Best source of inspiration?

The best source of inspiration is any source of inspiration, I always say. However, my most reliable source of inspiration would be my dreams.

Usually I get an idea from somewhere- anywhere. Something I see, something I read about (odd newspaper articles mostly) and then I just let my brain sit on it for a while. Then, eventually, these things start to collide while I’m dreaming, and voila! I get the premise for another story I want to write.

Actually, it’s been happening so frequently lately that I’ve started to pick up short-story writing simply so I can use them all. It’s hit or miss, but sometimes I get something fantastic. It’s just a matter of write write writing every day until a gem appears.

Do you like to dream? Do you find dreams interesting?

I love to dream. It’s one of the primary sources of my creativity. Every night when I dream I get new ideas, process old ones, turn ordinary things into something vibrant. Dreaming keeps me going, in a way. If I didn’t have such an abundant source of inspiration for my stories, I think I would be very sad.

Dreams are extremely interesting to me, as well as extremely personal. I think they mean something to the individual. My dreams are my subconscious trying to tell me something. Or- maybe not “tell me something”, but it’s definitely me thinking extremely freely, and sometimes I learn something about myself or my feelings that I wouldn’t have known without my dreams. That’s why I tend to keep the important dreams to myself, and sometimes I feel really uncomfortable listening to other people tell the stories of their dreams when they feel like dreams don’t mean anything. When I hear other people tell their stories, I sometimes feel like I’m listening in on something secret that wasn’t really meant for my ears. I dunno, it’s strange I guess.

To me, dreams are a tool. I use them to explore ideas that I’d never be able to come up with when I’m awake. I like to repeat dreams several times in a night so that I remember them when I wake up. Sometimes I like to repeat a dream so that I can lead it in a new direction and see something new, something that I didn’t think of the first time. Dreams aren’t always about me, they’re sometimes about the people around me, the places I’ve been, the things I want to do. And since the dream is so metaphorical to begin with, it turns out that the dreams are stories that anyone could relate to, and that’s why I love dreaming as my first tool for story ideas.

I hope that made sense.

Have you ever had a prophetic dream?

Yes, but I don’t claim to be a prophet. My prophetic dreams are really just when the clues are starting to fit together. When I’ve seen a pattern for a few days in a row and suddenly when I’m sleeping, the pieces start to slide together and my dreams tend to predict what will happen next. It’s a symptom of knowing your friends, your family, and yourself really well.

Is there a dream you had, that you wished it would come true? If yes, describe it.

Haha, this is a funny question because I have lots of dreams that I like but not many dreams I wish were true.

Mostly, dreams that I wish would come true are dreams where I hang out with my characters or characters from a show/book that I really like. Recently I hung out with Ivan and Keith, both superheros from a show called Tiger & Bunny. It was a lot of fun. We just chilled in Keith’s living room with our feet on the ottoman and watched TV and talked. John, Keith’s golden retriever, sat in front of the TV and chewed on his bone.

In my dream, the carpet was an off-white color that had a rolling weave in it. Something felt really familiar about it, and so I remember the carpet most. It was comfortably warm there too. Like it was the beginning of fall outside but the heater was on. We had hot chocolate on the coffee table. There was a pad of paper and a pencil that I played with while I talked to Keith and Ivan, but I don’t remember what I did with the paper.

I really liked Keith’s house. I wish I could go back there.

Have you ever had a lucid dream (been aware that you are dreaming)?

Lucid dreaming is practically the only kind of dreaming I do. Actually, I was shocked to find out that other people have difficulty with lucid dreaming, since it’s so normal for me.

Basically, I almost always know that I’m dreaming when I’m dreaming. Which is the definition of lucid dreaming. I don’t always have complete control over my dreams -particularly when I’m stressed out in real life- but I know it’s a dream to begin with. However, even if I know that I can do whatever I want in my dream, most of the time I just roll with it, almost like watching a movie. I participate in what the dream wants me to do and it’s usually pretty fun. Like an actor on stage or a character in one of my stories.

Sometimes I do take control of my dream though. If something gets scary or if I get bored, I usually chose to fly off and do something else. Flying in my dreams is similar to super jumps, but you don’t come back down. You have to jump off the ground high enough and then just coast for a while before you decide to land. I like to ask my friends what flying is like in their dreams and I’ve heard everything from flapping arms to controlling chi.

