A Dream of Crows

I dreamt of crows last night, millions of them swirling like black blades in an apocalyptic sky full of flames and clouds. I was a teenager walking with two friends along a highway where cars lay wrecked to either side. The cries of the crows were deafening, and occasionally a dead bird smashed like a kamikaze into the asphalt near us. 

We reached a temporary refuge, the penthouse apartment of one of my friends. She was rich. One friend went to a chair where she huddled in confusion and fear. I sat on the couch with the rich girl. Cell phones worked. She got a call. I heard the speaker through the phone. The “signal” was given.

The girl didn’t know I’d overheard. She made an excuse and left the room. I knew she was going downstairs to be picked up by someone, and that she’d be taken with other rich people to escape the coming destruction. I walked over to my second friend, to comfort her.

The rich girl returned. She said she couldn’t leave us, that she wanted us to come with her. We refused, knowing that even if she wanted us along, we’d never be allowed, and that we'd certainly be killed to keep the secret.

Better to chance the dangers of the apocalypse then to be led to certain death. 

Free Creativity Seminar

If you’re going to be anywhere near Slidell, Louisiana this Saturday, I’m going to be giving a presentation on creativity that is free and open to the public. The topic is “Dreams and Creativity: How to Enhance Your Art through Dreaming.” The presentation will be hosted by the Artists Galleries de Juneau, located at 2143 First St. in Slidell. That’s Saturday, July 11th from 1:00 to 3:00 pm.

The talk will cover the physical characteristics of dreaming, ways to improve dream recall, and how to harness your dreams to create art. There will be a question and answer period after, and I’ll have copies of my book, Write With Fire:Thoughts on the Craft of Writing, available for sale. Below is one little piece of the talk, about the care and feeding of dreams.

 Despite what many people believe, there’s no real mystery about where dream imagery comes from. It comes from your own mind, and it reflects the kind of things you put in that mind, the kind of things you think about, and feel about. Dreams come  from your fears, your hopes, and your obsessions.

If you spend most of your time dealing with the reality of jobs, family, politics, and paying the bills, then that’s where your dream content comes from. And such mundane dreams, which make up most of what any person dreams about, are not well remembered. It’s the weird and the strange that we remember.

A lot of art is about seeing the world in some new way, some unusual way. If you want your dreams to help you with your art, start feeding it some unusual things. Watch TV shows and movies that you don’t usually watch. Read books you don’t usually read. Take some risks.

Dreams also come from things you are emotionally invested in. Read and watch stuff that makes you uncomfortable. Push your own envelope. If all you experience are those things that make you feel safe and protected, then how can you expect your dreams to help you create. Feed your head some weird stuff. That will feed your dreams, and, just maybe, your art.

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A Pink Pig of Power

So here's the most interesting dream I’ve had in a while. I was at an outdoor seminar with fellow psychology faculty members. As we were seated listening to the speaker, I noticed a bunch of long silvery insects flying around near an electric pole. Two crows flew over and landed on the wires. A third dark flyer followed but was much, much larger than the crows. It landed on the side of the pole itself, clinging like a woodpecker. It’s shape was humanoid; the wings were bat-like.

Someone made a joke about a vampire, and most of us got up and went toward the thing for a better look. As we approached, it let go of the pole and flew across a highway to land on the sidewalk on the other side. People quickly gathered around and we pushed through that crowd to look. Here’s where it gets weird.

I saw a small pink pig marching back and forth along the sidewalk on his hind legs with his bat-wings spread out behind him. He was about beagle-sized and was pontificating in English. “Yes,” he said, “this is the end for the human race. Your time on earth is done.” I remember thinking,“WTF,” but only about the threats the pig was making, not about the existence of the winged pig himself. About that time the police showed up and surrounded the pig. They began to lead him somewhere and he went willing along, still spouting his statements about the end of the human race.

The next scene switched. I was no longer me but was seeing through the eyes of a doctor newly assigned to observe the winged pig. The doctor went through a number of institutional type metal doors into a basement where he found the pig living in a large barred cage. There was a big window on one side and the pig was looking out at a playground where children were playing. The doctor thought he was unobserved by the pig-creature, but suddenly the creature turned and made eye contact, then pointed toward the playground as if he wanted to be allowed out there.

The doctor gave no acknowledgement of the pig’s behavior, but started to move further away from the cage. There is a janitor there who is mopping the floor. As the doctor glances toward the janitor, the man looks up and makes eye contact. The pig creature is looking at them both and suddenly the janitor’s eyes flicker and turn dead white. He smiles, and most of his teeth are missing.

The doctor stumbles backward in shock, then turns to leave the room. Another janitor is just coming through the door and as he looks at the doctor, he blinks and his eyes turn dead white as well. Afraid now, the doctor pushes past the man into the hallway outside. He starts along it, moving swiftly. A woman with a handkerchief over her hair comes out of another door and her eyes are the same as the men.

