I have been trying to remember and write down certain of my dreams for a long time, at least fifteen years by loose count. But I have been trying a lot longer to forget others. See, while I believe strongly that dreams are great sources of inspiration and story material, I do not deal in nightmares. For one thing, I have never felt drawn to write horror stories, so chronicling nocturnal fears serves less practical purpose than jotting down my latest adventure dream. Also, I really dislike being woken up at 4:00 a.m. by heart-clenching terror, only to realize that I then have to scrounge what rest I can in the hour and a half left before my alarm goes off. Add in the very personal, ugly content of many nightmares, and I am forced to conclude that such dreams are generally useless, exhausting, and disturbing neural misfires. I would much rather forget them.
The problem is, nightmares can blaze searing trails through memory, making them easier than usual to remember. Worse still, because nightmares jolt me prematurely back to consciousness, I often linger half-awake long enough for the dreams to solidify more fully in my mind. So I am frequently unable to escape my bad dreams completely. Like the incubi of legend, they squat on my chest, constricting my breath while they worry at my mind. In the end, letting go of the nightmares often takes as much effort as holding onto the dreams. And though I do not have time to thoroughly discuss techniques for recalling dreams, I think I can offer a fairly simple recipe for letting go of nightmares.
First, I try to wake up my body. I get up, drink some water, go to the bathroom, walk around -- anything to warm up my limbs and let muscle memory take the burden of control off my mind. Usually, getting ready for work in the morning is a great dream-killer, so similar behavior should work great on nightmares.
Second, I distract myself. I turn on lights, check my face in the mirror, and focus harder on my surroundings to help dispel the nightmare influence. If my brain seems reluctant to cooperate, I may read a book, lay out my clothes for the morning, or let the TV screen beat my gray cells into submission.
Beyond those two steps, I think everyone's mind works a little differently, and it is important to discover one's own idiosyncrasies. Personally, I think a white noise maker and the bottom of a whiskey shot do wonders!
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Any Old Town
The dream opened in a normal New England town, similar to my hometown in size, layout, and make-up. But rather than feeling comfortable, it seemed weird for some indescribable reason.
I was watching, like a fly on the wall, a group of three brothers heading north to meet their parents at a lake house. They ended up spending the night in one of the town's motels, only to enter a nightmare.
In town, a gang had formed of adult, child, and college-aged men who wore mostly single-color outfits of hooded top and pants. They also painted their faces a single color to match their clothing, and each carried a form of razor edge, ranging from X-Acto to Bowie knife in size.
A scene flashed into view of a gang member interrogating a bar customer and apartment tenant about a "nurse" who happened to be a good "dentist" and a "painter."
The boys were running around, up an internal stairwell and down a fire escape, while overhearing the above interrogation, and they got caught by younger gang members -- about ten years in age. The brothers fled.
What followed was a roof-top escape (using sandals to slide down a clothesline) that ended under a big tree where a figure in a pure red outfit appeared overhead, obviously a top member of the gang.
The chase continued on through an older, well-to-do section of town with Victorian houses, larger-sized residences, where the occupants sort of sauntered out after the three boys. It felt as if they were chasing the brothers, but not really trying to catch them, more like they were shuffling along weirdly in order to keep watching the pursuit.
Eventually, the brothers' flight lead to a large brick house that could have been a former mansion, but now converted to a school. Here, only the three could open the outer doors, and they ducked inside to see if safety or further weirdness would greet them.
I was watching, like a fly on the wall, a group of three brothers heading north to meet their parents at a lake house. They ended up spending the night in one of the town's motels, only to enter a nightmare.
In town, a gang had formed of adult, child, and college-aged men who wore mostly single-color outfits of hooded top and pants. They also painted their faces a single color to match their clothing, and each carried a form of razor edge, ranging from X-Acto to Bowie knife in size.
A scene flashed into view of a gang member interrogating a bar customer and apartment tenant about a "nurse" who happened to be a good "dentist" and a "painter."
The boys were running around, up an internal stairwell and down a fire escape, while overhearing the above interrogation, and they got caught by younger gang members -- about ten years in age. The brothers fled.