I had a dream last night…

…That the boy I like and I were on a bicycle together. And in that weird dream-logic way, we were sharing the seat together, and I had one pedal and he had the other pedal. There was an enormous, steep hill before us, and I had the handlebars and we started to pedal up the hill.

It went really slowly, it was laborious and wobbly, but I didn’t mind. The boy I like looked bored though, and when we got to the top of the hill, he said “This is too slow, let me try.”

We looked down the hill together and it was a massive drop, longer and more dangerous than any roller coaster was. We wouldn’t be strapped in, there was no safety net, just a long straight road to the bottom of the hill where a vast city sprawled before us. I hesitantly let him take the handlebars, but as the bike slowly crested the hill, I panicked and said “No, no, I want off, let me off, I’m scared.”

But it was too late. The bike had already gone past the point of no return and I screamed and clung to the boy. I squeezed my eyes shut and my heart was pounding and I was so close to him I could tell that his was beating just as fast, but he calmly said “Trust me.”

The bike was no longer wobbly. With the overwhelming speed it had taken on, the wheels had straightened. But I knew at the speeds we were going, if we hit one rock, one bump, one wrong move, we would spin out of control and crash and tumble apart with broken bones and bleeding hearts. We might even die. And as it dawned on us both the risk at hand, I said again “I can’t do this, please let me off. I’m frightened.”

The bike slowed as we worked together to hit the breaks. We pushed the pedals backward, trying to stop the bike gradually so that it wouldn’t crash, but it quickly became apparent that there was no way to do it- the bike would not stop, and the only way off would be to ride it until the end.

This time, he wrapped an arm tightly around me. “I need your help,” he said, and even though I was terrified, I reached my trembling hand out and took one of the handle bars. I kept my eyes closed, aware of all the horrors that would occur if the bike crashed, but he saw the road before us and I let myself trust him.

We lifted the break together, and the bike not only regained its speed but careened down the hill faster than ever before. We moved so quickly it was like we had become energy, like we were forced together by the speed of light so much that we became one streak of color down the highway.

It was flight. I felt my breath calm, my heart beat strong, and I realized it was the same as his. I was still aware of the risks, but somehow it didn’t matter as much. I let them go, thrilled at the sensation of movement. I heard the sounds of the city engulf us. The woosh of buildings flying past, of cars stopped at crossroads to let us through, of pedestrians all around that we somehow missed.

I opened my eyes to find the city far more dense, more all-consuming than I had imagined at the top. With the close quarters it was far more likely we’d hit something, but our bike continued at its impossible speed and we moved through it all as if on the good fortune of wind. We had made it to the city, but we realized together the end was still far off, over the horizon. It would be a swift, dangerous ride ahead of us.

And nothing in the world could make us want to stop.

Consequels ~ Legit or no?

I had to wake up to share this story with you…

So I had this dream that I was standing in the ticket line for a movie I wanted to see. In my hand, there was a pair of pink tickets. When I got to the counter, I slapped the tickets down and said to the ticket guy, “I want to see this movie.”

He looked at me oddly and said, “You’ve already got the tickets. Go see the movie.”

I shook my head, tapped the tickets and then gestured to the woman next to me. “I want to see the real movie. I need the blue tickets, not the pink tickets.” The blue tickets were more expensive, but I knew that the blue ticket let me see the REAL movie.

“Oh,” he shrugged, “Naw, man, it’s the same movie, the blue ticket is just a consequel.”

“Consequel?” it sounded like ‘consequence’ and ‘sequel’ at the same time.

“Yeah. Consequel. You know, the same movie, only the screen is bigger, so consequently the movie is better.”

“Oooh!” IMAX versus regular. “Yeah.” I frowned and tapped the tickets again. “I want the consequel.”

“Oh, well, you should’ve just said so.” And he gave me the blue tickets…

So, that wasn’t ALL of the dream, but that was the important bit. Because now I’m going to pose to you the age-old question, only this time applied to the move-going experience:

Does size really matter?

What is your biggest most terrifying nightmare?

My terrifying nightmares all have the same theme- being hunted.

