***COMMON DREAMS***
Ever since I started using my CPAP breathing machine in the
summer of this year, I’ve had a harder time remembering my dreams. That’s
probably because my dreams were either about weird ass competitions I was in or
scenarios that would make good novels but only in the dream and not in the real
world. Those are the only two types of dreams I have difficulty remembering.
While this is normal for people who use a CPAP, there have been nights where my
dreams were as clear as day. I don’t talk about my dreams as often as I used
to. I used to do dream posts all the time on my blog Garrison’s Library, but
what those amounted to was a bunch of boo-hooing that they didn’t involve sex
or having a girlfriend. Hey, I was lonely and didn’t know what to do with my
life, give me a break. Thankfully, I won’t subject you guys to any of that
shallow whining. Tonight’s journal entry will be about common themes in the
dreams I can actually remember. I don’t know what they mean or why they keep
coming up, but I can assure you that it has nothing to do with my deep rooted
desire to have a romantic relationship with a female rock star. Let’s get
started.
- Air
Travel. My parents take a lot of vacations and sometimes I tag along with
them. Some of them involved air travel, such as
- Cats. I’d move either way from an old house or into a new one and both times there were cats I’d have to take care of. Lots of cats. Orange cats, black cats, calicoes, marmalades, tuxedos, lots of goddamn cats. I once had a WSS member named Mark ask why he was more weirded out by me being a crazy cat man than after any reading of my violent short stories. I laugh about it every time I read that comment, because it was intended to be good natured. But now I think maybe he has a point. Hehe!
- Chehalis.
I’ve lived in the small conservative town of
- Concerts. It mattered not who was playing and it mattered even less where they were playing. In my dreamland, I’ve been to a Three Days Grace concert that took place in a college classroom. I’ve been to a Roger Waters concert at a stone-built temple. I’ve been to a Rammstein concert at both a Chinese restaurant and a roller skating rink. I’ve been to a Pantera concert at an abandoned grocery store (they played where the deli used to be). I’ve been to a concert where Skillet opened for Green Day and me and James got kicked out of the venue when Green Day played. I must really love concerts.
- Diaper Shopping. These dreams would involve me waking up at an ungodly hour of the day, walking through dark and dreary weather, and cruising Fred Meyer or Rite Aid looking for a package of adult diapers, which would be used for sexual purposes. The dilemma of these dreams was that I had nowhere to hide the diapers from my family. Well, in the dreams, diaper sex was a great idea, but when I woke up, I realized it wouldn’t happen in a million years.
- Dragon Ball Z. When I’m watching this anime in my dreams, I’m playing a desperate game of catch-up with some new series they put out, usually involving Vegeta getting humiliated or an apocalyptic scenario. Maybe these new DBZ episodes took place in Chehalis. I also play catch-up with new Gundam shows, but those are normally easier to follow than Dragon Ball Z episodes. Should I start watching anime again as a means of curing my boredom? Maybe when I get a better streaming service than my burned out Roku.
- Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune. I would either participate in these games or watch them on TV. Every time I do either, all of the players would fail miserably at both games. It’s kind of like the real world, but it’s more brutal, it’s drawn out forever, and it would take place in the past. During the toss-up rounds in Wheel of Fortune, Vanna White would actually flip the letters on that old-school board and the contestants would still get it wrong. Sometimes they’d even guess numbers and punctuation marks. Jesus Christ, man. One time during an episode of Jeopardy, Rosalind Cash (Dr. Cushing from Tales from the Hood) hosted Final Jeopardy and the category was Prostitutes. Double Jesus Christ, man.
- Libraries. These are some of my favorite dreams, obviously because I’m an author who eye-guzzles literature on a daily basis. I always dream about checking out a shit ton of books, buying a bunch of RPG rule books, or checking out a Robotech book since I also dream about playing catch-up with this book series. Sometimes I would dream about playing D&D or buying action figures and Legos from a library. No nightmare fuel here!
- Pink Floyd the Wall. When if first saw the music video for Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2 in the mid 1990’s, I tried my damnedest to try and avoid looking at the faceless masks ever again. They were creepy and nightmare inducing to the point where I’d even avoid looking at them in my dreams. I eventually got over my fear when I saw Roger Waters in concert in 2000, but in my dreams, I always avoid going to the Pink Floyd section of every record and video store.
