I was fashioning a prison for my mind, a prison for my mind. What fun I had! What fun it was fashioning a prison for my mind. I had such a great time. Everyone has to have a hobby so they say, and this was mine! “What’s your hobby?” people ask me; “Fashioning a prison for my mind,” I always reply. Fashioning a prison for my mind….

I had another of those dreams last night. I was in a hot, dry country in some kind of a hippy settlement. A skinny guy with blonde frizzy hair was playing bongos in the corner of the room. Another guy at the other side of the room wearing nothing but a pair of shorts was strumming a twelve-string guitar. I – incongruously – was dressed for work. I was waiting for someone to turn up but there was no sign of them. It was a business meeting of some kind, as far as I knew. Although I was a bit confused about the details. As time went on I became more and more agitated. Was I in the wrong place? I had a vague idea that we were supposed to meet in Flannerys Hotel and clearly this wasn’t it. This wasn’t any sort of hotel.

Then I noticed that there was a joint in the ashtray on the table in front of me that hadn’t been smoked down to the roach. There was about one centimetre left in it. Quick as a flash – without thinking about what I was doing – I sparked it up and got four or five good tokes out of it before it was gone.

The next thing I knew it was as if my head had expanded to the size of the sky and everything seemed so clear and so tranquil. I felt so right in myself, so at peace with the world. I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt like this. There had been something missing, some crucial piece of the jigsaw, and now it was back in place. All the confusion and worry was gone – I had been lifted right out of my mind and all its pointless, petty concerns. The business meeting didn’t matter anymore. My mind was like a sewer, I realized – it was full of shit. Old shit at that – shit that had been floating around there for a long, long time. My mind was a labyrinth full of detritus and decay and – without knowing how it had happened – I had been freed from it. Then I woke up and realized that I was going to be late for work.

I wasn’t a hippy in a hippy community at all. I had a desk job in the HSE. I was a sales rep working for a medical devices company. I was an assistant manager in British Home Stores. I was a financial analyst working for Lloyds of London. I didn’t know what I was. I was fashioning a prison for my mind. I’d gone back in time and I had my whole life ahead of me. I was hard at work fashioning a prison for my mind. “Why would you do that?” you ask, in all your innocence. “Why would you do such a thing?” I forgive you your question. You are young and know nothing of how the world works. You wouldn’t understand so I won’t try to explain. One day you’ll know, one day you’ll understand…