What followed was a roof-top escape (using sandals to slide down a clothesline) that ended under a big tree where a figure in a pure red outfit appeared overhead, obviously a top member of the gang.
The chase continued on through an older, well-to-do section of town with Victorian houses, larger-sized residences, where the occupants sort of sauntered out after the three boys. It felt as if they were chasing the brothers, but not really trying to catch them, more like they were shuffling along weirdly in order to keep watching the pursuit.
Eventually, the brothers' flight lead to a large brick house that could have been a former mansion, but now converted to a school. Here, only the three could open the outer doors, and they ducked inside to see if safety or further weirdness would greet them.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Campy Reunion
Reunions on the dream road generally blend familiar and foreign, while mixing who people have been with who they could be. The summer camp I woke up in last night seemed fairly standard in its wooded, lakeside setting, as well as in the loosely controlled chaos of K-12’ers running about the grounds. But after a couple of quick meetings with fellow campers, it became very apparent that my subconscious was contributing an undercurrent of magic to the tent and lodge community.
When my former music teacher, Tony, dismissed my group from our morning lesson, we folded up leathery textbooks Agrippa would have loved and left with assignments to try mimicking Crowley. Mr. Potter should be so lucky.
Then, as we lamented the shortage of players on my squad’s flag football crew, my former class- and teammate Jake arrived, plus one, to fill out the roster. Now Jake had been a big guy in high school, but he’d puffed up even more between then and last night's camp. And even if he’d always seemed a little self-absorbed, there was some definite weirdness to his appearing with an androgynous, ambiguous, maybe-female double of himself. Suddenly, we had a borderline legal, all-Jake offensive line. And the zebras couldn't find a penalty in the rulebook called "too many of the same man on the field."
But the metaphysical vibe came to a head with a former third-grade camper of mine. First he told me about the shiny creatures living in a two-foot puddle, and then he proved it by diving in bodily to explore. Concerned, I went to Tony -– a reasonable, flexible authority figure -– to reveal what I’d learned about the young camper. I nearly interrupted a romantic encounter between Tony and a pre-school counselor, which would have been embarrassing under any circumstances, but I figured complaining to him about magic use would be futile while he and Miss Liplock were floating in the air on a joyful cloud labeled “9.” It ended up being too late to discuss preventative intervention for my third-grade buddy, anyway, because he was outside getting ready to explore a dime-sized wet spot at the time.
I’ll let you guess how that went for his noggin.
When my former music teacher, Tony, dismissed my group from our morning lesson, we folded up leathery textbooks Agrippa would have loved and left with assignments to try mimicking Crowley. Mr. Potter should be so lucky.
Then, as we lamented the shortage of players on my squad’s flag football crew, my former class- and teammate Jake arrived, plus one, to fill out the roster. Now Jake had been a big guy in high school, but he’d puffed up even more between then and last night's camp. And even if he’d always seemed a little self-absorbed, there was some definite weirdness to his appearing with an androgynous, ambiguous, maybe-female double of himself. Suddenly, we had a borderline legal, all-Jake offensive line. And the zebras couldn't find a penalty in the rulebook called "too many of the same man on the field."
But the metaphysical vibe came to a head with a former third-grade camper of mine. First he told me about the shiny creatures living in a two-foot puddle, and then he proved it by diving in bodily to explore. Concerned, I went to Tony -– a reasonable, flexible authority figure -– to reveal what I’d learned about the young camper. I nearly interrupted a romantic encounter between Tony and a pre-school counselor, which would have been embarrassing under any circumstances, but I figured complaining to him about magic use would be futile while he and Miss Liplock were floating in the air on a joyful cloud labeled “9.” It ended up being too late to discuss preventative intervention for my third-grade buddy, anyway, because he was outside getting ready to explore a dime-sized wet spot at the time.
I’ll let you guess how that went for his noggin.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Stillwell Sinclair's Toys
The night-scene took place at the end of a story.
Having cleaned up some sort of menace, a group of five heroes including the dreamer were in Stillwell Sinclair's study -- the menace had been linked to Sinclair, and their investigation had led them there.
A peach-sized metal sphere on the floor appeared to be the main object of inquiry.
