Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
I dreamed I was in a spaceship or a space capsule. Small, it was tight with equipment. No one else seemed present.
I was excited. I was in space! That I wasn’t weightless or floating surprised me, but I dismissed that with little thought. Wanting to view the earth, space, and moon from this unique vantage, I hunted for a window. I couldn’t find a damn window anywhere. What kind of craziness is this? I wondered. Spaceships need windows.
As I turned in my search, I’d discovered that I could walk further into the spaceship. It seemed bigger than I thought. But when I didn’t find a window and turned to retrace my steps, I found that I couldn’t go back. All I could do is turn and go forward. That bothered and mystified me.
Awakening at that point, I leaped up. I’d fallen asleep in the recliner in the snug. The television was on but nothing was onscreen.
I didn’t recognize that, though. Panicking, I was trying to understand what I was supposed to be doing. Wasn’t I supposed to be doing something? I was sure that was the case. Seeing the television, though, I began understanding that I was home.
Home? That ignited new surprised panic. How did I get home? Where was the spaceship?
At last my mind grasped, that was a dream…
So, as many of my dreams have taken me in the past, there I am, back in the military after being out for several decades. It’s not a surprising dream sanctuary, and makes sense in many practical ways.
Once again, I’m there, in a command center or command post such as the ones that I spent much of my time. This one has windows, though. That rarely happened. We were often in secure buildings or underground. As with other dreams, I’m trying to put together a uniform, and it’s all messed up, because I’ve been retired from the military for so long. With much joking and laughing, I get it together and get a semblance of an Air Force uniform on. There are others in this situation, so I’m not overly concerned with the bit. We’ve been called up…enough said on that, right? Yeah, my mind’s workings can be pretty transparent.
I’m worried about my shoes, though. They’re on, but they’re not in great shape. Meanwhile, the situation is developing. I’m senior enlisted there, and the experienced command post guy. The commander, a colonel, has arrived. He’s concerned about the sit. I share his concerns. Beyond the windows is a swollen gray ocean active with slow, heavy waves. We’re walking along the command post, looking out the windows, searching for an impending attack from across the water. Lights draw our attention. We watch, and watch, hoping that they’ll resolve into something more than blurry lights in the distance, ready to act if they do.
We begin walking toward the other end of the command post. I’ve been thinking as the commander and I scanned the sea, and I’d developed a sense that something wasn’t right. Maybe we were looking at the problem the wrong way.
Just as I formulate this to myself, I turned to look through another window and see a huge wave. Rising like a movie scene, it’s rushing toward us. As I see it, a young airman shouts a warning about the wave.
I spring into action, giving orders and directions about what to do as people begin running in panic. As they’re panicking and only a few are doing as I say, I take it upon myself to act.
It’s too late. As I realize that the wave is about to hit, I tell everyone to find cover and find cover myself. The wave slams into the building. Coming through windows, the powerful water wrecks the interior.
It’s over in a flash. I survive in good condition because I’d protected myself. My biggest concern is my…shoe.
Yes, I’m upset because my right shoe is coming apart. It’s not shiny and black, as I kept it throughout my mil career, as trained to do, as we all did; it is dull and white. Man, am I exasperated.
But we need to take care of things. It’s clear that we can’t continue operations in the current location. I and two others, a male and female, take off walking for the alternate command post location. We’re walking alongside a parade ground. I’m lamenting about my shoe as I go.
While walking to the alternate location, we start moving faster. The two I’m with cross to the other side of the parade grounds. We engage in an unspoken pseudo-race at fast walking speed. They become distracted with conversation. Seeing that, grinning, I surreptitiously speed ahead. They notice, and start walking faster, almost catching up. The guy starts running, so I do, too. Laughing, we reach the alt at the same time, and wrestle to get through the door first. I win.
Inside the small, old places, we find things that were left behind, like candy, gum, toys, and clothes. I’m amused as I go through some of the stuff and think about how to make it operational as a new operating location.
