As some of you know, I’m recovering from a broken right
wrist. I just got out of the cast and into a brace plus intensive physical
therapy, which has caused a great deal of pain, and in order to sleep at night,
I’m taking heavy-duty pain medicine as I was during the early weeks after the
initial breaking of two bones.
This means weird dreams. That phrase seems redundant. Dreams
are, by nature, non-rational, of course. But these drugged dreams are something
else. Much more vivid and bizarre. The dead walk and talk again in my dreams
right now. My children, the youngest of whom is about to turn thirty, are babes
in arms and toddlers again in these dreams, even as I’m still a child myself, a
sibling to my own kids. Every morning I wake in wonder at the strange,
technicolor movies I’ve just experienced.
Each morning I sit with my cup of tea and record another outlandish
dream—a house suddenly filled with feral cats and I can’t figure out how
they’re getting in or how to keep them out, a strange conference at an unknown
university where I’m responsible for one of the programs when hundreds of
ninjas attack, a ballroom dancing scene where I’m Ginger Rogers in chiffon and
stilettos and only my unknown partner’s hand keeps me from floating off to join
all the other people living on big multicolored clouds.
I’m a writer, so you’d think some of these dreams would
spark stories or books. I have had the germs of stories and books come to me in
my dreams before, but not in medicated dreams like these. I know from sad
experience that none of these will offer me anything more than a moment’s
entertainment and wonder. I suppose that, if I wrote literary short fiction in
the surreal school of writing, I might find them useful, but for someone who writes
mystery novels and thrillers that must make sense to the average reader, these
dreams are a waste of my unconscious’s creative skills.
What they do for me as a writer, however, is remind me that
I have at my disposal an incredibly creative partner in that very unconscious.
I simply have to find ways to guide its creativity and to ground it in the
details of reality. That inventive part of my mind works constantly coming up
with all kinds of stories, good, bad, bizarre, and humdrum. It’s up to me to
harness and channel all that imaginative energy. Still, it would be nice if it
could just toss up a nice, usable, Academy-Award-worthy story now and then.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s time for my nightly excursion
into the world of flying cars, talking dogs, and Nazi storm troopers chasing me
at a writers conference, plus other exciting adventures.
Linda,
ReplyDeleteHope your road to recovery speeds up. Maybe your muse is tired of mysteries and thrillers and wants to walk on the wild side. I suggest using a pseudonym if you go all Tom Robbins on us.
~ Jim
I hope your wrist heals quickly, Linda. I don't know how you do it all. Having pharmaceutical dreams must be the roach in your muffin. Dreaming up plots or characters from my dreams has never happened to me. Plots are linear, but they move in a circle and converge on the last word. Dreams warn, but don't tell a story. I usually don't remember them so I can't harness them as part of the creative process, which is fine. Plotting to me is a deliberate process.
ReplyDeleteSounds like the dreams of a woman who is keeping a million projects going and doing it with style - I like the way your subconscious used the Ginger Rogers analogy ("She did everything Fred did, only backwards and in high heels.")
ReplyDeleteSo much for dream analysis…I'll just wish you a peaceful night's sleep!
From my cancer medications I've had wild dreams as well as visual hallucinations and delusional thinking while awake. I thought it was interesting at first, but It became awful.
ReplyDeleteCrazy dreaming through chemistry?
ReplyDeleteI've never dreamed a useful one for writing, but I have had some that are whoppers as entertaining stories. I don't even have drugs as an excuse!
Linda, I found your blog fascinating. I often have the strangest dreams where I am someone I don't know, and I don't know any of the people in that dream, either. I've been a teenage boy, an old man, a middle-age woman - I'm much older - with a teen-age son and his friend, who were up to something, but I wasn't sure what. I also dream in color. I did write a poem from one of those dreams once, but mostly if I don't go over the dream as soon as I wake up, I forget the details and it fades away.
ReplyDeleteJim, if I write a psychedelic novel, I'll definitely use a pseudonym.
ReplyDeleteElaine, I have had dreams present me with the nugget of a short story or book on rare occasions, but never these medicine-induced wild dreams.
Shari, I guess you could hang out a shingle for dream analysis. ;-)
ReplyDeleteWarren, my cancer meds make my joints extra painful (which with lupus is really saying something), make me weak and full of overwhelming fatigue, make me irritable (I constantly have to bite my tongue to keep from sniping at Ben, who is the best man alive), and rob my bones of calcium severely, but I'm thankful that they haven't had any psychological effects like yours. I can imagine how dreadful that would be.
Ramona, I've occasionally had dreams helpful to writing, but not these chemical dreams.
ReplyDeleteGloria, it sounds as if you are living a rich alternative life at night in your dreams.
Ursula Le Guin has a marvelous book about dreaming with real power called The Lathe of Heaven. I believe they made a movie out of it, but it was not as good as the book.
Amazing what our subconscious minds will come up with.
ReplyDeleteAnd I think you're right--if we will give our subconscious room and trust it, it comes up with all kinds of tidbits for writing.
If I have a particularly thorny issue in a story, I will try to think about it as I fall asleep. Since generally I'm asleep within minutes of my head hitting the pillow, other thoughts don't have a chance to sneak in. Sometimes it works. And sometimes it lets me know that the direction I thought I was going in is all wrong.
Hope your recovery brings you peace and relief.
Oh, Linda, I hope you get better soon AND get that Academy Award-winning story you want:)
ReplyDeleteYes, KM, I, too, like to turn over a story problem in my head right before sleep. It's a way of assigning my unconscious to work on it. And it works.
ReplyDeleteSarah, from your mouth to God's ears!
I wish you a quick recovery so you can stop the medication and the psychedelic dreams, Linda!
ReplyDeleteKara, from your mouth to God's ear also!
ReplyDeleteLinda, thank you for writing this post today. Not only have you given me many images to contemplate, but reading the other comments has done the same. I particularly like what E.B. says about plotting.
ReplyDeleteWhen I take prednisone, it seems to speed up my writing, but I'm not always able to decipher the product. Once I ended a passage with a reference to a character I had never heard of before.
I wish you excellent health and the Academy award winner. I look forward to basking in your glory!
Yes, Paula, prednisone always makes me think I can do anything, and I almost can while I'm on it, but I've learned that I pay for it big time when the steroids are gone.
ReplyDeleteLinda, I hope you are fully recovered from the broken wrist. I broke mine a few years ago and discovered the therapy was more painful than the break.
ReplyDeleteYour dreams sound richly imaginative. Mine tend to fade soon after my feet touch the ground.
Linda, continued healing thoughts to you! I'm not on meds, but have had some crazy wicked dreams during our enforced isolation.
ReplyDelete