Night Time Nuisances

Do you ever dream about struggling with a task that you just can’t accomplish?

I have lots of recurring dreams; they’re not necessarily always exactly the same, but certain key points pop up again and again, and one such dream is an exceptionally frustrating inability to get to the dentist’s office.

I’m not sure why it’s always a dentist, but that’s always how the dream starts. I’ll be off somewhere – it doesn’t really matter where – and recall that I have to get to the dentist. There’s always a fairly urgent reason for me to need to make this appointment; sometimes it’s because I’m in horrible pain, sometimes it’s because my teeth keep cracking or falling out, sometimes it’s because I’ve got some kind of dental surgery scheduled. So I’ll rush off to try and make my appointment, but the dentist’s office will not be where I expect it to be, and I’ll spend the rest of the dream panicking, trying to find it before the day ends and the office shuts down.

Does that sound frustrating or just ridiculous? Well, it’s both.

I had one of these such dreams a few nights ago. I started out in a park, spending time with my family, when I suddenly remembered that I had to get to the dentist because I was having a rotten tooth pulled. I didn’t have my car, but I did have a bike, so I hopped on it and took off down the road. In the dream I was riding down the Main Street in the town next to the one I grew up in, but it wasn’t really that street. I believed it was that street, but because dreams like to twist reality, the street was full of buildings that do not exist on the real street. I rode down this street and up again, searching for the building that I was sure was the dentist’s office, but it just wasn’t there. I took out my phone and called the office, explaining that I knew I was late, but that I was on my way and was going to be there any moment. It was only after I hung up that it occurred to me I could have asked for directions, or at least an address, so I tried to call back. That’s when things got really frustrating, because for some reason my phone denied any existence of the call. It was not in the log that usually records every ingoing or outgoing call, and the number itself had somehow erased itself from existence, both in my mind and in the phone. So I tried another method; I searched for the office using Google Maps. This method presented with multiple problems; first my fingers refused to be able to hit the keys properly, misspelling the office’s name over and over again, then Google denied any existence of said office, and finally it kept giving me directions to offices that weren’t even in the same province as me.

When I finally woke up I was actually beating the crap out of my phone, which was daring to try and wake me up with my alarm app and had subsequently earned my half-awake super-enraged ire.

What does a dream like this mean? I’m guessing stress, and feelings of helplessness or inadequacy. Why is it always a dentist appointment? Your guess is as good as mine on that one.

Isn’t the sleeping brain a curious thing?

Do you ever have any recurring dreams? Are they good ones or the kind that make you wake up angry, scared, or frustrated? Are the details always the same or are there just basic points that repeat within a new environment? Please share!

A Nightmarish Impression

Note: Today’s post is courtesy of a prompt from “642 Things to Write About“. Today’s prompt is: “What’s the worst nightmare you can remember?”

It’s strange the kinds of things that can scare the hell out of a kid. I’ve had lots of nightmares over the course of my thirty years, but there is one that stands out and it may not be what you’d expect. After all, I’ve had nightmares about zombies attacking my family, about my classmates and I fighting and dying in an unending war, about my husband leaving me, about all of my friends and family leaving me, about being on an airplane as it crashes to the ground, about being lost in the woods at night and being attacked by rabid wolves. I’ve had some doozies, is what I’m saying. But the nightmare that stands out is one that I had when I was probably about ten years old. I don’t remember much of what was happening in the dream at first, but I was at my grandmother’s house, and suddenly I was left alone in the living room with my aunt Judy. For some reason she began to smile at me, a really creepy, too-wide smile, and then she raised her hands to her face and as she did all of her teeth began to fall out of her mouth, into her hands, and all over the floor.

It might not seem like the most terribly frightening of things, especially considering other nightmares that I’ve had, but that morning I woke up literally bawling my eyes out. For some reason those teeth falling out of my aunt’s mouth scared the ever-living beejeezus out of me, and just thinking about it gave me shivers for months afterwards.

