A long and restful night full of many dreams! Without going into too much detail, while the specifics of plot and setting are still fresh in my mind:
dream one: it's nighttime and I'm in the passenger seat heading to the library for a book reading; in the dream, my latest novel is something about lizard knights. My brother is driving- the vehicle we're in is a giant papier-mâché head, as for a Mardi Gras celebration, of one of the characters in the book, a goofy-eyed Gila monster. The atmosphere of the dream is much the same as the one detailed November 3 of last year- the street lights, the pancake griddle in the preschool parking lot, etc., only instead of making the detour into the cat-and-mouse game in the maze of the preschool's hallways, we're interrupted from said detour by a train passing by on a train crossing, so we proceed to the library as scheduled. At the library the dream sets up to continue like the one of the guest lecture at the museum detailed March 28 of three years ago, only it ends before we can actually enter the building.
dream two: the most detailed dream of the night, occurring in two parts. It opens in a hotel like I haven't seen before, though imagine the architecture of the hotel room at Westefield Place as seen in dream of 08-07-13, but with a warmer decor, higher ceilings, and narrower walls. I'm with my mother; we've already checked in. Our room, at the end of a tall staircase, has beanbags, beds, television sets in the corner; reminiscent of DDR machine room in dream of 02-18-18, with bookshelves reminiscent of those at my cousins' house when I was in elementary school. Two narrow windows at chest height, through which you can view snow beginning to fall as the twilight comes on (it is not snowing in the remainder of my dream, and broad daylight; probably the next day?) An atmosphere of stillness. I leave my wallet on a stool by the minifridge as I head down for (what must be) a continental breakfast, (assuming it is the next morning,) but the scene quickly changes to a hospital: white walls, square architecture, a great many windows, many of them obscured by venetian blinds. Like the hospital at the capital, only sans fish tank.
At the hospital and feeling rather peckish, snacky for specifically a giant marshmallow. I see a display of what looks like fun novelty shaped marshmallows (duckies, dogs, etc) in the window of the hospital gift shop- I duck in, they turn out to be blown glass, but asking about it to the gift shop receptionist (late 50's, horn-rimmed glasses) there are indeed marshmallows available. She hands it to me across the ferns (it's a small houseplanty room, the venetian blinds casting striped shadows over the holey form of the Monstera deliciosa)-- it's a fist-sized white marshmallow with black detailing, a cartoon dog head something like Snoopy. I take a large bite out of it before asking, wait this is complementary right? The receptionist say no, it's a wedding present and only half of the gift- it comes bundled with a small ceramic sculpture which she hands over, two cartoony dogs twisting around each other romantically the alignment of their rumps suggesting the intent to engage in an, intimate encounter, the base of the sculpture reading "For the Happy Couple." It's embarrassing and I shove it away, into my pocket, acting through my teeth like I'm pleased with it though and agreeing to pay-- before remembering my wallet is back at the hotel. Fortunately I recall that apparently my mother has a line of credit at the hospital-- I try to put it on her tab, but can't recall the PIN which is apparently required. My aunt arrives and I explain that I'm trying to purchase something, speaking in as vague of terms as possible because I don't want to have to show her the embarrassingly erotic tchotchke or explain why I'd need to purchase a wedding gift in the first place. I manage to talk her into fronting me a Benjamin; end of dream.
dream three: at the den of my grandfather's house. I am home from college. There's a game on the table, a jigsaw puzzle combined with something like pick-up sticks: it's a puzzle to figure out the correct configuration of these thin porcelain snakes; to accomplish this, there's a jigsaw puzzle to complete, abstract jumbles of shapes and colors that reveals the color-coded placement of the snakes on top of them.
dream four: opens up on a college campus, something like the northwestern corner of MIT, my brother is there and he is drawing large dice on the sidewalk in impossibly vivid creamy pastels. A crowd has gathered around him to watch. There is a woman there (something about being a twin sister to another woman there?) and she recognizes me; she peels away from the crowd and we chat about life as an author (she is apparently a writer of short fiction.)
