New author publisher site, for weird fiction and dreams

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DREADDlocks

Scientists have shown how the length of REM sleep corresponds to the amount of NREM sleep (slow wave or deep sleep).

http://www.medicaldaily.com/our-dream-state-rem-sleep-influences-memory-consolidation-during-other-sleep-phases-358498

The article is interesting, but the reason I mention it here is because the way they worked this out is by using something called DREADD. Wonderful acronym.

It stands for Designer Receptors Exclusively Activated by Designer Drugs.

Notice how my dream the next morning featured me at a party, smoking a cigarette with a guy with dreadlocks.

"I stand alone in the crowd, wanting [the party] to be over. A guy with dreadlocks asks for a light, which I have. I ask for a cigarette, of which he has two: a roll-up and a straight. I take the straight. He lights the roll-up and it burns halfway down before he even takes a drag.

"The whole party is a drag."

I'm thinking about writing a story where the principal character has dreadlocks. In addition, artwork by the incredible Danielle Tunstall may have had something to do with it too. When I find the exact photo I glimpsed, I'll post it!

http://www.danielletunstall.com/portfolio/

Nothing is Strange by Mike Russell - Review

<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25099252-nothing-is-strange" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img border="0" alt="Nothing Is Strange" src="https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1425831869m/25099252.jpg" /></a><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25099252-nothing-is-strange">Nothing Is Strange</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/807620.Mike_Russell">Mike Russell</a><br/>
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1425031869">4 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
Haunting, beautiful, worthwhile.<br><br>I felt that Mike Russell was in complete control of his storytelling; a sometimes distant but authoritative, Rod Serling-like guide to a bizarre universe.<br><br>There are moments in this collection of short stories that are laugh-out-loud funny and passages and observations that are actually sublime. I thought the stand out stories were The Meeting, The End of the Pier, Extraordinary Elsie and The Living Crown, though other stories also gave my mind an overdue clean and polish.<br><br>My only gripe is that I wanted to spend more time in the worlds created within each story. My answer to that is to do exactly what I did: read them all twice.
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<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/8190775-dean-edwards">View all my reviews</a>

How to Remember Your Dreams

More posts coming up soon on sleep debt, sleep paralysis, dreams of travelling and why I dreamed about Mike Dickin. For the moment, I'm very pleasantly but exhaustingly occupied with my book - How To Remember Your Dreams.

I hope very much that the book helps people achieve this goal, which is like a hub that can lead in many different directions. As I explore more of those directions, I'll share my results here, but for now I'm perfecting my dream recall and launching on one of the most interesting of dream paths - that of lucid dreaming.

If you want to chat dreams, my favourite mediums are emails and Twitter. If you want to improve your dream recall, bookmark and follow this site.

Get your copy of How To Remember Your Dreams via Amazon. For Amazon UK, click here.

Other outlets to follow.

Thanks.

D

How to Remember Your Dreams, available from Amazon 1st October

I very recently celebrated the arrival of my proof copy of "How to Remember Your Dreams" with Marianne, Tim Shaw and Elaine B. It was good to share the moment with good friends, old and new.

Improve your dream recall to enhance dream interpretation, lucid dreaming and waking life

Remembering and journaling dreams is something I've been into for about 20 years and I jumped at the chance to write a guide for others who want to do the same. Having done so, I hope that this book helps people to bridge their conscious and subconscious, leading to better dream interpretation, lucid dreaming or just the enjoyment of the 3D movie theatre of the subconscious.

The artwork for the cover was created by the very talented Zanara. Her website is http://www.zanarasabina.com and it's well worth checking out.

If you'd like a copy of the book or you know someone who would, it is scheduled to be available in print from Amazon on 1st October.

Tom Cruise Rocket Man

I'm in the backseat of a smart, black car. Outside, a movie is rolling, all around the vehicle.

Tom Cruise is a character in a rocket suit speeding through the air above multiple freight containers. He's flying over enormous vessels. Together they are the size of a small city and each one is bearing rows of multicoloured containers. Things like flying train engines pull them through the sky.

Cruise speeds over them as fast as he can. Sometimes he disables the rockets so he can swoop down and fly between them, sweeping along corridors of metal.

He grabs parts of the structure in order to change direction, hauling himself up, or onwards, or down, firing up the rockets, shutting them off. His skill at flying is impressive. His determination is as breathtaking as his pace. It's like parkour with a rocket pack.

There are enemies amid the containers. It's Mission Impossible meets James Bond meets Iron Man. Cruise takes them out by flying into them or by hurling them over the edges of containers. He mixes martial arts with aerial maneuvers.

He must reach the head of the lead vessel before the clock runs out. Cruise's face is determined as he battles with gravity, inertia and enemy personnel. He is alert and, though he has a sense of urgency, he is relatively calm.