On a nearby end table, a small, metallic bird sculpture asked one hero who approached, "Who? Who? <<Identify yourself.>> Who?" The voice came out comically owl-like at first, but the command to identify was brassy and frightening in timbre. There was a sense of consequences if the wrong answer (or no answer) was given.
The hero responded, "Doctor Stillwell Sinclair."
His turned out to be both the right and wrong answer: The man was allowed to approach further, but the metal globe on the floor opened at the same time, releasing a miniature mechanical beetle and several egg-like spheres. The freed objects seemed related to the previous menace, suggesting that the investigative party now faced the rebirth of something terrible.
The man who had used Sinclair's name managed to scoop everything back into the globe and close it, but already the eggs had multiplied. Almost twice as many were scooped back in along with the lone beetle.
Asks the dreamer: How would the heroes deal with Sinclair's interesting toys? And would the prior menace rise again?
Having cleaned up some sort of menace, a group of five heroes including the dreamer were in Stillwell Sinclair's study -- the menace had been linked to Sinclair, and their investigation had led them there.
A peach-sized metal sphere on the floor appeared to be the main object of inquiry.
On a nearby end table, a small, metallic bird sculpture asked one hero who approached, "Who? Who? <<Identify yourself.>> Who?" The voice came out comically owl-like at first, but the command to identify was brassy and frightening in timbre. There was a sense of consequences if the wrong answer (or no answer) was given.
The hero responded, "Doctor Stillwell Sinclair."
His turned out to be both the right and wrong answer: The man was allowed to approach further, but the metal globe on the floor opened at the same time, releasing a miniature mechanical beetle and several egg-like spheres. The freed objects seemed related to the previous menace, suggesting that the investigative party now faced the rebirth of something terrible.
The man who had used Sinclair's name managed to scoop everything back into the globe and close it, but already the eggs had multiplied. Almost twice as many were scooped back in along with the lone beetle.
Asks the dreamer: How would the heroes deal with Sinclair's interesting toys? And would the prior menace rise again?
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Dream-Source
"The Sandman's been teasing me father away in the dreamscape, lately, and it's starting to frighten me."
"Are you having nightmares more often than not?"
"Well, not exactly. I wouldn't call them nightmares really. It's hard to explain."
"How so?"
"See, I generally think of nightmares as dreams where something is trying to hurt me, or where I'm expecting a terrible fate if I do wrong."
"Do you mean that you feel fear during your nightmares?"
"Yeah, like I'm actually scared of what's happening, same as if I'm awake. Or I at least believe that my situation is real enough to be horrified by how wrong things seem."
"Then would you characterize your more recent visions as less realistic?"
"Well, yes, or maybe I should say more dreamlike. Because some of them are pretty vivid, but I can tell that they're just nighttime illusions."
"So you do not believe in these dreams enough to feel afraid while they are occurring, as you would during a nightmare, but the nature of these dreams disturbs you once you wake up?"
"Yes, that's a pretty good summation. But I think maybe I'll tell you about the latest one, in case that sheds more light on things:
"We were on a spaceship, that much I caught onto quick enough. It resembled one of those dark, pseudo-organic things you see in monster-heavy scifi flicks. Picture the insect-styled ships from the Alien movies or that living Leviathan ship from Farscape. Beams made of segmented black carapace were all around us, and every arched corridor felt like a vein we were flowing through. Beyond that my description fails because, frankly, I had no idea what I was seeing. The vessel was alien, but whether I gleaned that from the dreamscape or from my own sensations of confusion, I don't know. In any case, we were exploring the craft, it wasn't ours. Outside my vision we had our own spacefaring vessel; we had boarded this one. And we had gotten really spooked by the emptiness and evidence we had found. Again, I had no grasp of the specific discrepancies bothering us, but a general air of wrongness had taken over my mood. Then we walked into a chamber with rows of raised pallets -- the barracks, infirmary, or morgue? -- and my dreamland prescience pulled my eyes to the ceiling. Arcing blue electricity danced across the room's vaulted roof in jagged, branching patterns. The overall tension of the scene increased. Then a new spit of lightning traced an oval shape that filled with blinding light and suddenly disgorged an armored form down onto the floor. The moment this alien landed I knew it would open fire on us. Human-shaped in futuristic army gear, the intruder did not fail my prediction, blasting incandescent cylindrical shots at us. I keep referring to 'us,' but besides a vague sense of companionship, I never found out anything about my allies, nor had I seen much of them until that point. But as the alien from the ceiling portal attacked, I began to spot humans in more stereotypical American Army garb firing back laser beams around me.