Holding up a piece of old candy in a weathered wrapper, I say, “I remember leaving this here.”
The dream ends.
Another writing slash self-examination of myself post. It’s all about me, you know…
Writing often is about the author, whether it’s the process or subject, the writer is deep into it. I’m too damn introspective for my own good, and I’m a fragile beast.
I’m struggling with April Showers 1921. Much of the struggle is my fault; some is due to life events.
Life events kept me from writing several times. Vacation. Vacation is a good thing, right? Not for this writer, as it meant not writing. Felt like someone was scraping the enamel off my teeth.
Other life events, a birthday party, memorial service, surgery and health issues, interfered with my writing habits. Those, though, could be overcome. I felt confident of that.
Harder to overcome was my doubts about what I was writing and the story that I was relating. “Overthinking” is the world. Overthinking let in the doubt monster. The doubt monster fed my writer angst. Next up was a full blown case of imposter syndrome worries.
I walked and fretted, ate and fretted, awakened and fretted…fretting accompanied everything. I was engaging in one of the worst and most common problems afflicting writers, trying to write for others instead of myself. It took me until this morning to realize it. A young woman’s tatoo finally awakened.
She’s a barista at my fave coffee shop. On her left wrist was a tattoo, “Be brave.”
I’ve known her for four years. She graduated from high school a year early. She was sixteen. She then took a year off to travel Thailand and southeast Asia. She said tattoo was a reminder.
After speaking with her, I went on a walking break. I admired her and her tattoo. I’d never tattooed anything on myself, but I employed a mantra: “No fear, no doubt, no worries.” I’d developed it when I was young to help me overcome those things. Others were always saying that they saw things in me and nominating me for stuff or asking me if I wanted to try something.
What kind of cad would say no to such sugary words? Not me. Between genes, birth order, and socialization, I’m just a boy who can’t say no. I want others to like me too much. I don’t want to disappoint them. I fear disappointing them.
That’s where and when the mantra was born. People would tell me, “You got this. You can do it.” Nodding, I’d agree without speaking, and then tell myself, “No fear, no doubt, no worries.” I frequently added, “Focus.” Results were often excellent, usually surprising all of us.
Remembering that, I turned back to the times when I employed that mantra and achieved good results, and decided, time to drag that mantra out again.
No fear, no doubt, no worries.
Time to continue writing and editing like crazy, at least one more time.
First, this has nothing to do with Zola’s letter, except the title. This is about my dream, aspirations, and doubts.
As background, I finished writing and editing a series of novels called Incomplete States. With that finished, I was moving into the next steps of what to do when you’re written a novel and want to get it published. Options are available.
My dreamscape has been quiet for several days so I didn’t think my decisions would show up in my dreams. But, boom, they came. When I awoke and thought about it, I laughed about what I’d dreamed.
The dream began with a new venture. People were expecting me and had high expectations for what I would do. I was relaxed, going about getting acclimated. As the dream progressed, I learned that I was in the military (again), involved with command and control.
Awakening, I thought, “Of course the military would be included.” I’d spent twenty years in the military. The structure helped me succeed without stretching myself. It was a comfortable existence. I often retreat to it in dreams.
Things quickly began going awry in the dream. I felt constantly behind and a little bit lost. I couldn’t find my uniform. I discovered I was already supposed to be somewhere, and I was late. Scrambling, I rushed to find my uniform, shave, dress, and get to work.
I was naked when my wife came in. “What’s this?” she pointed at my side. I couldn’t see what she referenced.
“Have you seen yourself in the mirror?” she said, and then steered to a mirror. “I think you’d better take a look.”
She pointed out several boils on my side. Horrified, I tried lancing them, and failed. The effort put me behind. Now I really had to scramble.
Awakening, I realized that I was facing my anxieties. “Have you seen yourself in the mirror?” That question seemed like I was trying to pretend to be someone else, and that I wasn’t clearly seeing myself and the situation, that I was misleading myself. And look how I’m blemished and flawed, the things I don’t see about myself, how I’m fooling myself. I took all of that about my publishing ambitions.