Exhausted, I fall asleep for what seems like a few minutes. When I wake, I look out of the window and the scene is still going on. It's the most amazing chase scene I've ever seen and I'm sort of in it. The heights are breathtaking and I feel a thrill as Cruise mounts containers and flies down, down, down the sides of stacks, free-falling in the midst of a great container city. The buildings are red and blue and yellow and green and there are lights blinking below to show highways and byways between the boxes. Watching the movie is as exhilarating and vertiginous as a roller coaster ride.

When I wake, I feel energised and capable of surmounting any obstacle with speed, class and grace, which is good, because the kids are crying.

Recuring Dreams

Recurring dreams? I didn't know that I had them until I started keeping a dream journal. What are they? Pretty common it seems. Aliens taking places over. Breathing underwater. Being an animal, usually a werewolf with me. Mash-ups of whatever TV shows I am watching.

Also cars that I can't steer properly, but it's okay because they are often armoured. Talking dogs. Super-intelligent babies. Bullets bouncing off me. And replays: stop, rewind, let's try that again, lucid.

World of Cow cartoon by Stik

Not that you'd know it right now. I've had very few dreams in the last few days, which I put down to not getting enough sleep. Been busy with work.

Take a look at these recurring dreams, posted on Deadspin. It's a great selection and some of the descriptions are superb.


http://adequateman.deadspin.com/here-are-your-best-and-worst-recurring-dreams-1729308455

Nightmares to Order

Got to count myself in the camp of writers that normally enjoy their nightmares, although I can't really call my dark dreams nightmares. They generally only seem sinister or creepy as I'm writing them in my dream journal. While in the dream, the zombies, wolves, aliens, demons seem pretty normal and that's part of what fascinates me about them.

Wake up? I want to know what happens in the end.

I put this tendency down to writing a lot of horror and the fact that my interest in doing so has always been in compelling characters and situations. I rarely set out to scare anyone. My stories start as 'what ifs' and descend into darkness from there.

It's certainly another matter for those who have genuinely unpleasant nightmares or post-traumatic stress flashbacks and I've learnt that these flashbacks occur throughout all stages of sleep, which sounds particularly harrowing.

I know two guys who served in the military and are treated to terrifying flashbacks every night. Although they are well aware of dream incubation techniques and therapy, I hope I may still learn a few things in order to be of some use to them.

LINK > http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/why-we-have-nightmares-and-what-they

Does everybody dream?

http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2015/09/everyone-dreams-or-do-they.html#

As I understand it, the short answer is yes. Check out this insight into dreaming and not knowing it.


Favourite line: "Stay here before doing such a thing, you b*tch!"

What Our Recurring Dreams Are Trying to Tell Us > Huffington Post

Posting this link because my recent water dream still has me drowning in waking life, and this dreamer also talks about turbulent water in a vivid dream.

I wonder if dreams affect us even when we don't remember them.

I woke up with a very clear idea of why I was about to feel like shit and a good idea of what I'd need to do about it. Not easy. If I hadn't remembered the dream, would I still have woken up in such a shitty mood?

Anyway, onto the LINK:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elizabeth-kirk/what-our-recurring-dreams_b_8074712.html

Why don't people talk about their dreams?

Why don't people talk about their dreams?


LINK


Concise, insightful and thoughtful article by Dr Shane McCorristine

Public Swimming Urinal

I'm in a hospital and I'm dressed smart, so I'm thinking that I must be a doctor or consultant, but I'm not sure. I could also be a patient. I try to work it out by the way others look at me.

I head to the toilet and find that the urinal - used by both men and women - is overflowing. I position myself at the urinal, trying not to get my shoes wet, when an old woman pushes me out of the way and dives into the massive puddle of overflowing water as if it's a public swimming pool. Another woman dives in. And another.

They are in red and blue swimming caps, swimsuits and bikinis, splashing around in the piss water and squealing with joy, submerged up to their shoulders.

I take a piss.

I see M* and T*. M* is a consultant, but he's more interested in getting out of here and driving his car than being around sick people. They're gross. T* is a sick person.

Vintage Catalogue

Vintage catalogue

Sleeping Standing Up by Elizabeth Bishop

As we lie down to sleep the world turns half away
through ninety dark degrees;
the bureau lies on the wall
and thoughts that were recumbent in the day
rise as the others fall,
stand up and make a forest of thick-set trees.

The armored cars of dreams, contrived to let us do
so many a dangerous thing,
are chugging at its edge
all camouflaged and ready to go through
the swiftest streams, or up a ledge
of crumbling shale, while plates and trappings ring.

-Through turret-slits we saw the crumbs or pebbles that lay
below the riveted flanks
on the green forest floor,
like those the clever children placed by day
and followed to their door
one night, at least; and in the ugly tanks

we tracked them all the night. Sometimes they disappeared,
dissolving in the moss,
sometimes we went too fast
and ground them underneath. How stupidly we steered
until the night was past
and never found out where the cottage was.