Now in a cozy pub/retaurant, seated at a side table, continuing the conversation. She asks me where I get my ideas, and I tell her the truth, how most of my ideas I get from dreams, telling her how keeping a dream journal allows you to better retain details etc. She says she does already keep one, that she happens to have on her, and reads to me details from her own dream journal: the family with "2.5" children, two parents with three full children but the third being somehow only half in the family. Some kind of half-bastard, which as I listen I realize would be perfect for Prince ValDeacon's characterization in the Thornsword Chronicles book I'm working on: it complexifies his relationship with his father (especially regarding the idea of inheritance rights,) it adds intrigue to his proceedings in the Rosequartz Courts (as he now has a secret to keep, even- and especially!- from Malloria,) it adds drama to his decision to sire a child with Desdominia (as he himself knows how difficult the life of a bastard can be.) I feel torn as I don't want to steal from her to write my own story, and much of the rest of the dream is spent struggling with the morality of using her ideas- even though it's just the seed of the idea that comes from the woman; in the weird dream-logic, my dreamself considers it plagiarism. Of course, in real life I was the one who dreamed that she dreamed it... Now that I'm awake I feel no such guilt.
I had a lot of dreams last night, at least five; in the last one I wrote quite a bit, so it's always disappointing to wake up to find all that work gone to waste. Probably nonsense writing, though that's cold comfort. An upside though! One of my dreams (the fourth I believe, though we'll get to it in due time) I cracked some crucial, juicy characterization detail for Prince ValDeacon, which still makes sense thinking about while conscious even!
first dream: we're (my brother and I) are in a giant GrooGrux King float, a lizard character from apparently my latest book, driving to a book reading/signing event at a library. It's night, it's a full moon, moody and atmospheric like that dream of the cookout in the parking lot with the maze, of [CHECK DATE]. There's a train crossing, and we wait while the train passes. Dream ends before we step through the doors of the library.
second dream: there's a first bit at a hotel (basically the hotel from the dream of [CHECK DATE], the long one with the road trip in the horse trailer?) but the only part that matters is that I leave my wallet in the hotel room as I step out the door. I then find myself in the lobby of a brightly lit hospital, white walls clean floor a great many windows, and I am famished, specifically for marshmallow or something gelatin like that. The hospital has one of those overpriced giftshops hospitals sometimes have, a moody noirish little place with a great many ferns and the blinds down but cracked. There had been what I'd thought to be marshmallows in the display, so I'd entered- it turns out they were just blobby blown glass ornaments, but the place does have marshmallows available by complete coincidence, big ones. I bite into one before I realize that it might not be free, remembering that I'd left my wallet back in the hotel room for whatever reason, and indeed it does cost money. Even more than I'd thought it would, to boot-the marshmallow comes with a statuette of two cartoon dogs making googoo eyes at each other, getting ready to do the do, twisting around each other like a dachshund version of a Giambattista sculpture. The marshmallow and the figurine are, combined, apparently some kind of novelty wedding present, "to the happy couple." It's embarrassingly erotic, and I shove the trinket deep into my jacket pocket before shoving the remainder of the marshmallow into my mouth. My mother has a tab at the giftshop here, for some reason, but her sister arrives before I need to pay that way (something about faking my identity making that difficult anyway.) Being as vague as possible, with nothing to show for it (neither tasty dog-mallow nor tacky dog-knickknack) I convince her to give me money, and all is paid.
third dream: a puzzle that's two puzzles in one: the first layer is an abstract, red-yellow-black jigsaw puzzle, the second is constructed on top of it using squiggly porcelain snakes, which twist around over and under each other. The second dream in a row about twisted porcelain animals, come to think of it. Intriguing idea for a puzzle in real life, anyway.