A to Z Challenge Day 2: Buffy Summers (the Vampire Slayer)

You wouldn’t know it by looking at the types of books I read or some of the scenes I, myself, have written, but when I was younger I was quite a wuss. I was a Disney kid who liked puppies and kittens and was too shy for her own good, so scary stuff wasn’t really my thing. To explain to you just how much of a wuss I was, it took several years for me to make it all the way through Pinocchio because I was scared half to death of Monstro the whale. I had more than a few nightmares about that devil-whale.

Yet, despite the adrenaline that would kick up the second something even began to consider being scary, there were a few ghosts-and-monsters related shows that I loved to watch, most of them on YTV on Friday nights. One such show was Buffy the Vampire slayer, which I began watching right from the very beginning. At this point in my life I’d never seen the original movie version of Buffy, but I took immediately to the show, and to Buffy in particular.

There have been many arguments on both sides of the fence when it comes to this particular show, but all I can say either way is that I’ve loved it from the moment I first discovered it, and Buffy immediately became one of my favorite characters ever. She was created by (in my opinion) a brilliant writer in Joss Whedon, and brought to live by (in my opinion) a wonderful actress in Sarah Michelle Gellar, but neither of those things were the reason why I took to Buffy so well.

When I was a kid things were starting to sway, but it was still the “way” of things for the guy to be the hero. The handsome jock would lead the team (Power Rangers), the men would be responsible for the most important battles (Luke Skywalker and Han Solo), the charming prince would rescue the damsel in distress (so many examples I couldn’t possibly list them all). In a world where, for the most part, the girls were the background characters or constantly being rescued, here was a female character who was front line and center. She was the main character, strong and powerful and could totally kick ass, and she was the one doing 99% of the saving. And for all her strength and Chosen One-liness, she was at the core just a regular girl. Her strength didn’t come from size, nor her abilities from super-intelligence. She was just a girl. She had been a cheerleader. She had been totally full of herself, as many teenage girls are. In other words, she could have been anyone. She could have been me, or my best friend, or that really quiet girl in my class who was sweet but shy, or the loud-mouth popular girl who everyone secretly hated.

That appealed to me as a kid. The idea that any random, completely typical teenage girl could just up and become a superhero was a huge thing.

But – and here’s the important part that Whedon and Gellar had a huge influence on – even though she was the center of the monster-slaying universe, and was the most important character, and was the kick-ass female hero, Buffy was not by any means infallible or invulnerable. She made huge mistakes. She got her butt handed to her on multiple occasions. She fell into deep depressions. She hurt the ones she loved and then made herself miserable trying to fix things. She saved the world, but she couldn’t always save all the victims. And that just made her that much more real, that much easier to relate to, that much easier to care for. Buffy Summers is one of those characters whom I became so fond of, so invested in, that it hurt me physically to see her in any kind of pain.

It’s been 17 years since the first time I watched a Buffy episode, and over the course of those 17 years I’ve watched every Buffy episode at least three or four times. Some episodes were better than others, and I will readily agree with some that the first couple of seasons were leaps and bounds over the last couple, but in the end I loved them all. Buffy was one of the first fictional characters to make me bawl like a little girl, something I am none too embarrassed to admit, but as crying for a fictional character is not exactly a common occurrence for me, I think that just goes to prove how awesome Buffy really was.

Laugh, Cry, and Scream

Recently I’ve been doing a lot of jumping between stories. Within my own work I’ve been moving between zombie apocalypses and werewolf romances, between epic fantasies and personal journeys. At the same time I’ve been reading books, watching movies and TV shows, and playing video games. All this going back and forth between different stories with different characters has gotten me thinking about what makes a truly memorable character. What is it that makes a particular person in a book, tv show, movie, or game become this amazing character whom you can’t get enough of? What makes a character great?

I’ve given it a lot of thought, and I’ve come up with three answers, three things that make a character great, in my opinion.

Great characters make you laugh.

Humor is almost a given, isn’t it? Laughter is like a drug, one for which the only side effects are happiness and maybe some pleasantly sore muscles. Mentally and physically, our bodies get high on humor, which is why we love comedies so much, why we appreciate friends and loved ones who can make us chuckle, and why we tend to gravitate toward peers who share our appreciation for what is or isn’t funny. Sense of humor is not universal, of course, but almost everyone will find themselves drawn toward a character who can make them laugh, especially if that laughter is of the deep-down, belly-rumbling, gasping-for-air variety.

