Assault of the Dreams!

"Never say never..."

Someone said that to my sister once at a psychic fair. We were looking at jewelry and some woman thought it was quirky to dreamily say she wish she had more fingers. I didn't really overhear what happened, but apparently the conversation evolved into someone else saying the above quote with even more unnecessary solemnity before my sister challenged it with a forcefully whispered 'never...'.

Recently, someone had the boner-bright idea to humble-brag in a writing group about their lucid dreams and how all of their ideas came from this 'unique' ability to dream up their ideas. Ironically, it's a snore-fest full of people chiming in to either say 'me too!' or scoffing in refute. I took the bait with my never-say-never jinx that I haven't dreamt much at all over the years but I have daydreams so I'm blessed that my brain shuts the fuck up at all. I just never dream that much anymore so that can't be a driving force for me.

I've had lucid dreams, wet dreams, actual orgasmic dreams, night terrors, etc. I, however, assumed that everybody experienced all of these things at some point in their lives so I never quite get how many people seem to humble-brag about it as if most of us miserable people are consigned to the boring dream world of dogs. (Apparently they dream in black and white and mostly about mailmen and cats. The first, I have no clue how they arrived at; the second is my guess since I can't imagine anything would make a dog run and bark in their sleep, short of mailmen and cats.)

However, for whatever reason, I truly haven't done much dreaming at all over the years. Maybe it's because I'm an idea-wagon when I'm awake. Maybe it's down to triggered traumas (deaths of loved ones, old poorly-buried garbage). Either way, I've never really found myself to be particularly more productive or insightful or better at what I do because of dreaming at night.

There's that 'never' again...

Quoth the Raven 'never more'. This is not the GIF I was looking for, but it's the one that Gotham needs...

Because I'm dreaming a lot since I said that. A lot a lot. I mostly keep telling my designated Joe about them since I'm hoarding them. This most recent one would make for a good dystopian fiction, a novel that will NOT turn into a series, for once. I've said that before, but this one actually had a definitive beginning, middle and end.

And yeah, I'm going to be like those bitches on FaceBook that say shit like 'you know who you are and what you did, but I'm not going to say it so anyone else knows what the fuck I'm talking about.'

Could be allergies. I've been taking a Benadryl each night to sleep. Could be that. Could be because that stupid comment actually kind of made my brain feel threatened and challenged and eager to prove this anonymous rando on the internet it was better. Could also be because I said 'never'.

Either way, whatever dreams I did have were not AT ALL usable for my work. It wouldn't be wrong to even say they were lame and not really worthy of writing down, a mishmash of uninteresting garbage that my brain just discarded to my consciousness in an act of rebellion to hide what was really going on in there.

Now I know. Oh, I know, thank you very much, exactly what my brain had been hoarding in dreams.

Really, it kind of pisses me off even. My least favorite thing to do is wake from a huge dream I've remembered with the need to write it down before it fades. My ideal morning is waking up from a peaceful nothingness (a type of sleep I call 'practicing for death') and lingering for a while, staring at my ceiling or the screensaver of falling sakura blooms on my TV, stretching each muscle in a state of meditation, the first thought being whether I should make coffee or not.

But no. The brilliant landscape of dreams Godzillas all up in my preferred morning ritual by making me half-fall, half-tumble out of bed to scramble for a pen and notebook to scribble down whatever dream will fade if I wait even a half hour to do it.

"I'll be your dream, I'll be your wish, I'll be your fantasy..." Again, with the GIFs missing the mark. Can a girl just get a NORMAL Godzilla GIF already?

It's an abomination, let me tell you! Not only is my love of handwriting completely aborted in this scribbled mess, but I tend to grab one of the many booby-trapped busted pens (that I'll probably grumble about throwing away 50 times before I do). You know what that means-- smearing that shit all up the side of my hand when I'm in a frenzy to write it down.

Can it, floppy orange shirt guy. Let me complain about all the disadvantages of my advantageous dreams in peace!

