I was looking forward to being the guest speaker at The Writing Retreat a few weeks ago and giving a workshop the next morning, not least because the venue looked amazing and the organisers seemed very friendly, although I had never met them.

I was looking forward to it, but with that slight feeling of trepidation I always get when I’m about to speak in a new place or teach a new group. However, as often happens, those feelings were blown away by a funny dream a few days before the event that made me wake up laughing.

I shared the dream on Facebook with one of the organisers, Jane Moss.

I dreamt the group included Steph and Dom from Gogglebox, a Bear Grylls lookalike, the young playwright I chatted to on the beach yesterday and two mums with half a dozen unruly kids between them. My workshop had to take place in a bus shelter in the grounds because Jane and Kath were teaching a group of local children a musical dance routine in the main room, and Kath was dressed from top to toe in vibrant aquamarine silk, with matching bandana. The workshop went pretty well, all things considered!

This dream planted bright funny images in my mind which I recalled whenever I thought about the upcoming event; it put me in a happy mood, because there is nothing like laughter to relieve stress and anxiety and, as someone has commented here on the blog before, even if you can’t remember the detail of a dream, the emotional tone can stay with you for days.

I used to have stressful dreams in the run-up to potentially stressful situations, dreams in which I was unprepared or distracted or trapped. The received wisdom is that those dreams prompt you to make sure you’re properly prepared. Maybe that’s why these days, when I generally do feel properly prepared, my dreams in the run-up to new events more frequently give me a laugh than a warning.

If you’ve had a dream that made you laugh, do share!