Realizing that something seems to be infecting the others who’ve been around the pig creature, the doctor starts hurrying through the corridors to get help. More and more people begin to pour into the corridor, though, all with the same eyes, and all moving slowly and steadily toward the exit. They make no threat against the doctor but in moments he is almost completely swallowed up in the mass of people. The dream ends with him crying out desperately, “Help me. Someone help me.”  

The first part of the dream, where we first meet the winged pig, was interesting and, in retrospect, hilariously funny as he marched back and forth on his short stubby legs pontificating about the end of the human race. But the ending, with the people being infected with something and that infection spreading rapidly, was creepy as all get out.

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Going to Arkansas, and Other Cool Things

I’m leaving tomorrow to go visit my mom in Arkansas. I’ll be gone until at least Friday and most likely won’t be posting or visiting blogs during that time. I’ll be staying at my mom’s and they don’t have internet. And it’s not like there are a lot of wi-fi hot spots in small town Charleston, Arkansas. I may check in at the library on occasion to get email. But, I only see my family about once a year so I want to spend every moment I can with them. I’m sure you’ll all survive for a week without commentary from me. I’ll catch up next weekend. After that, though, school will be starting again and I’ll have to make some adjustments in posting.

In the meantime, I got a couple bits of good news. My poem, “Blue Soul,” has appeared in Dreams and Nightmares #80. I’m in the company of some very fine poets, including Gary William Crawford, Ann K. Schwader, Bruce Boston, Deborah P. Koladji, and our own Greg Schwartz.

Also, William Jones has accepted my story, “The Vivarium,” for his anthology Tales out of Miskatonic University. I did the Psychology Department story. I’ll post more about that in the future, of course.

I'll be visiting blogs today and responding to comments. After that, see you in a week.

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Future Earth

Last night I visited a future Morocco. A friend and I, wearing dusters and face wraps against the wind and sand, stood in a bazaar while movement foamed around us. There had been a war. Somehow I knew this. A war against non-human forces that had nearly wiped out the human race. My friend and I had fought in it.

The human population was just starting to bounce back. Conditions for survival were harsh. I saw a family waiting to board a white hovercraft. Mother, father, two children. They were escaping north to safer lands. The father held a boy child of maybe two while a daughter of eight or so stood beside them.

There was no ladder into the hovercraft. The mother and father climbed over the side with the boy but the daughter could not reach high enough. She cried out, holding up her hands, but neither her father nor mother helped her, though they had tears in their eyes. I understood they were leaving her behind, that they felt they had to make a choice to save one of their children and the boy was more important to them than the girl.

The hovercraft began to move. The girl ran beside it, the swirling sand spraying her, making her blink and stumble. I couldn’t stand it. To one side of us two traders were bargaining with a merchant at a stall, their mounts tethered beside them. Those mounts were dragonflies the size of horses.

I ran to one of the giant insects, yanked its reins free and leaped onto its back. Together we tore upward into the brazen air, the creature’s wings humming, then swung back and down and the dragonfly scooped up the fallen girl in its front legs. We caught the hovercraft only a short distance away and deposited the girl on board. She ran to her mother, who hugged her desperately.

I leaped off the dragonfly into the craft, saw that other families were huddled in the bottom of the ship. I knew that some of them had also left loved ones behind. I shouted at them. “They’re human beings. You can’t leave them. They’re human!”

A young mother burst into tears. I awoke.

Flash Present Day

Yesterday I posted some rejections from my past. Today I have current news. Dreams and Nightmares accepted a poem from me called "Blue Soul." D and N is one of the premiere poetry magazines in the speculative poetry world and I've been hoping to sell them something. David C. Kopaska-Merkel is the editor there and I have great respect for his work.

On the other hand, I had a story rejected by Space and Time. It was a nice rejection, though. I quote: "Your piece came up through the editorial ranks and made the "final" grouping under consideration, but alas, we've decided to pass on it. Good luck with the story elsewhere, and keep writing!"

This was for a tale called "Love in the Time of Cybersex," which I originally wrote for an anthology at the request of the editor. It was accepted for that anthology, but they ended up unable to get funding for it and the story reverted back to me. I've tried it at most of the big SF markets now without luck so will have to send it to some smaller markets. I think the problem is that it has too much romance/sex in it for the primary SF audience. The anthology was going to be called "Erotic Women."

This is one of the things you can face in a writing career. You get an opportunity and write a piece to match that opportunity. But if that situation doesn't pan out the story has to either be reslanted or completely revised. In this case, the romantic elements are so much a part of the story that rewriting it just doesn't make sense so I'll keep sending it out until I find a market that wants it.

At least with fiction I will probably eventually sell the piece. I once spent an entire month writing four articles for a non-fiction book on Star Trek. The book never materialized and only one of the four pieces ever sold. The other three were so specific to that book that there was no other market for them, and they've all long since become outdated. So figure three weeks of writing time wasted.
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