I hear it’s really common for children to have nightmares about being hunted, and that was certainly the case for me. I would be hunted by any number of things, people, dogs, lions, but more than anything else, I was hunted by dinosaurs.

God I hate dinosaurs…

Primarily velociraptors. Velociraptors are my greatest fear. Seriously, I cannot look at an image of a dinosaur, velociraptor especially, and not feel my heartrate go up and my eyes get wide. It’s terrible. Thankfully, velociraptors are extinct, so there’s no worry about meeting a real one. (yet.)

In my dreams I’d be hunted by these creatures throughout my childhood neighborhood. More often than not I would hide in a ditch and hold really still and they’d pass on the road without seeing me (they sense movement.) But occasionally, one would catch me. In which case I would jerk awake gasping or screaming, depending on how painful the capture was.

To this day, I still have hunting dreams, but not with dinosaurs (as much.) My dreams have matured over the years and now I end up getting hunted by shadows, vampires, anonymous evil secret agents, monsters of varying horrific degrees, people that I should know but don’t (because they aren’t real,) and other such amorphous figures of stress.

I think it’s because of the frequency of these dreams when I was younger that today I have such great control over my dreaming. Now days when I feel a hunting dream coming on, I have an arsenal of weapons to use against it. Sometimes I simply stop the dream. Freeze time and walk around the horrors, go through a white door (the same white door every time) and move into the next dream. Other times when I’m feeling angry at being hunted, I’ll grab my trusty dream-crowbar and defend myself. Or if I’m feral, I’ll just take down the horrors with my bare hands (and teeth, man. Show no mercy.) Usually after I’ve given my stresses the good ol’ one-two, I feel better when waking up.

Did you ever have any special powers in your dreams?

Of course. All the time. How fun would dreaming be if you couldn’t give yourself special powers?

I’ve had them all. Flying to invisibility to transformation. All of the stock powers, really. But what’s really interesting is when I discover a power or become something completely different without trying. Then it really does feel like a discovery, and it really feels real.

The most significant special power I ever discovered in a dream was… it was like… transcending physical form.

I was having a really stressful dream where I was being hunted by wolves, and I decided to leave that one and run really far into the distance until I went over the hills. The wolves wouldn’t be able to get me here because the hills divided two different dreams.

This hill dream was really nice. The sky was blue with some clouds. The grass was extremely green and spongy. I remember the smell of grass after a spring rain. And on this hill there were grazing rams that had these horns bigger than a monster truck wheel. They were big animals.

I walked up to one, and he charged me. But I wasn’t afraid of it, I wanted it to charge at me because when it hit me, I was rocketed into the air.

I shot up up up into the sky at amazing speeds. It wasn’t flying, it was just a line of force that I had no control over. Power that sent me in a direction without mercy for my wishes, and it was liberating. I kept my eyes on the clouds above me, and I saw that there were people looking down at me with their hands held out.

I reached my hand out, and as I did so I felt my body disolve. Or disappear. Or become unnecessary. I can’t quite figure the best way to describe it except to say I became a scribble. Everything that was me became this buzzing ball of energy, a streak of shifting color, consciousness in its freest form. And I knew if I could get past those clouds and touch their hands, I could stay like this forever and travel the universe at will.

My hand almost reached them. With only a couple feet of distance, I felt myself slow, and my physical form started to return. I’d reached the highest point of my journey and now earth’s gravity was pulling me back down. I was distressed that I couldn’t get any closer, but felt like it was well worth coming all this way to at least have a taste of this form. The people in the clouds smiled and waved at me. The brief moment of freedom disappeared, and I slammed back into my body and woke up.

It felt great. And it’s the one dream I would die to have again but for the life of me I can’t seem to get it right. I’ve had similar dreams, but none quite so vivid as that one.

Do you usually have more dreams in one night? How often do you remember them?

I usually have two or three dreams a night that I remember when I wake up. I guess you could say I’m a prolific dreamer. Sometimes I have multiple dreams because I decide that I don’t like the one I’m in, so I go someplace else. Other times I kinda wake up in the middle of the night and then fall back asleep, in which case I have an entire new dream.

Remembering my dreams is the norm for me. Actually, I get disoriented in the morning if I wake up and can’t recall a dream. It’s like dreaming is what I do while I sleep, so if I don’t dream then I feel like I’ve done some sort of weird time-warp or something (not RHPS time-warp, you goofs.)

