Last updated : 10 June, 2008

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Nightmares : When I was quite young, I had nightmares. I say that in the plural because I had many of them. The two most frequent, were also the most frightening. One of them was hallucination-ish.

I wake (or believe that I am awake) and look out the open bedroom door and see a beetle on the floor walking into my room. He is followed shortly, by another. I always hope that only the two will bother me tonight, but they always have company - lots of company! Black bugs, insects and arachnids of every size and discription push into the room, flooding the floor with a dark, undulating carpet of menace. They head straight for me as though some sinister quest has been demanded to them. My fear paralyzes me and I sweat. They leap onto my blanket and crowd around my seated fetal position, making a ring around my feet, waiting, as if they are uncertain what I will do when they advance. After a short pause, they proceed. I still cannot move and am exhausted from the tension. They crawl onto my legs then body, swarming me and I lose consciousness from fear.

The other one was more abstract - almost like a Flash movie that recycles, so can last as long as it 'wants'.

Black amoeba-like shapes move around on a white background. Each shape has a sound: the little ones have a screechingly high tone, much like chalkboard agonies, while the larger ones have an impossibly low, deep tone, equally irritating and as terrifying as an ogre's bellow, for a child. Since nothing else fills my field of vision, I am forced to look and listen. As I watch, the larger ones consume the littler ones and I hear the babies screaming in fear and possibly - pain. New, unsuspecting tiny shapes appear from the edges of the viewing 'screen' and the torture, both theirs and mine, continues.

I have always wondered: What was the point of these terrifying dreams? How do they solve a problem, send me a warning, teach me a lesson? What did they symbolize? Why did they stop after being nightly? In what way am I different than if I had grown up happy and peacefully? I can answer that last question: I would not be as anxious, high strung or neurotic! So... was I destined to be anxious, high strung and neurotic? If so, that must mean I was destined to write; to write neurotica!

Science of the Mind

19 May, 2008

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As a kid growing up in England, I was a bit of a Tomboy and a science-fiction buff. I believed everything I read was or could be genuine, true, authentic, real... and the rest of the world was just stupid. To some extent, I still feel that way.

I very restricted as a kid - everything was forbidden and art was bad. Every direction I turned for some outlet to express myself was squashed - except reading. So what better choice of escape than Science Fiction? Furthermore, if science was this cool, then I wanted to be a scientist! I just couldn't tell anybody.

I set out to follow my dream - I would build a chemistry lab in the attic!

It was a very small space up there and with exposed insulation but that wouldn't bother me. I would need supplies. Reading about what was needed to stock a science lab my list seemed to include mostly containers and liquids. I collected jars and odd shaped items like forks missing tynes and, for some reason, I felt I had to have a box of wire coat hangers. Surely, I was being analytical about this.

The crawl space into the attic, ironically, was in my bedroom ceiling and just barely big enough for a grown man to squeeze through unless he was portly. I would need a ladder to come and go. Also, I had to find a sink and table that would fit through the opening because I would not be permitted to make it any larger; of that I was sure. There would probably need to be a light and I was pretty sure there were no outlets up there, but I would deal with that later.

I made 'dry-runs' of how I would amass all this equipment and get it into the loft at night when my parents were asleep without waking anyone. Ah. There was a loose floor board that made a 'kunk' every time anyone entered my room. That had to be fixed.

Next day after school, I set about repairing the noise maker. Hammer and nail in hand, I could do this myself. 'Kunk". There it is - that's the one. Center the nail... hold it steady... Bang. Bang, bang, bang went my hammer. Bang and SSSSS! Water squirted up through the nail hole like a fire hose and up my nose. I was soaked in a flash. It 'vesuviused' for an hour while my father looked for the shut-off valve, got his tools and tore up the other floor boards to repair the water pipe I had pierced. My room was too wet to sleep in so I was evcuated to my sisters room, next door.

Undaunted by this set back, I continued to erect my lab in my head. I visualized my test tubes, jars and Bunsen burner around me - wait! I won't be allowed to have a flame in the attic! I won't be able to have a Bunsen burner! My state of depression kept me awake so I was the only one who heard the disruption coming from my room in the wee hours. Too scared to get up and see what the sound was, I drifted fitfully off to dreamland.

In the morning we discovered that the build up of water pressure that was turned on full force after the repair, had caused a leak in the attic which in turn had soaked the plaster ceiling and that was what fell on my bed in the night. So much for my laboratory.

At nine years of age, I didn't know what I would be using it for anyway.

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