Characters who give me the giggles:

Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory – He’s just so absurd and stoic in everything he says and does that it’s absolutely hysterical. I genuinely don’t know how the actors of this show make it through their lines sometimes.

Tyrion Lanister from the A Song of Ice and Fire series (G.R.R. Martin) – I’ve rarely read a character so damn witty. His humor is rude and crude one minute, and exceptionally intellegent the next. Every second line out of his mouth makes me go “HA!”

Great characters make you cry.

Sadness is a little less obvious, but whether you might believe it or not sometimes we crave a good sob-fest. Why else would movies like The Notebook be so popular? The thing is, crying is cathartic; even if you didn’t realize you were stressed out or upset, crying gets all the pent-up bad mojo out, and while no one wants to be sad for real-life reasons, being sad for a character allows you to experience that release of emotions. Being able to feel for a character, to be truly empathetic toward them and experience their pain, releases a host of hormones and chemicals that leaves you feeling somehow refreshed and rejuvinated.

Characters who give me the sniffles:

Dean Winchester from Supernatural – It’s one part great writing and one part awesome acting on behalf of Jensen Ackles, and the combination is a character who has made me exceptionally weepy on more than one occasion (but don’t tell my husband…I always turn to my side so he doesn’t see).

Simba from The Lion King – There is one scene in particular that I’m talking about, and if you don’t automatically know which one I’m talking about you can’t possibly have ever seen The Lion King, so GO WATCH THE LION KING RIGHT NOW, YOU FREAK.

Great characters make you scream.

Fear is another thing entirely. Though there are always going to be some people who run in the other direction when faced with fear, quite a lot of us love it. Fear gives a person a unique rush of adrenaline and “fight or flight” hormones that can be obtained in no other way, and how better to experience such a thing than from the comfort of your own home while reading a scary book or watching a horror movie? When a character makes your heart beat faster, the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, and gives you a nervous twtich because of the incredible tension, that is something real and visceral that you won’t soon forget. If the eventual result is actual nightmares, the character has really done their job.

Characters who give me the wiggins:

The creepy ghost girl from Shutter (original Thai version) – There is one thing I will give to the Asians…they know how to do ghosts, and this chick in particular had me literally watching the movie from between my fingers. Bonus points for totally freaking out my husband and father-in-law.

The Joker from The Dark Knight – He may not be scary in the “I’m going to have nightmares forever!” sense, but Heath Ledger’s maniacal version of The Joker creeped me out more than I can tell. He was truly, entirely mad, and that is a frightening concept.

There are, of course, lots of other factors that go into making a good character. The protagonist should be likable but also have real flaws, the antagonist should be hateful but have relatable qualities as well… You’ve heard it all before, I’m sure, or if you haven’t I’m sure you know most of the rules without even realizing it; that’s how you as the consumer recognize the characters you like. But in my opinion, the three things I’ve mentioned above are what take a character from simply enjoyable, to positively incredible. And if you can somehow incorporate all three of these types of characters into one story…wow. Just wow.

Character (groups) that have made me giggle, sniffle, and wig out:

The cast of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV) – Fear doesn’t necessarily apply anymore, but I watched this show when I was young and significantly more innocent, so hear me out. Back in the day the monsters creeped me the hell out, the banter between characters (good and bad) constantly had me laughing, and the misery that several of the characters went through made me (on more than one occasion) bawl like a little girl. To me, that is seriously a winning combination, and that is why this show is one of my all-time favorites to this day.

The characters from Invitation to the Game (Monica Hughes) – The characters in this book were witty and amusing, went through a tense, frightening situation that threatened their lives, and experienced a plethora of negative emotions and miseries. I’ve read this book dozens of times and I still experience an emotional rollercoaster whenever I read it.

