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.