fourth dream: Vivid pastel chalks on the sidewalk, intense creamy color. Giant rolling dice street art. It's Leon. A crowd has gathered around him to admire the craft of the art being laid down; one woman out of it, a college student, looks up, notices me, and recognizes me. We start to chat, and now we're at a bar and grill. She asks me where I get my ideas, and when I admit to her it's mostly scrounged bits and pieces from my dreams/ dream journals, she reads to me a dream of her own, a half-bastard child to round out as the .5 the proverbial 2.5 children. The epithet of half-bastard gives me the idea for ValDeacon I mentioned above: if ValDeacon is half-illegitimate, not only is his heirship on shakier grounds, but it gives him a reason to be keeping secrets from Malloria, setting up the fight in book 3. It also explains Drakmus's relationship to the family (using the fairy magic to cover up the illegitimacy/explain how the heck something can be half-illegitimate in the first place) and adds angst to his own relationship with his bastard son! And it strains the prince's relationship with his father King Leonid... it's just perfect!
fifth dream: I wake up from the dream about the characterization realization, buzzing with excitement but making my way methodically through the details of each dream as I write in my morning dream journal. Alas, I must write it all down a second time, for real this time though; it felt so real, but the moment I finished writing the entry for the day I realized I was still dreaming...
The last few dreams of the night were of this very moment. Not this very moment, but, writing down my dreams, then realizing I was still dreaming. This happened twice. Twice. I'm a little paranoid as I write this entry, but, I'm pretty darn sure that I'm awake right now! (am I making my way backward through these today? sure let's go with it.)
The dream that had me so excited to write in my journal this morning was of a woman, a student at the college the dream was set and a writer in her own right, reading her own dream journal to me and sparking an idea for the Thornsword Chronicles that snaps a lot of character motivations in place: the possibility of being a half-bastard, especially in regards to the actions of Prince ValDeacon. If King Leonid had taken a mistress in his younger years (particularly, say, someone from the House of Myr, maybe even Venverermyr herself!) then Prince ValDeacon would've been born a bastard (half-brother to Orchiv!) and thus unable to inherit the Rosequartz Throne-- unless, there were some magicks from Drakmus FellMinister afoot, not only indebting the Archades dynasty to the Unseelie Court, but also explaining their immunity to the Farmost Brethren! ValDeacon would thus be half-illegitimate, complexifying his relationship to both his father (can he trust him, as his heir, or is the king playing him for some reason?) but also Desdominia (being half a bastard himself certainly gives him impetus toward complicated feelings re: his own lovechild)! Also, let's face it, the epithet Half-Bastard is just, really cool. Anyway. Don't have any bad feelings about this, in any way.
Dream preceding that one: okay but this is also a really neat idea? Picture pick-up snakes, as an intricate puzzle to be assembled on top of a jigsaw puzzle, with various colored spots on the jigsaw puzzle's surface telling you the bases for all these snakes. There's one layer of the puzzle, a jigsaw puzzle, but when you complete that there's still an entirely separate layer of puzzle left to construct.
the dream preceding that one: this is a little funny, a little embarrassing (horny dogs??) It's mostly at a hospital, a bright clean place with a lot of windows, large wall-sized windows on the outside letting in a lot of sunlight, but a giftshop with the venetian blinds lowered within. Intriguing noir imagery: strips of light being let in, a lot of houseplants including Monstera, so the strips of light contrasted against the big round holes in those leaves. Maybe make it smoky in there as well. I'd stepped in peckish for a marshmallowy treat (the marshmallows there perhaps homemade from the marsh-mallows there?) but took a bite before realizing the Snoopy-looking snack was anything but complimentary, thus finding myself indebted to pay for not only that but the bric-a-brac that apparently came with it: a vaguely pornographic (sheath visible, which was at least mildly surprising for such a cartoony art style) porcelain statue of two dogs getting ready to mount! (Gazing lovingly into each other's eyes, twisted with their baloonily tubular bodies around like a donut so that their hindquarters were at least vaguely appropriately- or, rather, inappropriately- aligned.) Bemused but vaguely embarrassed by this, I shove the tchotchke into my pocket (the marshmallow was bigger than the statuette was) and try to pay for the item which I don't even want (although the marshmallow hit the spot.) I'd left my wallet back in the hotel room where I'd been staying with my mother, however; luckily the hospital giftshop has some kind of debit card on file for her, and I attempt to pay with that. I can't remember the PIN for it, if I knew it in the first place (I think they think I'm somebody else, because the name on the card isn't even right; it's all very fiddly and ultimately not worth tracking the details of, especially because my aunt arrives to save the day when I can scrounge the cash I need off of her.)