As a writer I now find myself in the position of trying to incorporate these factors into my characters, which is a much more difficult endevour than simply pointing them out in the books I read and the movies and shows I watch. Humor isn’t my strong point, although I’ve been told by readers of my fanfiction that I’ve made them chuckle a time or two. I strive to incorporate fear into my horror and fantasy pieces, and I hope it comes across, but I haven’t been in the position yet to have anyone tell me one way or the other. Misery seems to be my “thing” (what does that say about me…?), as I love to torture my characters and I’ve had a number of people inform me that I was successful in drawing out those tears. It’s a very difficult thing striking all three, but as other writers will attest, writing is rarely easy and creating excellent characters can often feel like an exercise in futility. Regardless, now that I’ve beaten down exactly what it is that creates characters I’ve come to love, you can be damn sure that I’ll be keeping these three factors in mind whenever I put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard.

What about you? What characters have made you laugh until your belly hurt? Sob like a baby? Cower under a blanket? Are there other factors that make a character great for you? Please share!

Dreams: Windows to the (Aging) Soul

Recently I read an article on Cracked.com that was entitled 5 Warning Signs That You’re Finally Getting Older. It gave me a chuckle, particularly because I agreed with most of it. I guess that means I’m getting old. Crap.

Anyway, as happenstance would have it, that night I had an unusually difficult time sleeping because I was being plagued by nightmares. More than once I woke up in a cold sweat. But when I was finally up in the morning it occurred to me that the dreams I’d been having weren’t the kind that one thinks of upon hearing the word “nightmare”, and I thought to myself “here’s another example of something that changes as you get older”. So let’s have a comparison, shall we?

When I was younger I had nightmares about……monsters. Whether it was enormous, rabid dogs, or poltergeists, or zombies, some of my most prominent nightmares involved running from vicious, evil creatures that wanted to eat me.

A few nights ago I had a nightmare about…
…my daughter running into heavy traffic. For some reason we were walking alongside a busy highway and she let go of my hand and took off into the road. I ran after her, but (illogically) my 29-year-old legs only seemed to be able to move half as fast as her 2-year-old ones, and I barely managed to grab the back of her shirt and send us both hurtling into the ditch before a semi truck struck us both.

When I was younger I had nightmares about…
…weird, creepy things happening to the people around me, like when I dreamed that my aunt Judy’s teeth all began falling out of her head as she was talking to me, or when I dreamed that my mother kept randomly chasing me with a butcher knife and screaming like a maniac.

A few nights ago I had a nightmare about…
…my husband suddenly acting as though he’d never met me. We were hanging around our friends and family, but he completely ignored me and treated me like I was a complete stranger.

When I was younger I had nightmares about…
…my friends and classmates and I engaging in war-like battles with tons of gunfire and explosions and people dying all around me. (Now that I’m writing it, this one sounds awfully intense for a kid…is that weird?)

A few nights ago I had a nightmare about…
…missing my plane home from out West. I dreamed that somehow I had forgotten that it was my day to go home and I hadn’t packed. I was in someone’s house rather than camp, and I was running all over it trying to find all my stuff and pack quickly. My coworkers left and I missed the bus, and I spent the rest of the dream desperately trying to track down another bus or a taxi or something that knew the route through the oil sand access roads to the Albian air strip.

The nightmares I had when I was younger filled me with dread, made me sweat right through my pajamas and my blankets, and usually ended in me waking up in a panic, unsure if it had actually happened or not. The nightmares I had a few nights ago elicited the exact same reactions. I woke up from my daughter running into traffic with my heart pounding so fast I thought I might be having a heart attack. The dream in which my husband ignored me found me awake with a pain in my chest, feeling like I might throw up. And the missed-bus dream had me waking up in a cold sweat, wondering how I was going to get home.  The whole thing represents a shift in priorities, it would seem – which is completely logical when you think about it. It’s also pretty funny though. I’ve gone from dreaming about monsters and teeth falling out and vicious battles, to protecting my daughter, losing my husband, and trying to catch a taxi. And the shift has not changed my reactions in the slightest.

I guess I must be getting older after all. Bugger. 🙂