Finding shaving cream, I hunted down a mirror and started applying it to shave. The shaving cream was thick and brown. Crude and unfinished, I thought after awakening and reflecting on the dream, just as I worry that others will think about the series.
Another military member in uniform stuck their head in the window. “What are you doing?” I said.
“Looking at someone using a mirror,” he said. “I’ve never seen that done before. I was wondering what it’s like.”
How absurd, I thought, but, awakening, I realized that I was questioning even the most basic aspects of myself. I remembered reading about experiments involving animals mirrors. Looking in a mirror and realizing that you’re seeing yourself is used to explore animal intelligence and self-awareness. By implying that I (as another entity in the dream) didn’t know how to use a mirror was a question about my self-awareness and intelligence.
A phone rang and I answered it. “We have an inflight emergency,” a male voice said. “We need you here to decide what to do.”
I was appalled. “But I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Then you’re not coming?”
“No.” I hung up.
I didn’t need to think much about that aspect after awakening. The message behind the words seem nakedly clear, as did the next dream segment.
A chief master sergeant that I’d worked for during my first tour called me to him. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but this isn’t working out. To be honest, I expected more of you. It didn’t work out so I’m sending you back home.”
“‘But Chief,” I protested, but he wouldn’t listen to me.
Yes, it was all there, all the doubts, uncertainty, and uncertainty, along with rejection by a person in authority who I admired.
I thought I’d mastered these things, demonstrating again how easily I can fool myself. Yes, those doubts exist. Hell, they exist with the majority of efforts that anyone does. To reach and succeed, failure, ridicule, and exposure must be risked. These doubts are always in me, no matter how many times I’ve succeeded, or how often I’ve been reassured by myself and others. That’s just part of who I am.
While it gave me a good laugh to see how earnestly my subconscious mind (and thus, me) attacked me, it hasn’t changed anything. It’s there, and I know it, but I’m stepping out.
Cheers
The last two nights’ dreams have battered me. Tempestuous and often shocking, they uncovered memories, eroding the foundations of my confidence, prompting A.M. shakiness.
In one dream, my wife and neighbors had killed another neighbor. He was married to one of the neighboring females. I didn’t understand why they’d killed him nor why they were unconcerned.
The police rounded them up. My wife and neighbors had skinned the body, though. As I heard it, they planned to eat the man. While I struggled to clarify what I heard, they cheerfully entered the police station. They weren’t being arrested. It turned out the police had already arrested one of the perpetrators for the crime, but now my wife and neighbors were picking him up. He was being released. I didn’t understand how or why.
Another memorable dream had people secretly plotting to kill a wealthy, powerful family. This dream took place in faded green light. Little was clearly seen beyond silhouettes. The powerful family — husband, wife, and three children — was being betrayed. A missile strike was being planned to take them out.
Learning about it, I furtively warned the family. The covertly relayed that they’d been suspicious and thanked me. I kept an eye on them and the man betraying them. I saw him on a telephone, on of those big and corded push-button desk phones that were popular last century. Sneaking up, I overheard him telling the killers to call off the strike because I’d warned the family.
He noticed me spying on them, so he hung up and I left. Coming around later, I heard him on the phone again, telling those on the other end to wait to launch the missiles until he called them. He wanted to kill me at the same time so that I couldn’t cause them trouble. The missiles were launched, but then recalled.
Another dream was about powerful rains. Heavy charcoal clouds thickened overhead, and then pouring rain shuttered visibility. Rain sluiced off roofs and overflowed storm drains and gutters. Torrents filled the streets. Pedestrians and drivers were freaked as cars and feet splashed through fast, rising water. The water rose until where I walked was a turbulent lake. The lights dimmed under the rain’s relentless pounding.
However, caught in the rain myself, I tried reassuring everyone. Telling them not to worry, I kept saying, “It’s just rain. Don’t worry. This will pass. We’ll be fine.” I couldn’t find anyone to stop and listen to me.
