Dreams (real ones, not the Fleetwood Mac song)
It’s a funny thing. It seems that the more work I do on illustration during the day, the stranger my dreams are.
I once read an article (or a book? where did that come from?) by Stephen King where he says that he has his scary ideas because he taught his imagination to misbehave. I rather feel that way about art sometimes.
When I’m stumped for the next idea, I ask my imagination to just go for a run and see what it comes back with:
A reclining nude? Not enough, go further. A still life? No, go further. A rat? Closer. A rat trapped in a bottle too small for it to have gotten into in the first place on the edge of a cliff? Good work, little imagination! Have a liver treat.
This results in really crazy dreams.
And the worst bit half the time is that I imagine them so vividly that waking up doesn’t fix the problem.
Me, last night, about 3am:
Oh my god oh my god my live spider collection (I don’t have a live spider collection) has gotten out into my bed! I’m in bed with a zillion live spiders!!
Wake up. Throw back the covers and jump out of bed.
Realise I’m FREEZING, because my shirt is soaked in sweat.
Oh my god I can’t find the spiders where have they gone? Are they on me? No, they’re not on me. Was it a dream? I can’t tell. Holy hell I can’t find them! I’m so scared and cold! I can’t get into bed with spiders!
Eventually I was tired enough to take the chance and got back into bed spider or no spider.
I’d like to say this is an unusual event, but it’s really not. I also sleep walk, sleep talk….hell, I have sleep conversation with Seth sometimes.
“Seth, did we bring the ducks in from the pool?”
“We don’t have a pool Amy. Or any ducks. You’re dreaming.”
“No, no, I’m awake (I’m not) but could you take the ducks some umbrellas? It’s raining now and they’ll get wet.”
“Yeah yeah, sure. I’ll do it in a minute. Go back to sleep.”
Or the time he stole my feet..
“You took my feet! Give them back! Give them back!”
“I….what? Your feet? I don’t have your feet.”
“You do! You DO! Give them back I need them! I need them! Your look all funny on my legs!”
“…..I have NO IDEA what you’re talking about. It’s the middle of the night. You’re sleep-talking.”
“NO! I’m AWAKE and you HAVE MY FEET! I NEED THEM BACK!”
“oh for the love of…”
It really seems to be the creative process that lets this loose for me sometimes.
It’s like my imagination is a bratty little kid saying “Ha! You can’t make me do this and not that! If you make me work during the day I’m going to stay up all night playing!”
It makes me wonder if other creative types are especially prone to odd dreams with sleep walking, sleep talking, what have you.
Am I alone in this? Do you guys do it too?
Tags: Art and illustration, It's not just me is it?, Real discoveries come from chaos
6 comments
I don’t think I regularly talk in my sleep, but when I was a child I once answered the phone and had a conversation with my grandmother while asleep.
I have strange dreams, often so strange that I can’t even recount them when I wake up…not because I don’t remember but because the retelling would make no sense. But I like them. I always know when I’m dreaming, so even nightmares are entertaining – there’s no illusion of it being real, it’s more like watching a movie.
LOL you crack me up! Bring the ducks some umbrellas….. !!!
I’m a compassionate person, what can I say? It pains me, even as I sleep, to think of those poor ducks. Out there day after day, night after night, getting wet when it rains because if they don’t do it WHO WILL?
I think somebody better organised than me really needs to start up a charity to get more wet weather gear for wild animals. Gumboots for centipedes would be an expensive venture, but damnit, they need their feet dry too!
The “You stole my feet” one killed me, I was laughing hard at work. Must remember not to read your blog while at work!
I was getting the funniest looks from my co-worker.
Steven x
Oh! Such fun! I can’t say I do anything quite so active, but when I am creative I dream for most of the night and often have lucid dreams. I also get that thing where you hallucinate waking up or going to sleep and get stuff all mixed about. It’s very, very weird.
I thought I was the only one! I go though phases of waking up and still be dreaming. I have lept out of bed to avoid swarms of insects crawling across the ceiling, to catch spiders, to find shirts for the morning, to find out why the power is cut (even though it isn’t).
I have actually grabbed my little backlit alarm clock and used it as a flashlight to look for the pile of tiny electronic components I have spilled in the bed. Or the tiny springs that have flown everywhere.
Of course about 30 seconds after waking up, I start to realise that all is not as it seems, and then I feel very silly and go back to bed.
…you get the idea. It’s my wife I feel sorry for. She is very understanding.
Thank you so much! I’m not alone in my strange and convoluted waking-dreams!