1000 Days

In the past several years I have not had any trouble pulling the obvious parallels from the chaotic events of my dreaming.  The first trick seems to be understanding that it’s a conversation you are having with yourself.  The second is recapitulating the events verbally.

I believe most people ascribe to the hope that dreams are the metaphysical way to get instruction or that they are simply colorful, sometimes entertaining, brain farts with no other meaning.  While I am not sure there is meaning in the deepest sense of the word, I do believe there is information to be had from dreams.  It’s your way of telling yourself things.  Not new things, not unknown things, but things you already know, but again, this time from a different perspective.

That perspective changes or evolves.  Sometimes the approach is blatant, other times obscure, nearly always comical, but rarely mystical.  The changing perspective requires that you talk to yourself again and out loud.  Or if not out loud then at least in your head, but consciously this time.  I find describing the events or actors in non-stereotypical ways to be useful.  You don’t call a clown a clown, you call it a colorfully dressed silly person.  And he’s not jumping on your 3rd grade report card, he’s treating evidence of your early education with disrespect.  When the dream sufficiently blurred you can hunt for silly people and early education to fit with what you know in the concrete world.

The challenge in all this is being able to accept the parts that aren’t so flattering about yourself.  The dreams that reveal you to be timid, vindictive, petty, selfish, venal, or clumsy seem to be the prominent ones.  Maybe that’s just me.  I guess I don’t need as much subconscious back patting since I do that enough consciously.  Uh oh, there’s some nocturnal introspection waiting to happen.

I did not dream of clowns or report cards last night.  I dreamt that I was impersonating others.  That I was trying to pretend I was someone else or that I could be someone else.

After all this explaining and filtering, you have to decide if you subconscious is a liar, an impartial judge, or a goading friend.

It occurred to me that I’d not be able to provide facial expressions for most if not all of my Bringer characters.  Maybe various degrees of open mouthedness, but I don’t think that going to get me much emotion.  This means I’ll need to probably have some stock sets of physical responses to emotions.  That way I can be consistent and not have to invent on the spot.

Gross movements of the head like: tilting, nodding, cocking (how’s that different from tilted?), drooping, dropping, shaking, twisting.  Closed mouth, eyes, averting antennae, maybe pupil dilation?  Tongue placement or movement.

I’ll need to be able to describe the overall bodily appearances for not only the gears but also the other tinkers: zips, windups, clockworks, steamers, etc.  I think the comic book creation book I bought my nephew will help in this regard.  I probably ought o by that for myself.

A brilliant dragonfly lighted on gunwale.  It’s titanium foil wings flicked the morning light in random sparks.

Surely this is another good omen, Johnathan thought.  Finding a leftover bit of spell to propel the small boat through the crisp water being the first.  I will meet my brother today.

He had been searching for Thomas for scores of days.  In that time he had not once brought to mind an image of his brother.  An action, sure.  An event, yes.  Even a spoken word.  But never an image.

Thomas must be a dented scrap by now.  His once gleaming brass face would be a green-brown patina indistinguishable from the forest.  Even his elegantly scrolled etchs lost to erosion.

—

Damn.  That’s alot harder than I thought it would be to do.