Friday 22 January 2016

A NEW SHORT STORY

We all dream. Every night, our brains drop us into a world where literally anything can happen. For the majority of the time, we instantly forget a dream when we wake. Sometimes, we do remember what happened… only to forget it during the day or can only remember little snippets and nothing more. And then we have that one dream that we simply cannot forget. All the details and events firmly lodged in your long-term memory. That one dream that stuck with me was a lucid dream, and a very detailed one at that.

A lucid dream starts off as any ordinary dream. You could be sitting in your house, or another very recognisable place. In a dream, certain things aren’t always the same compared to their real-life counterparts. For example, your house could have a bigger TV than the one you do, or a different coloured vase. These subtle changes can be what triggers you to realise that you are in fact dreaming. The moment that you realise that you are dreaming, it becomes a lucid dream and you will then be able to whatever you want. Fly, run really fast, give yourself incredible strength, the possibilities are literally endless. Another way you can realise that you are dreaming is having what I like to call a ‘dream sequel’. You have a dream that ends, you wake up only to go back to sleep and start dreaming again. You then realise that you are either right back where you left off in the previous dream or you are in the same setting or talking to the same people, and then you start lucid dreaming.

I’ve only ever had two ‘dream sequels’ before, and I can only remember one of them vividly. The one before has slipped away, leaving me with only the knowledge that I’ve had a one once before, but the one that stuck around doesn’t seem to want to go anywhere any time soon. It’s only one of three lucid dreams that I can remember and really well, as well. When I woke up, I just left it as a dream. I didn’t make any notes, but just kept it in the back of my mind as I didn’t think that it was a story anybody would want to read. But as it sat at the back of my mind, being a writer at heart, it started to develop and soon I had to write it down.

I did set myself some rules as I was writing it, however, as I wanted it to keep the same atmosphere that I felt when in a dream. When you are dreaming, there are certain sections where it jumps as if someone who was editing it deliberately cut a section out of it and left it as it was before rendering it… I know, that was a poor analogy, but it’s the best one I have. When I came to write the story, I had to fill in a couple of blanks, but I still wanted to keep the dream as is, which was particularly tricky, but I think I’ve gotten away with it. Another rule that I set myself was to keep the logic. When you are dreaming, your dream-self may do something that you logically wouldn’t do. For example, in real life you may have a rational fear of rollercoasters or spiders, but your dream-self accepts to hold a spider or ride a rollercoaster; something that you logically wouldn’t normally do. The third rule that I set myself was making sure that the sudden realisation the same: Completely out of the blue. And the fourth and final rule that I set myself was not giving the main character a name. Being a dream that I had, it’s obvious that the main character is me, Antony Hudson, but at the same time, as it is a dream, anybody can be the main character, really.

I haven’t personally tried it, but there is a way that you can lucid dream most nights, if not every single night. All you need to do is as soon as you’ve woken up from having a dream that you can remember or even very vaguely remember, write it down. By writing your dream down the moment you wake up will help your brain to keep it as fresh as possible. The more times you do this, you will start realising when you are in a dream. To help boost your changes of having more lucid dream is to try and actually create the dream yourself. If you build your dream before you drop off to sleep and then find yourself in that same scenario, it will (help) trigger the realisation effect.

I haven't attempted to find the meaning behind the dream, but if anybody does have some idea what it all means, then by all means please say, I would love to hear what you've got to say.

There’s nothing else for me to say except to say that I hope you enjoy my new short story and I’ll be looking forward to any feedback you have.

Thanks for reading
Antony Hudson
(TonyHadNouns)

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