In university, when I proposed a series of work illustrating dreams that I'd had, my professor shot me down; he reminded me that "no one is interested in reading about other people's dreams". I've heard that opinion more than once; someone likened the experience of listening to the dreams of others to flipping through snapshots that you aren't present in (initially mildly interesting and ultimately boring).
I can agree, to some degree; when someone exclaims:
"OH MY GOD, I had the strangest dream! I was shopping with Lance Bass and then he tried on this red shirt and then we were on a beach and then my grade school best friend was somehow there and wow...it was so weird..."
Stories like this are, in my opinion, boring not because the action centers around someone else but because the person relating the story is doing so in a poor fashion. When it comes to story telling, my motto is :
In my opinion, if a dream is told properly, it has as much potential (if not more) to be engaging. A narrative presented by the subconscious is free flowing and organic — there is no creative anxiety, no forced dialogue or counterproductive logic-induced pressure. I view the dream as a perfect self contained story, which when relayed properly, is vibrant, strange and unsettling; the dream is a skeleton to be fleshed out with jarring adjectives and sharp movement.
I'm adamant that dreams can be interesting; I'd like to share my own with you — I'll let you be the judge.
*
I'm a difficult night-time sleeper — my mind wanders and I find fear in every shadow. I've always needed ambient noise to unwind at bedtime and lately I've been sleeping with my television and fan on timers. When I slip away to dreamland, I'm surrounded by sounds and light; when I'm awakened hours later by nightmares, it's to silence and darkness. Within the dreamscape, I embody constant composure and uncharacteristic calm; conscious, I lie still, frozen with unease.
*
She's a monster masquerading as an elderly woman with immaculately curled, pale blonde hair. I see her smile sweetly with her pink lips pulled taught; her eyes are orbs the colour of slate. She's been living next door for years, and now that we're moving, she wants to come explore the house.
Our family is packing; I'm drawing glowing constellations on the rugs (paisley-patterned velvet) with yellow, iridescent paint. She enters the shadowy living room, paces slowly and poses before the bare window. She taps her long, pointed nails on the dark glass as her spectral reflection gleams back at me. She sneers; her teeth are razor blades, finely tapered, pearly daggers.
There's a struggle — she's vicious, despite her bony countenance and thin, veined wrists. There's a box of sharpened pencils on the mahogany table and she aims them at me, one by one: grey, yellow, orange.
Suddenly, she's suicidal, dragging me towards her body and grinning madly as she beckons for me to impale her with one of the sticks. I strike; blood wells up from a tiny hole in her skeletal shoulder. She sighs contentedly, and reclines onto the floor. In the dim moonlight, I stab her in the chest, struggling to push the pencil through a fountain of red and into the stiff muscle of her heart.
Eyes closed, she's wriggling her head side to side like a puppy, searching for a comfortable position in which to die.
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