spider, fly - was walking over my bare back! I leaped out of bed, shook the bedding, then flopped back onto the mattress. It was starting to get light, the blasted magpies were making a racket in their nest outside the bedroom window, and I lay and dozed for a couple of hours, then got up.

I'm now pondering what the dreams might have meant. The first is obvious, I think. My friends and I aren't getting any younger and I really don't know how I can stand the grief of losing anybody else. The loss of both Barbara and Louise affected me very, very deeply.

The second dream pinpointed another fact about aging - that I hate my body now. When I was thirty, I would have been embarrassed about being seen topless, but I was proud of how my body looked, slim and perky. Now, everything has sagged and drooped and the only place I don't mind showing it off is in a darkened room! As for the psychic link - I think that harked back to the Seventies when... oh, it's a long, long story. But I was linked psychically to a man and some very odd things happened. And he was my late friend Louise's first husband!

Yes, it was a very weird night.