Thoughts, nightmares, and dreams

The poem I put up the other day got me to thinking about nightmares: I seem to have a mild fascination with them. When I decided to write a poem, nightmares came to my mind first, and when I thumb throught the latest D&D book, nightmare-related material is one of the things that gets me drooling fastest. Nightmare-related thoughts come to me in other ways too, and with a noticeable (though not alarming) frequency. Is this just me or is it just the nature of the mind to dwell on its stranger, darker creations? I know I've had a wide variety of dreams, ranging from the frightening to the disturbing to the downright strange (such as the one where I was an island-hopping 166-year-old Jean Valjean), but then again, who hasn't? Something else I have noticed is that when I need some ideas for new D&D monsters, I get the most when I'm just about to fall asleep. But enough of that. Back to the nightmare ruminations.

Kinda hard to think about nightmares when Steve Martin is playing the banjo in the other room.

While I'm thinking I'll share my three most memorable dreams.

1. This wasn't a nightmare per se; it was extremely odd rather than scary. I had this dream over the summer, and I have a feeling it was partially inspired by one of Penguin's shirts. It started with a tour of mansions scattered around a sunny suburban neighborhood. From there the dream moved to a pair of guys on a truck driving on the freeway out onto the flats. The flats quickly became an ash-covered wasteland beneath an overcast sky. When I looked back, the men on the truck were now being pursued by a river of blood. The front of the river extended forth stringy tendrils, a bit like hair, but still made of blood, and started pulling itself onto the back of the truck and towards the man in back. It was about this point that he statred going insane from the fear (I was still just an observer). Suddenly the truck stopped and the view pulled back so I could see why. The wasteland and sky were filled with billions and billions of penguins. Think The Birds. One group of flying penguins formed itself into the word, "Sigh." The last thing I saw before I woke up was one penguin lining its beak up with the back of one man's head like a pick.

2. This one I had two or three Decembers ago. It involved drow. For those of you not familiar with D&D, a drow is an evil subterranean elf. The drow were torturing me. The most vivid part of that dream is an image of fire filling my field of vision and a voice saying, "Flesh melting nicely?" Eventually I was sacrificed and resurrected. I then woke up and spent a while lying in bed traumatized.

3. This dream didn't scare me, but in hindsight it was very disturbing. In the dream I had gained great powers of telekinesis. Several dozen to a hundred students from my school came walking over a hill, and I used my telekinesis to kill them all by tossing them about like groups of rag dolls, except for one guy in my grade, whom I strangled for a while and then punched in the gut but did not kill.

I also once had a zombie nightmare after watching Amadeus. I can't possibly explain that.

So why is my mind so ready to jump to nightmares? Am I just sick? Perhaps it is that I am interested in the supernatural (an interest lending itself well to Dungeons and Dragons), and nightmares and other dreams are as close as one can come to that in real life? I and my drama teacher have noticed that some of my top books, movies, and such are on the darker side of their genres.

On a lighter note, I have decided to submit my nightmare poem to the current creative writing contest at school. At best, I win twenty-five dollars and might see my work published in the school literature magazine. At worst...there's that much less paper left in the printer. Okay, at absolute worst I get sent to a counselor, but something tells me that won't happen.

Yawn...time to go to sleep now. Who knows? Maybe I'll have some more creepy dreams to share tomorrow. Good night(mare).