Okay, yeah-- so it's actually not terrible. Except for the whole Murphy's Law sort of fact that I'm almost certain to need a notebook and a pen every time I put them away in some smug need to be more organized. I should know by now that that's my brain's cue to call up their imaginary friend Murphy to write a new amendment. I'm not REALLY complaining about anything more than mornings that aren't ideal due to my luxury of being scatter-brained. My ancestors would have been eaten by sabre-toothed tigers and shat out into tar pits.

If I can assume my ancestors were actually humans. Aliens, some missing link of dinosaurs, animorphic dragonkin-- I'm not ruling out those possibilities. I can't imagine their mornings are as anti-climactic yet dressed up with flashy words to make it seem more interesting...

In all actuality, I feel ridiculously blessed. Ideas are not something I struggle for. Sure, I wish I could channel them more effectively to complete things without distraction, but better a batshit crazy muse than none at all. Even if they are kind of the devil on my shoulder.

He's got a lot of room to walk. I have very broad shoulders. #humblebrag

Really, I'd love to sleep more. With the dreams tend to come a sort of exhaustion in my waking hours. I've heard it said that we only remember the dreams that we wake from. It's possible that our brains even intend to finish them but we spoil it by waking up. 

I'm sure you've done this too, all you extraordinary people who dream, but sometimes you wake from a good one and go ahead and try to finish it. Sometimes this ends well, other times... well, don't know about you, but on occasion, once I wake, I realize this dream I want to finish is... completely stupid and that overwhelming desire to finish it almost becomes a weird kind of embarrassment. It's even a guilty pleasure kind of thing where you get caught not just watching a stupid movie, but enjoying it. In this case, thankfully, no one is actually seeing what stupid nonsense you were initially excited about, but what your unconscious brain told you was the shiiiit, your conscious brain starts to make fun of you for. No. No, you don't want to 'finish' this unless by 'finish' you mean...

And we're done here.

Maybe I can at least say what is making these dreams the 'not-stupid' kind. Well, mostly 'not-stupid'. There's usually a fact or two that I will purposely leave out when I'm remembering it. It'll be something dumb, like who my significant other is in the dream (sometimes an old co-worker, yikes) or my best friend and I stealing markers from a daycare center. Something tells me this isn't the first time I've brought that up...

They're not stupid because that feeling resembling embarrassment doesn't come up within the first five minutes of being awake. (Seriously, I don't think there's a real word for that feeling-- it's not embarrassment, but the physical response is similar-- tense, naked, awkward, vulnerable. This is close enough.)

Bad example! BAD EXAMPLE! Dream-embarrassment shouldn't be a GIF search for embarrassment conjuring up my first example of a cartoon crush wet-dream! ARGH! In fact, I know his voice actor was Scott Weinger and his singing voice is done by Brad Kane. Yeah, bitches; I know my Aladdin trivia. *Longest caption ever.

So I can tell you what these dreams aren't that makes them qualify, but what ARE they? The easiest way I can answer that is to say that they are complete in some way. Some tidbit of residual interest. Even incomplete, there is some feeling of genre, of a beginning and a middle, or a middle and an end. I say this because beginnings and endings are the difficult part so a dream solidifying those is already passing inspection. Beefy middle meat is always a bonus.

(Room for my perverted friends to heh-heh on that one...)

What I consider successful for an idea is one where I'm all 'hell yeah, that should be a book/movie/comic book/bubble-gum-wrapper.' It seems all of my dreams have this quality these days. I want to complain because none of them have anything I can put towards my actual book. However, what inspires my actual book has to come just as organically, so it can become a lesson in patience. 

Awww, look at me, all unprofessional without my fancy deadlines and prolific discipline. Look, I still get my words up, so twist it all you want. Again, I give all ideas room so that there's no such thing as lulls in my production. Don't harsh my buzz.

I should probably work on my story now though... Blogging always gets me going on what I know I should be doing.

Hey, how about I leave you with an embarrassing bad dream? I once had a ridiculously failed sex dream. Because it was probably supposed to be one, but did. Not. Go there... This one stars me and... Chris D'Elia making out in my sister's childhood-bedroom closet. For some reason, neither of us can figure out how to undress each other and we stop in frustration and end up falling asleep angry on my waterbed.

I know-- embarrassing, right? I don't even have a waterbed.

At least you understand why I say many of my dreams are completely unusable. Great for self-deprecating blog entries though.