This will be terribly short, but I’m at work, so… I shouldn’t even be here.
I just read this on my lunch break, and I thought I’d share it with you.
You should submit your bad dreams to the Nightmare List.
Read it and laugh: http://www.smbc-comics.com/?db=comics&id=2575#comic.
I wrote this one rather quickly, so I’m sorry if it doesn’t make much sense. Furthermore, the later it gets, the less I can wrap my head around simple things like grammar and proper syntax…
It was an evening like all others at the end of a day that was altogether unremarkable.
I followed my usual ritual – brushing my teeth, drawing a tall glass of water, peeling off my pajama top. My wife was already asleep, and I looked at her for a few seconds, noting
with a smile the expression of utter peace on her features. I could hear the metallic hum of the furnace through the ducts, and the faint howl of the wind as it blew around the house. All in all, I felt fantastic; just another winter evening.
I rested my head on the pillow and pulled up the blankets, ready to drift away until either
the kids or morning sunlight extricated me from my slumber.
As I floated off, I felt safe in the comfort of my home and bed. I abandoned all thoughts
of the waking world. My translation work was the first to go, because I always do my
best to leave it at the office. My website work went just after, as it’s important to forget
about page ranking and all the search engine optimization rules and regulations once the
laptop’s lid comes down. My writing lingered a while longer, stories intertwined, woven
into a complex tapestry of images and words, and before I knew it, there was nothing left
but the ether of the night ahead.
Then, I was thrown into the most savage adventure.
Unseen creatures, mere presences, lurked around every corner. Insects and arachnids, swollen to unimaginable sizes, crept, crawled and flew toward me at a rapid pace, and try as I might, I couldn’t regain control.
I was in an abandoned house, a place larger than any I’d ever seen before. There was no
floor that I could perceive, just a series of bridges hanging from the ceiling at various
heights, and below, the abyss extended far beyond the reaches of the many dim lamps
and torches.
Everything was shadows, yet no stretch of penumbra remained still. Everything was in
motion, platforms swaying from side to side, old rotten wood that threatened to buckle
under my weight, and I felt heavier in there than I’d ever felt before, as though my shoes
were full of stones instead of feet.
I struggled against the nightmare, doing my best to convince myself it was indeed a
nightmare, but the dream wouldn’t release its hold on me.
Panic, both tart and bitter, filled my throat like foul gallons of bile and acid. I was in the
middle of a frail rectangle of wood that bowed under my bulk. I could hear it creaking,
and I knew it wouldn’t be long before it cracked.
An enormous spider descended from a rope tied to the corner of the bridge, its numerous
eyes set upon me, its hair singed by a nearby torch. Depth and graceful in its threatening
gait, it made its way onto the platform.
I had no choice but to jump away, but there were myriad wasps below, buzzing around
a nest the size of an ice cream truck, its grey papery walls bulging under the pressure of
the gargantuan striped beasts. My only option was a higher canopy that appeared safe,
though it would require all my strength to get to it, and perhaps a wing and a prayer to
boot, since it hung almost too far.
Hoping my adrenaline and survival instincts would succeed where my own human
limitations would surely fail, I leaped up. Just as my feet were about to leave the old
wooden rectangle, however, the spider set its own hefty form upon it, and it snapped
under the added pressure.
The partial collapse was enough to ruin my efforts and I felt myself tumble forward
toward the darkness below, ever forward I went past the light into the blackest oblivion. I
shut my eyes as tight as I could, and when I opened them…
…I was in my bed. It must have been just before dawn. Birds sang a jolly tune in the
trees out back. All was normal once more, and I was safe once more, but my heart beat
fast and my breath came in short, shallow bursts. Though the air was still nippy, I was
drenched in sweat, my skin reddened by the flood.
I stood and made my way to the bathroom, feet heavy, knees buckling as adrenalin faded
from my bloodstream.
I stood in front of the mirror and drank a glass of water, staring at my gaunt face and
weary eyes. My legs and arms were sore, my shoulders ached and my neck was kinked.
Whatever I’d done during the night, there was little rest involved in the ordeal.
Right then and there, I knew little of the nightmare would remain once day broke, and it
dawned on me that the most horrible brain-terror is naught but a triviality under the light
of day, or even in the darkness that precedes the first light of day. Once back in my bed,
in my room and in my house, a great deal of the foreign agony of the dream had already
departed my flesh.
So I thought some more about dreams, inexplicable dreams. We have them every night, and it’s been proven we need them, yet so little is known about them. Our only
explanations are astrological approximations fabricated rather arbitrarily by adepts of
psychoanalysis who’ve taken the words of Sigmund Freud as some sort of holy grimoire.