The first dream of the night was going to a book reading in a giant float head shaped like a wonky lizard (picture a parade-style thing, that kind of float; the lizard is a paladin, the star of my latest book, in the dream; the book we're heading to perform a reading/signing of.) It's late at night for some reason, large orangey moon in the sky, speckled with clouds. The same kind of night that that dream with the breakfast and the maze had. There's a train crossing in front of us, but I'm not worried we'll (my brother is driving, it's his float) be late; indeed we arrive right on time, but the dream ends before we enter the library where they're waiting for me.
I'm writing this a few hours after waking up, paranoid for reasons you'll see later; you'll forgive me if these entries don't contain their usual level of detail, as, though I've tried to retain as much detail as possible, a lot has fallen through the sieve. Many of the dreams were vivid however! So I think I've held onto a lot of them, all things considered.
Dream one: heading to a book reading in a giant lizard head-- it's a float, as for a parade; the lizard is a character in the book we're heading to the reading for.
Dream two: a hotel, a hospital, a hospital giftshop. Noiry and uncomfortably funnily animal-sexy. Like a Yonfan movie only less Chinese? But that kind of cinematography. I want a giant novelty marshmallow from the hospital giftshop but it comes paired as a wedding gift (?) with an ornament of two cartoon dogs about to conjugate (the marshmallow was also of a cartoon dog.) So not only do I have to pay for something I'm not thrilled about, I left my wallet at home. Two embarrassing things back-to-back. Further goodnews badnews, they tell me my mom has a line of credit with them, but they think I'm somebody else and I have to play along. And once more, my aunt walks in so I can get the money off of her, good news, but I can't show her the knickknack and plus I look like a moocher, bad news. What a roller coaster.
Dream three: more porcelain animals entwined around each other, this time it's not sexy. But it is a neat idea for a puzzle I think: jigsaw, meets pickup snakes.
Dream four: my brother makes sidewalk art, really vivid colors, laying down the chalk in these creamy creamy strokes. Stained-glass colors, like Sagrada, which is appropriate because the art is of dice being rolled. Maybe that's where I got that. A woman from the crowd who'd been watching him comes over to me and tells me an idea. From her own dream journal! We'd been talking about dream journals. The idea is that of half-bastarddom, which, of course, is an excellent character motivation for Prince ValDeacon in the Thornsword books! For reasons I don't need to litigate here.
Dream five: I wake up from that dream and write down all the dreams I had in the night, going into as much detail as I can.
Dream six: I wake up from that dream and write down all the dreams I had in the night, going into as much detail as I can.
Dream seven: I wake up from that dream and write down all the dreams I had in the night, but in reverse order, going into as much detail as I can.
I dreamt last night, well, most of the dreams were of me waking up and writing down in my dream journal, dream after dream, of me waking up and writing down in my dream journal. Even when I'd been awake for a few hours, it felt like, ready to write down my dreams, it kept turning out I was still asleep. Going into less and less detail each time, on each of them. Various images I can still remember from them though: snake puzzle, naughty doggy knickknack, chalk pastel dice. A Meet Dave head (two trucks having sex!) A woman tells me the character motivation that I'm missing and when I go to write it down in my dream journal I discover that I'm still asleep. Is the woman seeking revenge for stealing her idea? The thought crosses my mind, but it's a thought that only makes sense if you're still asleep. Which I guess proves I really was still dreaming. It really is a pretty good idea though, not in a it-seemed-like-a-good-idea-when-I-was-asleep sort of way. I'm, not going to write it here though. Perhaps superstitiously, but, I'm not going to write it here.