Last night was one such night. Actually, let me rephrase. Last night’s dream was so unusually bland that when I woke up I couldn’t tell if I was remembering something that actually happened or if I’d dreamed it all up. I had a dream that I found my roommate’s lost wallet and gave it back to her. I had to confirm with her that this was not the case.

Describe a dream that you had in the previous week.

I had a dream that I was in a witches school, but it wasn’t like Harry Potter. Our witch school was out in the middle of a craggly woods, and we only had one large building in which we learned about magic.

I remember flying around on a broom stick. And there was a dark ball of energy that would form in different places and I tried to zip around and catch it in a jar. It was like a kid’s game, and there were some other witches there too who were trying to catch it as well.

Part way through the game I was at the top of the trees, and I decided to get off my broomstick and hang out on the highest branches. I looked over an ocean of waving green, and wondered what was on the other side of the mountains.

What would be a perfect dream to have tonight? Go as much into detail as you can, describing it.

Oooh the perfect dream?

I think the perfect dream would be a vist to the past. I’d like to have a DnD Friday night with all of my college friends again. Every Friday we’d meet over at JP’s house and gather around the dining room table and play DnD for hours. So much laughter, so much pizza, so many dice…

I don’t really see a need to go into detail about it though. Wouldn’t want to bore you with that, hahaha.

Secret Harmonic Motion

A weird collection of ideas from a series of surreal dreams I had.

Have you ever had the same dream twice? If so, describe it.

I have SO many dreams multiple times, and sometimes it’s on purpose and sometimes it’s in the same night.

Sometimes when I’m dreaming, I remember that there’s a dream that I wanted to have again, so I dream it up. I remember it, but more vividly than any memory (at least, that’s how my dreams are to me. Dreams feel like real life to me, whereas memories feel like floating ideas in the darkness of my skull.) Other times I’ll have a really cool dream and want to repeat it once or twice more so that I remember it better when I wake up.

And then, occasionally, a dream simply reoccurs.

Since I have so many, I’ll just tell you the very first reoccurring dream I ever had. I don’t know what it is about this dream that I enjoy so much. Perhaps it’s a bit of nostalgia, perhaps it’s the first time I actually started to learn how to control my dreams. Either way, I remember large portions of it like it was recent.

I was in my childhood home, which means this is still back in the days of elementary school. Remembering the people who were in this dream, I think it places me about about eight years old.

Anyway, so in my dream, it was my birthday, and I was having a slumber party. Several of my classmates attended the party, among them one girl who I didn’t recognize but apparently was best friends with. She was a little Asian girl- and I didn’t have any Asian friends at the time- but in my dream we were closer friends than anyone else. I don’t remember her name, and frankly I don’t think this dream-girl had one.

For some reason, we all decided we were going to sleep in the dining room. We set up a little fortress (a sheet over the dining room table) and we all hunkered down and giggled together. My dream-best friend and I weren’t in the fort, though. We sat right outside of it next to the sliding glass door that went out onto the porch where the pool was.

When I looked over at the pool, an alien space craft crashed through the porch-screen and landed over the pool, with three skinny metal legs on the ledges to keep it above the water. The door slid open and a long ramp unrolled, and down the ramp came these two large green-headed aliens with sharp teeth.

All the girls and I stared in horror at the aliens as they approached the sliding glass door. They stopped on the other side of the glass, looked directly at me, and said “One of us is among you. We’ve come to take our child home.”

All of my friends panicked that one of us was an alien. We looked at each other suspiciously. I asked the aliens “How do we know who it is?”
“Look at your shadows.”

And we all looked at our shadows. Our shadows appeared normal, except for my dream-best friend who had a jumbled shadow, full of angles and little creatures that moved around even though she was holding still. All the other girls screamed in fright and told my best friend to leave, but I didn’t want her to leave even though she was an alien.

The alien parents held out their hand and said “It’s time to come home.” And my best friend walked out the sliding door and got in the space craft.
At which point the dream always turns into something else altogether.
Sometimes, when I have this dream, there is one difference. Instead of my best friend being the alien, it turns out that I am the alien with the creepy shadow, and so I have to leave. But everything else remains the same.