"Now, the conflict picked up here, which really disoriented me in the dream. More of the armored aliens were dropping from light flashes in the ceiling, my visible companions were shooting back at them, and I was dodging and diving in an attempt to not get blasted. Even as my view was shifting, though, and I was knocking over pallets in my scramble, I didn't fear getting shot. Like, I intellectualized that I didn't want that result. I acted to prevent injury to myself. Yet I felt less worry about harm to my dream body than I would to a video game shell. Just as easily could I have been operating the first-person POV camera on a movie set -- that was how little I cared.
"Eventually, the aliens fighting us -- not knowing whose ship we were on, I can't rightly say attacking or defending -- drove my group out of the contested room. At the door, however, I sensed the lone human behind me fell trapped and wounded. I had lingered fearlessly in the second-to-last position for exiting, and that final rearguard was our Lieutenant. The aliens pressed in on us, and I immediately calculated my chances of being hit were rising fast. But the officer needed saving. Typical dreamland futility, I could not cry out to alert my allies. Nor could I force my own laser weapon to ignite, no matter how my sleep-addled mind imagined me fiddling with the mechanisms. To my invisible left, one opponent seized the LT. Then one of the aliens' cylindrical photons passed through me, and my overworked dream processor failed to register the hit as damage. I was too confused and frustrated with my gun and the overall scenario to even generate or comply with dreamscape rules.
"And I awoke then, somewhat more tired and weirded out for the night's journey."
"I am sorry to say, but your dream sounds fairly routine in its details thus far. What elements struck you as most weird?"
"Well, I had to think about that one, because the dream seemed normal enough, or at least too similar to movies I liked to warrant my emotional reaction."
"That was a very good starting thought. Where did it lead you?"
"That's just my problem: The dream road led me. I mean, if the dream had come entirely out of my own mind, I think it would have played out even more cinematically, and my emotions would have stayed monotone and intense."
"Please explain."
"I would have felt excited the whole time, and I would have known what to do. Or, if it was nightmare sand that got me, I would have been really terrified and understood exactly why. Either way, I think all my frustration with the gun and the foreign sense of my setting would have vanished!"
"So you believe your brain would craft a dream scenario in which the component structures, details, rules, and plot points -- I think those are the four areas that struck you as bewildering -- all would make sense and be subject to your omniscience."
"That's a lot of words, there. But, yes, my normal dreams don't usually confuse me until I wake up and wonder what the hell I ate."
"If your mind didn't entirely concoct your example dream, then where did it come from?"
"Some bad sand got in my eyes? But that's what has me spooked: I feel like the dreams don't come to me anymore, so much as I drift out into them. I'm not sure I want to go."
"Are you having nightmares more often than not?"
"Well, not exactly. I wouldn't call them nightmares really. It's hard to explain."
"How so?"
"See, I generally think of nightmares as dreams where something is trying to hurt me, or where I'm expecting a terrible fate if I do wrong."
"Do you mean that you feel fear during your nightmares?"
"Yeah, like I'm actually scared of what's happening, same as if I'm awake. Or I at least believe that my situation is real enough to be horrified by how wrong things seem."
"Then would you characterize your more recent visions as less realistic?"
"Well, yes, or maybe I should say more dreamlike. Because some of them are pretty vivid, but I can tell that they're just nighttime illusions."
"So you do not believe in these dreams enough to feel afraid while they are occurring, as you would during a nightmare, but the nature of these dreams disturbs you once you wake up?"
