Mefloquine-fuelled dreams

I've been taking anti-malarial medication for about five weeks now. At my travel doctor's appointment back in January, I was asked to chose between a more expensive daily tablet – Malarone – and the far cheaper pill taken weekly – Mefloquine.

“What's the catch?” I asked my doctor of the cheaper, thus most appealing, option.

“You may have visions and extremely vivid dreams,” she replied. Suddenly this option became even more attractive. “I'll take that one,” said I.

As a result of this lighthearted choice of medication, I've avoided getting malaria this far into my trip – but it's come at the cost of a few nights of interrupted rest thanks to the creatively psychotic side effects of these zany tablets.

A sampling from my mental dream diary:

1. I enter Brad Pitt's house somewhere in the States. Brad's shaved off his silly goatee; I compliment him for his clean-shaven good looks. He thanks me. I tell him he has a nice house – but does he have a secret, hidden hideaway from Angelina and the kids? Though at first his reaction to this strange question is one of unprepared surprise, he retorts with “Uh... sure I do”. Then, he appears to conjure one of these rooms out of his mind. Hidden in a corner of his basement television room is another basement television room. The dream concludes with Brad chasing me down the street, for I have eloped with his 18-year-old daughter. He is less than impressed.
2. I'm at my own wedding; though it's totally unrelated to the Pitt family. I'm getting married to an ex-girlfriend – no wait, to my other ex-girlfriend. Evidently, I'm betrothed to some mercurial mixture of the two. There are only two guests I recognize at the wedding. One is Jenny L, a friend from England who I've only seen once in the last six years. The other guest is someone from university, Dan H, who – no offence Dan – I probably wouldn't invite to my wedding unless I got to know him better. For some reason, I call him a “dick”. He is less than impressed. The dream concludes with me sneaking out of a window, then getting chased down the street by the wedding party.
3. I'm in England, probably back in Durham where I used to live. I go to the cinema to watch Avatar, in 2D. The giant room has two screens, one on the front wall, one on the rear. There are therefore two audiences, each facing in a separate direction. Whilst I sit with some friends – a few familiar faces here and there, perhaps Matthew and Mark – I spot my pal Simon in the opposite-direction-facing audience. He's seated alone, a few seats down from some girls – Jillian, maybe Kate – so I wave him over to my side. He shakes his head. I go over to him, to find more people I know – John H and some of his friends. They compliment me on my beard. I make an awkward reply as the movie begins. Strange lack of street chase sequence.

Clearly all utter nonsense – but each dream vivid to the point of seeming real until I come to my senses and wake up.

All of this isn't helped by the maddening atmosphere of my surroundings. As I write, at eight in the morning on a Friday, a fairly terrifying Swahili voice is screaming hysterical babble at the top of his lungs a short distance from my house. I've been assured by Lema that he is merely one of many local over-jealous Christians, shaking the ol' devil out of someone. During my second night here, I was kept awake by beautiful gospel chanting from a nearby house – that was interrupted sporadically by the jarring screams of holy exorcism.

Of less concern are the plethora of animal presences filling my aural senses throughout the day (and, occasionally, olfactory). Usually they're nothing more than Old MacDonald's Farm on crack: the wailing “moo” of our neighbour's sow going through protracted labour for ten hours straight; the squabble of chickens ensuring that the world knows that they are, indeed, chickens.

Most annoying and frequent is the orchestra of dogs that assembles in my vicinity on cue at around 10 p.m. At the draw of the night's curtain, a lone hound will signal to the pit an affirmation of his identity as a dog, and an evening of cacophonous howls will commence in disharmony. Though earplugs can try their best to mute the Canine Symphonic Orchestra, I usually just lie back and chuckle to myself at the hilarity of it all. And nothing's going to stop those insane dreams from continuing, so I might as well just roll with the Beethovens.