I must be spending too much time on LitReactor, because last night I had an insane dream about it.
I should probably give some background and note I suffer from a kind of sleep disorder where I dream quite a bit more than average people and I usually remember these dreams quite vividly. Last night's dream was no different, and since it involved LitReactor, I thought you all might get a kick out of it ...
It started in a pitch black room where I could see nothing except for the other people there with me. I knew I was in a LitReactor class, which for some reason transcended the online format and became an in-person debacle. All us students were lined up in a row. And by "students" I mean the workshop folks. R. Moon was cast as a frenchman in a beret, smoking a cigarette. Aud Fontaine was for some reason a young girl with black hair in braided pigtails and a serious goth vibe (similar to Wedenesday Adams). All the others were there too, in varying portrayals that linked back to their profile pictures on here. I remember most of them but not all.
The class was taught by one of the admins and a teacher. They walked behind us and when they tapped our shoulders we were forced to read snippets of our stories aloud. Of course, the genre was horror. As we spoke, our characters came to life and slithered from the page. They brushed past me and tried to grab me, but in the darkness I couldn't see them. Eventually it became too creepy and I awoke screaming. My husband shook me until I stopped and I went back to sleep, only to have the dream pick up right where it left off.
The darkness began to lift, and we found ourselves in an old fashioned gym locker room, where the wooden lockers were arranged in rows like the stacks of a library. As we read this time, our characters manifested as glowing green forms that shot down the rows of lockers toward me. Right before they attacked I'd again awake screaming, and as soon as I went back to sleep I'd be right back in the room again.
When I awoke screaming for the last time, my husband shook me and forced me to roll over. I asked him how many times I'd awoken like that, and he said only the once. Apparently every time I'd awoken and then gone back to sleep had been part of the dream. I've had cyclical nightmares like this before (they are extremely common with me, and usually include a sense of paralysis) but I usually become aware that the times I'd woken before the real one were all part of the dream. This is the first time I couldn't tell them apart.
Anyway, I thought it would be something laughable to share on here as a short story for those on this forum to enjoy. Has anyone else had weird writer's dreams before?
Frenchman? Beret? Oh well, least I get to smoke a cigarette.
My sleep cycle is all screwed up, Since Monday I've probably slept about 6-8 hours. Bi-polar. I've been manic for probably the last couple of weeks. I'll do three, four day binges with very little to no sleep, then a day or two of non-stop sleep and that's when I have some wicked dreams. I don't remember them, or if I do it's little snippets. Lately though, I've been finding myself having nightmares. The one night I yelled out and woke myself up. I was scared as hell. I do have recurring dreams, they don't come too often but enough to remember I've had them before. I think I know why I have these two particular dreams, and usually I just remember one little piece and being scared as hell. I have these dreams/nightmares where I'm either in Poltergeist or Paranormal Activity. As I'm thinking about it now I remember standing in the same room where Carol Ann's mom jumped into the otherside, but I don't think it was like I was actually there, but it was a lot more vivid and a lot more real than television. The reason I think I dream about Poltergeist is because as a kid it scared the hell out of. There are parts that still bother me. Something with the paranormal. I find it fasinating, but scary as fuck. I know I've had more than a few in Paranormal Activity. Those fucking movies bother the hell out of me. I've seen the first one, second, and fourth. And there's only like one or two little parts in each movie that bother me, but it fucks up the rest of the movie for me. Anyway, it was like I had the same view as the camera they set up in their room, the first one, but I think I up higher, like on or above the dresser. I remember watching her watching him as he slept. Fuck, that shit give me the chills. I don't know if it was that dream or a different one where I yelled and woke myself up. It's like my subconscious is fucking with me because it knows these two movies bother the hell out of me. Okay, off to watch a comedy, any comedy.
Oh my god, this makes me miss my unlimited workshop time so much. I'm out of the city for Halloween and probably the next day but after that my work schedule lightens up a bit and I am so reviewing everything that I possibly can in hopes I get some crazy dreams like this. Also, Wednesday Addams is actually eerily close to what I looked like ten years ago. Okay, maybe a grunge-y version of Wednesday Addams but still. Spot on dreaming, Anna!
To add on to the list of weird sleep/mental disorders you kids are building up here I've been living with some pretty hardcore depression since like, my Grunge-y Addams days and therefore sometimes I sleep excessively which can lead to some really frickin' vivid/bizarre dreams. I can't think of any writerly dreams but my dreams have definitely sometimes been fodder for stories that I never actually write mainly because I have a tendency to dream about the same one hundred percent fictional places. It doesn't happen often but there have been at least maybe like, a dozen or so times that I've had dreams where the stories are completely different but it's in an identical setting as a dream I'd had years before. There was also one time, the night before I ran away from my dad's house on Thanksgiving some years ago, where I had an extremely realistic and detailed dream about hitchhiking and getting picked up by a guy with bug eyes and a woman with horse teeth and them taking me to a ranch with a barking dog in a fenced off garden and a weird, slightly crooked house with a big creepy plant in the corner of the sun porch. The next day, I ran away from my dad's house and wound up hitchhiking and was picked up by this bug-eyed guy with a wife who had a serious case of horse teeth and they took me to a friend's house (that he'd built himself so it was kinda crooked) and he had this really spastic dog that wouldn't stop barking and jumping around this fenced in garden and there was a gigantic spooky plant with fronds that took up half the sun room. I swear on my life, I'm not making this up. We had lemon meringue pie. It was kinda nice. I was fifteen. So yeah. There's my weird dream story. Sorry it's not about you guys but it's a little funny, yeah?
I'm gonna go watch Insidious now. I yearn for you all tragically. Please don't forget me before I have the chance to catch up on all your stuff!
Your guys' dreams/nightmares sound as weird as mine!
And Aud, we will never forget about you!!!!!