"Yes, that's a pretty good summation. But I think maybe I'll tell you about the latest one, in case that sheds more light on things:
"We were on a spaceship, that much I caught onto quick enough. It resembled one of those dark, pseudo-organic things you see in monster-heavy scifi flicks. Picture the insect-styled ships from the Alien movies or that living Leviathan ship from Farscape. Beams made of segmented black carapace were all around us, and every arched corridor felt like a vein we were flowing through. Beyond that my description fails because, frankly, I had no idea what I was seeing. The vessel was alien, but whether I gleaned that from the dreamscape or from my own sensations of confusion, I don't know. In any case, we were exploring the craft, it wasn't ours. Outside my vision we had our own spacefaring vessel; we had boarded this one. And we had gotten really spooked by the emptiness and evidence we had found. Again, I had no grasp of the specific discrepancies bothering us, but a general air of wrongness had taken over my mood. Then we walked into a chamber with rows of raised pallets -- the barracks, infirmary, or morgue? -- and my dreamland prescience pulled my eyes to the ceiling. Arcing blue electricity danced across the room's vaulted roof in jagged, branching patterns. The overall tension of the scene increased. Then a new spit of lightning traced an oval shape that filled with blinding light and suddenly disgorged an armored form down onto the floor. The moment this alien landed I knew it would open fire on us. Human-shaped in futuristic army gear, the intruder did not fail my prediction, blasting incandescent cylindrical shots at us. I keep referring to 'us,' but besides a vague sense of companionship, I never found out anything about my allies, nor had I seen much of them until that point. But as the alien from the ceiling portal attacked, I began to spot humans in more stereotypical American Army garb firing back laser beams around me.
"Now, the conflict picked up here, which really disoriented me in the dream. More of the armored aliens were dropping from light flashes in the ceiling, my visible companions were shooting back at them, and I was dodging and diving in an attempt to not get blasted. Even as my view was shifting, though, and I was knocking over pallets in my scramble, I didn't fear getting shot. Like, I intellectualized that I didn't want that result. I acted to prevent injury to myself. Yet I felt less worry about harm to my dream body than I would to a video game shell. Just as easily could I have been operating the first-person POV camera on a movie set -- that was how little I cared.
"Eventually, the aliens fighting us -- not knowing whose ship we were on, I can't rightly say attacking or defending -- drove my group out of the contested room. At the door, however, I sensed the lone human behind me fell trapped and wounded. I had lingered fearlessly in the second-to-last position for exiting, and that final rearguard was our Lieutenant. The aliens pressed in on us, and I immediately calculated my chances of being hit were rising fast. But the officer needed saving. Typical dreamland futility, I could not cry out to alert my allies. Nor could I force my own laser weapon to ignite, no matter how my sleep-addled mind imagined me fiddling with the mechanisms. To my invisible left, one opponent seized the LT. Then one of the aliens' cylindrical photons passed through me, and my overworked dream processor failed to register the hit as damage. I was too confused and frustrated with my gun and the overall scenario to even generate or comply with dreamscape rules.
"And I awoke then, somewhat more tired and weirded out for the night's journey."
"I am sorry to say, but your dream sounds fairly routine in its details thus far. What elements struck you as most weird?"
"Well, I had to think about that one, because the dream seemed normal enough, or at least too similar to movies I liked to warrant my emotional reaction."
"That was a very good starting thought. Where did it lead you?"
"That's just my problem: The dream road led me. I mean, if the dream had come entirely out of my own mind, I think it would have played out even more cinematically, and my emotions would have stayed monotone and intense."
"Please explain."
"I would have felt excited the whole time, and I would have known what to do. Or, if it was nightmare sand that got me, I would have been really terrified and understood exactly why. Either way, I think all my frustration with the gun and the foreign sense of my setting would have vanished!"
"So you believe your brain would craft a dream scenario in which the component structures, details, rules, and plot points -- I think those are the four areas that struck you as bewildering -- all would make sense and be subject to your omniscience."
"That's a lot of words, there. But, yes, my normal dreams don't usually confuse me until I wake up and wonder what the hell I ate."
"If your mind didn't entirely concoct your example dream, then where did it come from?"
"Some bad sand got in my eyes? But that's what has me spooked: I feel like the dreams don't come to me anymore, so much as I drift out into them. I'm not sure I want to go."
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