To Sleep, Perchance to Scream

by Mary

Years ago, a friend who lived in the Middle East at the time mentioned she had met another expat who worked for the BBC. who observed they were not getting as many submissions as they would like for the Short Story spot on the World Service.

Well, of course I had to have a go at it! Thus was born Aunt Ba's Story, partly inspired by a dream and Arthur Hughes' painting Home From Sea. It was my first sale.

Lately we have been watching supernatural films created in the spirit of the season (no pun intended) and reckon the actor who provides that shadowy outline so often seen crossing quickly just in front of the camera and not noticed by anyone else must make a goodly salary, given all the work he has done. In passing, let me mention I have noticed so far at least the silhouette has always been male. Perhaps it is him or his brother I seem to see occasionally when waking up from dreaming, convinced a dark silhouette is standing nearby. It feels real at the time, even though I gather experts say the phenomenon is caused by the mind trying to make sense of shadows.

But what sense can be made of a serial nightmare that has been a night-time visitor to me over many months?

It began when an already deceased family member was murdered and buried in a cupboard in a house in which the family once lived in the old country. Unlikely though it sounds, every now and then I dream a bit more of the unfolding story, including a pursuit closing in on the culprit. In the last episode dreamt the story had reached the point where a detective looking around a well-lit room opened the door to the adjoining room, revealed to be the one with the fateful cupboard. Looking over his shoulder, I could see the other room was dark but there was enough light spilling in to show it was littered with broken toys and other rubbish. So I am supposing the unmasking of the culprit is doubtless not far off, at which time the blue-clad long arm of the law will be reach out to grab them.

Unlike the detective, I already know the identify of the dream murderer. It was me.

Skunk Cabbage Dreams

by Eric

Dreams are funny things. Or maybe not. I never wake up laughing. Screaming is another matter. I'm not sure why I never have funny dreams. Is it just me?

Some say humor is based on incongruity. What strikes us as funny is the perception of something incongruous — something that violates our mental patterns and expectations. This theory was set forth by several philosophers including Arthur Schopenhauer, whose favorite joke was purportedly: "What is the angle between a circle and its tangent?" Which kind of makes one wonder if Arthur had any business philosophizing on humor.

Still, tangents and circles aside, were this theory true it would follow that dreams can't be funny. Where could we find incongruity in the dream world where the expectations of our waking lives don't apply and we accept the irrational as a matter of course?

Well, I do anyway. While I'm experiencing them, dreams are absolutely real to me. So real that they can spill over into wakefulness, coloring my thoughts during the day. Dreams are like a second, alternative life. I remember being impressed by a science fiction story I read as a child. One night a man dreams he is an alien skunk cabbage on another planet. Soon his friends have the same dream, Yes, as it turns out, humans are actually alien skunk cabbages who were only dreaming of being human. (No, they don't write them like they used to.)

I am leery of describing my dreams for fear people might draw psychological conclusions. (Unflattering ones at that) But as Freud said, "sometimes a dream is just a dream" or was that Jung, or neither?

The first dream I can recall had me perched precariously on the steps of a high porch. The gaps between the steps were wide enough for a four year old like me to fall through. The ground below, so clearly visible through the gaps, lay hundreds of feet below. This was an only slightly exaggerated description of the porch on my parents' second story apartment. Heights have terrified me ever since. I still dream of ladders in the sky with missing rungs, swaying bridges without railings and bizarre, skeletal skyscrapers which must be climbed by eroding staircases open to the clouds.

The only time I don't fear falling is when I fly. Haven't we all dreamt of flying? I don't power my way through the air like Superman or soar like a bird. I levitate. What a wonderful feeling! And as I levitate hither and yon I am thinking how cool it is and how it seems like a dream but-- wow -- it's real! Even asleep I'm a sucker.

My nocturnal imaginings are seldom so pleasant. As a child I had nightmares which I rather miss because they were entertaining as a Saturday matinee. I thrilled to Martian war machines looming over the houses on my street, shuddered at the unseen horror lurking in the shadows of the attic, gasped when I opened my closet door to reveal an endless twilit plain littered with skulls.

These days my dreams mostly lack the tropes of science fiction and horror. They are not frightening, merely muddled and disturbing, populated by people long gone or dead. And I can't tell you how many times I've found myself on the wrong bus, racing through unfamiliar countryside, headed God knows where. The story of my life perhaps?

Now, finally I see gray light through the office blinds. It's time for me to stop typing. I got up in the middle of the night to write this because I couldn't sleep for some reason.