...But then I didn't and I still woke up from that. A few nights ago. Waiting to write this down, because of the nature of the dreams themselves- A few dreams, each more vivid than the last, each more real than the after a certain point, though many are fading- a chain of waking up, writing in my dream journal, and discovering I'm still asleep. At one point I figured it was the writing down of one particular idea that cursed me so, but then I didn't write it down, and I still turned out to be asleep. I'm probably asleep right now. It's probably only two in the morning. It's probably not even midnight yet. Here's the idea though, seeing as it's been, three days, and I'm pretty sure I'm awake for sure: the idea of ValDeacon, Half-Bastard, that came from one of those dreams. I've already written it into the draft, so, just for posterity: that idea was entirely from a dream of three days ago. Just, writing this down now. I haven't had a dream within that time, or anything.
Well that hardly seems fair. I had, like, half a week's worth of solid writing in, turns out I dreamed it all. Pretty funny.
So: Multiple dreams I can't seem to wake up from, at first thinking it's because I'm caught up in some curse like I'm committing an act of plagiarism by writing down a specific idea, but I wrote the idea into my draft and it was a few days and I was still asleep and as I keep waking up and writing down in my dream journal I start suspecting that it's the act of writing any entry for the night down that enforces my still being asleep, or maybe I've always been asleep and writing down in the dream journal is what makes me realize that, is obviously the logical answer, because this is reality, and I'm awake now, I'm really awake now, and I certainly won't realize I'm still asleep as soon as I finish writing this alright so alright why don't you put the pen down now there'
s nothing to be afraid of obviously hahahaha.
I can't wake up.
I can't wake up.
I
Multiple dreams, not within each other, but each time I record in my journal that turns out to be a dream as well. I wait hours, days, years, and the time passes so realistically and the sensation feels so real and vivid, but when I remember my dreams and go to write them down, something surreal happens and it turns out that I'm still dreaming and that's when I wake up for real.
Bill Murray did nothing wrong but he was trapped in Groundhog Day in Groundhog Day. Not that his character was the greatest human being to ever live or anything, but, I mean, more along the lines of, Time was capricious to him. There was no time machine, no magic pool, no magic pool time machine. Just karma; he was stuck until he, wasn't. There's certainly a reality to things, to the way I interact with them; watching Groundhog Day and it's genuinely just the movie Groundhog Day, it doesn't get randomly surreal or dreamlike; I read a book and it's consistent, I look at the hands of a clock and they make sense and don't jump around when you turn the other way. Maybe this is just a timeloop, and I need to sleep with Andie MacDowell and wake up next to Andie MacDowell after a nice night full of sleep and full of dreams.
It's the journal itself. Not even the dreams written down, right? You put down anything in here anymore and then you wake up, whoopsies your life was fake. It's not like I'm even getting through any pages in here, it's still the same page as when I started, because all that journaling gets erased because it was never real to begin with.
But maybe I can live forever like this, age and age and write down my dreams before I die and wake up young-- but what's the purpose of eternal youth if it's fake and everyone around you is fake, is that why you became a writer man, for yourself, so that you can impress yourself with the prose you pump out, or did you start writing to share those ideas with others, and do you dream for yourself? and do you dream for others? and is there another dreamer? and don't you often think about that? about how you're "the dreamer"? about how you have "the dreams"? but how "a nightmare" has you? implying that you are not the dreamer of a nightmare? but that there is another dreamer? and who is the dreamer now? now? now? do you dream for others or for yourself?
Ah, the good old "not sure if you're really awake" horror. Nice.
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