What’s your favorite nightmare like? Use the links to your right and submit your dreams to the Nightmare List!
I’m not an expert at anything. I just happen to be one of those people who know a little bit about a lot of different things. I’m also the kind of person who’s good at Trivial Pursuit
In that respect, the Tom Tales disc of Tom Waits’ Glitter and Doom Live is akin to ecstasy.
So it is that my list of nightmares has pushed me to seek as much information as I can on dreams, nightmares and sleep terrors. They fascinate me to no end!
Today, I stumbled on The Sleep Journal, a huge collection of articles on dreaming. I found some very interesting things about nightmares, and about sleep terrors in particular. Get this: they mostly occur during the deep, slow phase of sleep. Furthermore, people who don’t get enough sleep see their bodies increase the time spent in this phase in order to regenerate more efficiently. Therefore, the person in question tends to have more night terrors, or more violent episodes. Isn’t that interesting?
Furthermore, I found out that dreams are mostly remembered when interrupted. I guess I may have mentioned something to that effect in my previous post, but allow me to explain further: when a dream set in the rapid-eye-movement (REM) phase of sleep is interrupted during this phase, then your waking memory will recall the dream. That’s why morning dreams, usually shut down by the alarm clock, tend to be recalled. Good or bad dreams that unfold without the sleeper awaking are forgotten during the normal process of waking.
This explains why we remember a lot of nightmares. I don’t know about you, but I seem to have this moment, in every terrible dream I’ve ever had, when I realize I must be dreaming. We might all have our tricks in this regard, but for me, I shut my eyes real tight and will myself awake, so that when I open my eyes in the dreamworld, I open my eyes in real life as well.
I think that’s pretty cool. Do you have a special trick for waking yourself up from a nightmare? What is it? Let me know in the comments, would you?
This particular author was content writing and publishing poetry books every couple of years. I wanted more, but art was my principal concern, and everything came after it. I wanted to break into fiction, maybe even become a New York Times Bestseller, but I was willing to wait as long as it took. I was an author for the long haul, for better or for worse, even if I turned out to be a complete failure.
I still am, of course (an author, not a failure). It’s not the kind of thing I could ever switch off, but now, my reasons for doing what I do, and the ways I’m going about it, have completely changed.
My first jolt of literary adrenaline came when I got married. All of a sudden, I saw the rest of my life, and I knew right away that I couldn’t spend the bulk of it as a desk jockey in an office, no matter how well I got paid. Also, there’s a special kind of achievement that comes from printing a book, and an even bigger smack when a positive review of your work comes out.
But all that’s besides the point. I was a poetry man, and poets don’t typically make money, if it can be said that the typical author makes money…
In early 2008, my wife was pregnant with our first child. That’s just a few months after our wedding, to be more specific, and at a time when my job security was up in the air. All at once, any income I could make from my skills as a webmaster and my obsession with writing seemed like a very green pasture. I pulled through, of course, getting promoted to a permanent position and all the responsibilities that go with it.
I found myself with less time for writing, and when our first daughter Annabelle was born, I realized that my writing days, in the sense I knew (anytime, any place, however long I want), would be no more.
But I found time. When it’s that deep in your blood, you make time. Sleep falls by the wayside. Lunchtime isn’t for eating anymore. Every second I have, I write. At nap time, on the weekend, I’m writing (at Starbucks, which is so cheesy, but they have free WIFI and outlets to keep the laptop charged). After the kids have gone to bed, while my wife works out, I’m writing.
I can’t help it. It’s what I do. The pull is stronger than I will ever be, and the need is much deeper. Getting rid of it would be like getting rid of my skeleton.
Now, Annabelle is three and a half years old, and our baby Marilou is eight months old. There’s less time, there’s more to do. How does one mow the lawn when there’s writing to be done? How does one find time or money to re-shingle the roof when there are stories waiting to be told?
So I changed the mission. I had to. I don’t write for art’s sake anymore. Screw art. I want to be efficient. I want my writing to be leaner, so it’ll touch the most pathological philistine on the face of the earth. I want my words to strike a nerve wherever they land, and I’ll use the Web to do it. I will.
So I found those who would help me. I started some websites, and I’m providing content, and I’m finding time to work on my own projects, even if there’s not much time left once all has been done.
I won’t sleep, I won’t eat, I won’t rest until I can live off of my writing. At this point, it’s no longer a dream, it’s a quest. It’s no longer a question of desire, but a question of integrity.
