In Dreams
Dreamscape by Maria Jose Guidet
You're having a conversation with someone. You don't see their face because they're standing just outside of your peripheral vision, but you're fairly certain you know who they are. They might be your mom, dad, sibling, or best friend. Either way, you aren't looking at them directly, but you know who you're talking to in the moment. You can feel it in the sense of familiarity you have with them. The topic of conversation seems odd. You're pretty sure you're talking about what kind of sandwhich to make for lunch, but it feels like something heavier and more imposing. Maybe it's the red sky outside your kitchen window. Maybe it's the lurking shadows and chorus of bootsteps thundering outside the front door. You go to the refridgerator to grab the lunchmeat and mustard. The mustard bottle is empty. You haven't even touched it yet to know for sure, but you know it's empty. It always is. You step through the open refridgerator into a long, narrow closet lined with assorted hanging clothes. Nothing really stands out other than the fact that none of it really looks familiar. You feel a need to push through to the other side in spite of all of these clothes dragging against you and slowing your progress. You finally make your way out of the forest of clothing and into an aisle of a major retail store - the drab white tiles, the sales racks stretching up toward the towering ceiling, the soul-sucking flourescent lights that seem just a little bit too pale. Suddenly you realize that the aisles don't end the way they should. They go on and on without the usual breaks in between. You run to find the end, but you only find a closed corner. You make a left turn and find that the maze contiues on without any sign of an exit. You're not sure why you know it's a maze, but you reccognize that is exactly what this place is. Even worse, the PA system is asking you to meet your mom at the customer service desk. You didn't realize you were lost before. This is disturbing to you. Now you're lost in a retail maze AND embarassed because everybody in the store knows it now too.
Dreams are funny things.
OK. Let me rephrase that. Dreams are ODD things. Suggesting they are funny downplays the occurence of nightmares that leave you sitting up in bed and flipping on the lights to check for dangers under the bed and in the closet.
Funny, odd, or downright terrifying, dreams are fascinating regardless. They have provided inspiration for some of our greatest (and arguably worst) creative endeavors. Joss Whedon used one of his own nightmares in an award winning episode of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" titled "Hush." (The scene where The Gentlemen float into the college guy's bedroom to cut out his heart? That's the one.) Joss and his writing team used dreams repeatedly and effectively throughout the entire Buffy series in a variety of ways and for numerous reasons. Stephanie Meyers reportedly developed her entire Twilight series because of a dream she had about a conversation a guy and a girl were having in a forest. Wes Craven's "Nightmare on Elm Street" series was developed entirely from the extensive lore of "What happens if you die in a dream?" Multiple episodes of "Charmed" also explored the impact and psychology of dreams and dreaming. Another notorious dream reference in television history *spoiler* was the revelation that a year long "Bobby Ewing is dead" arc in "Dallas" was all just the dream of his wife Pamela. (The viewer response of which was, let's say, "Mixed.")
Dreams are powerful things. Many are simply "garbage dump" dreams where our brains work to process and deal with the random events and stimuli we experience during the day. Other dreams are more impactful. They serve as mental exercises where we explore facets of our personalities, lives, desires, hopes, and fears in ways that we can't in our waking lives. Some dreams give us agency over our own power so we can fight against a specific challenge. Other dreams strip us of our strengths and defenses so that we have no choice but to face the things that we try so hard to avoid in our waking moments. Some dreams serve to warn us of dangers and threats that we miss or ignore when we're awake. Sometimes, dreams can end up being downright prophetic in nature, sparking intense experiences of deja vu possibly days, weeks, even months later on down the line. (I call these my "mile marker" experiences. They help me feel like I'm on the right track in life, especially when everything else feels like it's careening out of control or stagnating horribly.)
Dreams are also powerful vehicles for character development and storytelling. They help to clue us into what the character is dealing with (or failing to deal with properly). They give us a window into what the person's hopes and fears are. They can also give us clues as to a character's current mental state and perspective. In terms of storytelling, the prophetic dream slant can provide a powerful source of foreshadowing or insight into parts of a story that our main characters would have no other reason to know about. Depending on your story, a dream could become the entire narrative itself or perhaps the reason the main story begins.
Now you may be asking yourself, "Why is Jonesy so wired up about dreams today?"
The answer is, "You'll see. Muahahaha!"
OK, the real answer is, dreams will play a big part in Book 3. I'm toying with and integrating a lot of these concepts into the current narrative. For those of you who read "Ash to Ashes," you'll know that this is nothing new for me. Ashton had several dream sequences that were integral to his storyline and development. In Book 3, though, I'm taking this to a whole different level that I feel is both fun and intriguing. It also allows me an opportunity to introduce some "Easter eggs" and notions that I think readers of the previous books will really enjoy. (I hope.)
Whatever dreams you have, be they in black and white or vivid technicolor, I hope they offer you the insight and guidance you need right now. At the very least, I hope they offer an interesting break from your day-to-day grind. Fly high my daring dreamers! Until next time!