Then memories were uncovered of things others said about me. It was a miserable version of “This Is Your Life”, asshole. Bitter things I’d heard, things that I hadn’t realized that I learned about later, as people spoke behind my back.
Awakening, I realized how much of this is because I’m on the cusp of achievement and decisions that prompt reflections and fears, all around writing and publishing, sharing my work, baring my efforts to others, and being fearful of exposure as an untalented poseur.
A long walk on the way to write pacified much. Thinking about the dreams, I realized that in each, I was never personally affected. I was witness, observer, and bystander, relatively unscathed by the swirl around me. That took me to conclude, this is about emotions and uncertainty. Writing it out now helped me navigate my fears and struggle free of my negative energy, at least momentarily, make some decisions and take some actions.
Time to write and edit like crazy, at least one more time this year.
TG Christmas has passed.
I appreciate that so many enjoy and celebrate Christmas. I do, too, in my way. It’s not actually Christmas that dismays me, but those places closed for the holiday. I don’t begrudge people that, but with the closed coffee shops, I miss my writing. More critically, I get anxious about it.
My anxiety when I don’t write is that what I’ve written is crap. Panic rises like Yule log smoke. It reminds me of a friend.
He’d been a football player, a wide receiver in high school and college who tried out for the pros and didn’t cut it. As a wide receiver, he was expected to be fast and to be able to run and run and run. So that’s what he did. Every day, he ran five miles.
He continued his habit after he didn’t make it as a player. He’d become a high school assistant coach by then. He moved on from football when he was thirty, going into serious business to make serious money.
Still, he ran five miles every day. He told me that he runs every day because he’s afraid that if he stops running, he’ll lose the ability.
Yeah, that’s not me with my writing, but I understand his thinking.
I thought about writing at home on Christmas day. Alone in the office in front of my laptop, I thought, I can write now. I’ve tried it before.
Picture this.
The cats troop in to see what I’m doing because I’m typing. Typing attracts the cats. Click click, click, they hear. What’s that, a mouse? Curious to see, they crowd around me.
These cats, all male rescues, don’t get along. Within seconds, they begin complaining about the others’ presence, locations, or existence. “What’s he doing here? I want that space.”
“I was here first. You better leave while you can, hairball.”
“Who are you calling hairball, hairball?”
“You both would be well-advised to get the hell out of here before I turn you into a fur coat.”
“Oh, you think you can?”
My wife will typically come in then, jumping onto her laptop to surf the net and play games, and read the news.
The news must be shared. “Did you read what happened?” “Did you read what so and so said?” “Did you see this video? I think you’ll like it.”
I can tell her that I’m writing, and she tries to respect that, but as writers know, writing often involves sitting silently, staring at nothing or studying your fingernails or looking at something else on the net while the muses get their sierra together. So she’ll then say, “Are you writing? Or can I ask you something?”
Of course, nothing can be done about the cats. I can send them outside, yes, but I’d pay for that later.
So, no, I decided not to write.
This left a void. Into that void crept my imposter fears, my insecurities, doubts, uncertainties, fears, and anxieties. It’s amazing how fast, persistent, and subtle they are, how they move in with little noise. Then, suddenly, my head is filled with their sound. They’re like a destructive, pessimistic flash mob.
All this isn’t why I began the practice of daily writing. I started writing every day to finish stories and novels. I write everyday to learn and improve my writing skills. I write everyday because the muses deliver scenes, dialogue, and concepts. Their deliveries excite me, and I want to pursue them. I want to write to understand what I think, and I enjoy writing, conceiving and imagining, story-telling and resolving, visiting these places and events that mushroom in my thoughts.
It’s all complicated, isn’t it? Better to just write than to consider it all. Hold your breath and jump in, and see how far it goes.
The coffee shop is open. I have my coffee. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
Merry Christmas.
Ho, ho, ho.
Michael Seidel, writer 