And integrity – not artistic integrity, of course. I’m done with that, it’s mostly an excuse writers use when they can’t succeed, anyway. I’m talking about real integrity. I’m talking about integrity in my word. Integrity in my determination. Integrity, because if I really want to do this, then I must find a way to do it.
So that’s why this website, and that’s why I started the others. That’s why I’m collecting dreams, and that’s all there is to it. Integrity, because when I look at my girls, I realize that abandoning my dream would be the most devastating example I could ever set.
I’m sorry if I got intense on you for a second, there. I tend to do that sometimes. Please, if you like this website or any other sites in my blogroll, spread the word. Mention it on Twitter, Facebook or some other social network. The buttons are up-top, on your right.
Spread the word, and we’ll see how far I’ll go.
ONLY IN DREAMS
Dreams enable the id to take over, free from the social vice grips of the ego and super-ego. It’s liberating, and quite often, a lot of fantasizing goes on during the night. It’s no wonder they figured so largely in Sigmund Freud’s structural model of the human psyche.
I used to remember most of my dreams. I know the average person dreams up to five times every night, during REM (rapid-eye-movement) sleep and other stages, but I’m sad to report that I don’t recall the great bulk of my dreams. I read about that a long time ago, when I was still pulled awake several times a night, head filled with whatever vision had haunted my mind before reality reasserted its hold. The older one gets, the harder it becomes to remember dreams. Or rather, the more seldom one retains a vivid memory of a dream.
When I was younger, I had a lot of nightmares. I do mean a lot. I don’t know why. Perhaps it was a lack of confidence, or of self-esteem. Perhaps I was just too young to get into so many horror stories. Suffice it to say I spent most of my childhood and early teens afraid to go to sleep. That’s how bad it was. Furthermore, most of my nightmares were completely absurd.
ANOTHER EXAMPLE
There was one I’ll never forget, though I can’t for the life of me figure out why. I was in my bedroom, in my parents’ house. I must have been seven or eight years old. My parents had always told me never to fall asleep with a gum in my mouth, because I’d choke.
Well, in this particular nightmare, I opened my eyes. It was night, and I was in my bed, head on the pillow. What I saw, my field of vision, if you will, was exactly as it should be. I was facing the room and the hallway beyond. I heard a noise coming down the hall from the living room. I realized I was chewing gum, but it was too late. Then, a tall, skinny blue robot walked past my room. It stopped and turned toward me. There was no expression on its mechanical face; just blue eyes that glowed. I felt the gum leave my mouth and enter my throat, blocking my airways.
Then, the robot moved on, headed toward the end of the hall, where the bedrooms of my parents and my sisters were. I know it would do the same thing to them, but I couldn’t warn my family; I was choking.
It’s a dumb little nightmare, but it never left me. For something like twenty-five years, I’ve had it with me. Why? Does it have any special significance? Of course not.
I had long bouts of insomnia when I was a teenager. I fear it was because of all my bad dreams. I didn’t want to go to sleep. By then, I was writing poetry, so that’s what I’d do all night. It would be four or five in the morning by the time I finally collapsed, and even then, sleep wouldn’t come easy.
Not until it was day. Once daylight appeared, I could sleep without fear of the bad dreams. They seldom attacked me during the day, and I can’t explain any of it, really. It all feels so dumb.
I’m afraid the same thing will happen to my daughters. I don’t want them to fear sleep. It wasn’t a fun thing. My own insomnia only disappeared once my wife and I moved in together (we’d only been dating about two months at the time). My insomnia was cured. I slept, and I barely ever recalled my dreams, and there were very few nightmares. Even now, on the odd night I spend alone because my wife’s out of town, I don’t have bad dreams.
They say dreams are remembered when interrupted. That’s why nightmares are so easy to recall; we pull ourselves out of them. We will ourselves awake.
I’m not kidding when I say I want your nightmares. I have many of my own that I’d love to share with you. I’m sure we all do, and I’m sure they’re all fascinating.
Please, if you stumble upon my site: do submit your terrible dreams to the Nightmare List.
ONE NIGHT DOWNTOWN
The statistics on nearly all of my websites have started to improve. I’m quite happy about it, to be honest. I thought it might take months for One Night Downtown to earn ranks in Google, but it already has. I’m still miles from the front page, but with your help, perhaps we can ensure my free online serial story does earn top honors? It would mean the world to me, and I’m sure you’ll agree that there’s a potent plot brewing in there.
Two other Beech Street Media sites have ranked in Google. Denver Talbot’s Writing Fiction Blog & Habs7: For Fans of the Canadiens. Thank you. Keep it up!