A BOILING ROOM IN THE WHITE HOUSE

I had a very real dream last night in which I went to the White House and sat at the back of a meeting with President Trump.

Not just me, lots of advisors and reporters and TV cameras and the like - and not in the Oval Office but in a boiling sunlit room somewhere where everyone was squeezed a little too close together. Not him of course: he was sitting behind a very shiny desk, holding court as though he’d deliberately wanted everyone there to feel uncomfortable.

I feel wary sharing dreams. I wonder whether they accidentally reveal more about me than I’d like.

I don’t quite know what the meeting was about but at some point, the President looked at me. I could tell somehow that he saw something different or unusual about me. I had caught his eye.

“How about someone from the back of the room?” he said, suddenly. The reporters all went silent as he pretended to flick his gaze along the back row of wooden seats. “You,” he said, landing on me.

A question swirled in my head, something to do with my work I think. I must have made it sound incredibly relevant to the US government, and I must have sounded eloquent because the next thing he said was, “See, the Brits always sound like the smartest in the room, believe me. Well, the second smartest.”

Everyone laughed. And suddenly the alarm clock was beeping and the room was dark and for some reason I was in a bed in England on a Tuesday morning.

Question. Why would I dream that? It was so weird and so real. Am I dreaming of significance? Is there something about me using words in high places? Why would my brain exaggerate and elevate its own eloquence? Or is this just a continuation of me thinking about which questions I would ask him? After all the things I thought I would ask, I’d ask him something about work? Really Matt? To be honest, in the dream I was trying to stay out of it altogether. He picked me out.

Anyway. It’s now gone 9am and it still feels a bit real. I even feel jet lagged, as though I’d flown back in the few head-spinning seconds between Trump latching on to me and the clock beeping.

You know, I’m not sure I want it to mean anything.