- School. Whether it’s middle school, high school, or college, the common themes in these dreams include failing classes, dropping out of classes, finding a seat in class that doesn’t have a bunch of graffiti on it, finding my next class while naked, taking gym classes at a community college, and reading a novel and actually being able to pass the class because of it. A less common theme would be fighting with a bully, to which I would feel angry after waking up. Why am I so obsessed with school? Is this why I write a lot of school-related stories for the WSS?
- VHS Tapes. I’d have dreams about visiting my biological father Michael Temons and while I was at his house I’d dig through his VHS collection. Sometimes they would be episodes of Monsters. Sometimes they would be music videos from VH1. Sometimes they would be cartoons from the 80’s and 90’s. No matter what it was, I’d want those VHS tapes in the worst way. Same thing with his audio tapes. Maybe this is my brain’s way of thanking my dad for giving me an old school state of mind. He did introduce me to The Police, The Moody Blues, and Pink Floyd, after all.
- Videogames. I played a lot of goddamn videogames until I officially retired in 2010 due to getting my ass kicked multiple times by a lava dragon in Final Fantasy III. Maybe these dreams are trying to pull me back in. I’ve played Super Mario games with Phantos aplenty, Final Fight games where I got my ass quickly kicked, Street Fighter games where I threw my opponent off of a high ledge, Mega Man games where I’d get frustrated as hell, Diablo II sequels that were exactly the same as the prequel but more frustrating, and Final Fantasy NES games where I couldn’t figure out what the hell I was doing. I’d also play Final Fantasy-themed RPG’s where I’d be on the verge of fighting the Calcobrena Puppets in some creepy form. I once fought a bunch of baldheaded puppets that sat in rocking chairs, pointed at my characters, and laughed evilly. When it comes to videogames, every time I think I’m out, they pull me back in!
- World Championship Wrestling. The Monday Night Wars between the WWE and WCW were a time in wrestling history where both sides actually cared about improving and nobody had a complacent monopoly. My WCW dreams, however, tell a different story. Sometimes there would be a shitload of championship belts. Sometimes Rey Mysterio would dominate the show. Sometimes the WCW Nitro episodes would take place in a wooden hut. Sometimes Hulk Hogan would come to the ring to a Moody Blues song. Maybe WCW would actually stay in business today if these things really happened. Or it would have folded sooner than 2001, we don’t know.
I’d like to think that I could harvest some decent creative
fuel from these odd dreams. I certainly thought that when I dreamed about Hulk
Hogan battling a crew of squid-like aliens. But the problem with using dreams
as creative fuel is that they don’t amount to solid stories unless you tweak so
much of the original dream that it loses its genuineness. The author has a
decision to make between a good story and staying faithful to the original
inspiration. I’ll always choose to have a good story, which is why the Hulk
Hogan dream never materialized into an actual piece of literature: too many
loose ends and plot holes. This is not to say that dreams are meaningless and
that they should be ignored. There’s a reason I keep having these themes pop up
in my head at night. If only I could tap into them in a way that made sense.
***DEMON AXE, CHAPTER 5***
There is a month-long discrepancy between chapters three and
four of Demon Axe. This is unacceptable to me, especially since National Novel
Writing Month is coming up after Halloween and I want to make the most of it.
Let’s see what I can come up with for chapter five of this WIP novel. The
chapter is going to start off by somebody smashing Daniel Mercer’s windows and
breaking into his house. Raven Triscloud seems to think that she and Daniel are
being followed by Roger Zee’s newly-enslaved minions Johnny Vega and Sonia
Marquez. Daniel and Raven will have to put aside their disagreements if they
want to make it through this night alive.
***DARK FANTASY WARRIORS***
One of the things I’m trying to do with these character
drawings is show them in different poses from what I feel comfortable doing.
Too many of these drawings show the character folding his arms, having his
hands at his sides, or waving his hands in the air. Very rarely does the
character stand at an angle and when he does, it usually ends ridiculously as
seen with the Shawn Henry drawing. That’s the thing about trying new ideas:
sometimes you strike gold and other times you spill fertilizer. I’m hoping to
strike gold with Soa, one of the two Samoan cannibals from the short story
“Chunky Puffs”.
***COLLEGE HUMOR DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***
GOOGLE GUY: Come on in. Don’t worry about me. It’s Jackson
Polluck’s birthday today and I’m covered in paint to celebrate his particular
art style.
USER: Why do farts smell?
GOOGLE GUY: One of the most important painters of all time
and you want to know why farts smell.
-If Google Was a Guy-
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