dreams — Blog — Ivey Ink

I have chronic insomnia. Every few months, my current sleep medication stops working and my doctor and I have to try something new.

Often, the first few days on a new sleep medication bring interesting and/or epic dreams. I often wake up from these dreams thinking, "wow, what a cool idea for a story." (Usually. Sometimes I have dreams about wild boars and zombie babies, or kids in my library story time getting machine gunned behind a shower curtain. I'm not on either of those medications anymore.)

The problem with stories based on dreams is that dreams don't have to make sense, characters don't have to behave logically, etc. Or there might be an emotional energy that you want to explore, but it's problematic in some way - in a way that, as a writer thinking about publishing logistics, you worry will be hard to translate to the page and/or potentially alienate your audience. Those dreams are hard to adapt.

I also worry about telling people "this story is based on a dream," - are they going to point out that Twilight was, too?

I actually have two stories with the potential to be longer - probably novel length - that are "based" on dreams. When I say "based" on I mean that a single scene, a single emotional moment was presented to me in a dream, and I've built a world and a plot around that scene or moment. One of them is quite good, if I do say so myself. The main reason I haven't sat down to start writing the meat of the story is that I already have three partial novels that have been sitting unfinished in my computer for a decade. I need to make some progress on one of them before I pick up another long-term, large scale project.

The other one... well, it's one of those problematic ones. It's based on an emotional moment I found fascinating, but I'm not sure how well it would translate to a broader audience. But, like I said, I have other projects that need my attention more, so for now that one's on the back burner. Further back that the back burner actually - that one's on the back splash.

I had a rough day yesterday. It actually started the night before:

-I had a bad headache (allergies).

-My back was bothering me (stupid unsupportive slippers).

-I was mentally exhausted from trying to keep up with all the COVID-19 news.

-I had restless dreams.

-My head was still bothering me when I woke up.

-I went to the store and while I was able to get everything we really needed, seeing so many things still out of stock - especially being short on things in the baby aisle - it took a lot of effort to calm myself down and not start just snatching things I didn't really need in a panic.

-I got home to find that a delivery I had been expecting - that I had made plans for the week around and that had already been delayed - was wrong.

And then I kind of said, "screw it." I cracked open a coke and ate a large Reese's egg that I had meant to save for a special occasion and went in search of cute animal videos on Facebook. (Puppies at the aquarium - heck yeah!) In scrolling - intentionally scrolling past serious news stories - I came across a humorous post a friend of mine made about how to prepare for a tornado warning. It was a twelve step list in which every other instruction was "gather up cat." I got a good laugh from it.

A big part of why it made me laugh was because it reminded me of the time when I had been alone at my parents house during a tornado warning and had to gather up our panicking Maltese and our stubborn cat and get them both to shelter. Fortunately, each of them weighed less than twelve pounds and I was able scoop one up on each arm and schlep them to the closet.

Did I mention that part of why I had a bad morning was because a memory came up on Facebook reminding me that today was the day Miso, the aforementioned cat - died? While I hadn't exactly forgotten, I hadn't really thought about the date because the year he died, it was Holy Week. He died on Wednesday. When we buried him, I couldn't help but think of the upcoming Resurrection on Sunday.

And, at some point after that, I had a dream. I dreamed that one morning, three days after Miso had died, that I was standing in the kitchen looking out to the blooming ornamental cherry trees where we had buried him - and there he was, poking his head up out of the ground, shaking the dirt off his ears. In the dream, the neighbors just accepted this - we had a cat who had died and came back after three days and they were all cool with it.

Similarly, long after our little Maltese died, I had a dream that Jason and I were visiting his parents. In the dream, we pulled up in front of their house and Jason's dad was waiting for us. He seemed a little confused as he greeted us and said, "Uh, Lizzy, I found something that I think is yours." He stepped away from the door of the garage, and Murphy came running out. She was covered in dirt, as though she also had been buried and dug her way back out. But it was a happy dream - we were all excited to see her. (The really odd thing about this dream is that I met Jason, and therefore his parents, after Murphy died. This dream may have even been many years later.)

And of course, this week is bringing us very close to the anniversary of Baldur's death. I've been thinking about him a lot lately. But remembering these dreams I also remembered a dream of Jason's from after Baldur died. It was really beautiful - rather than try to reproduce it, I'll link to the blog where I go into detail about it:

https://www.iveyink.com/blog/2019/4/20/death-rebirth-and-rebuilding

Yesterday was a tough day. This week has been a tough week. Things are going to get tougher. But days like today it helps to remember my sweet fuzzies. It also helps to remember that the story I've been working on - that I mention here and here on this blog - is a story of rebuilding.