#Paranormal Wednesday-The Haunting World of Dreams

Photo courtesy of Jonathan Emmanuel Flores Tarello
via Flickr

Dreams are important when it comes to my writing. I've dreamed characters, plots and scenes. I'll wake with sentences and full blown paragraphs. I've dreamed in other languages and had prophetic dreams. Likewise, dreams pop up a lot in my novels. My characters often receive messages, warnings and are haunted by their dreams and nightmares.

I find it interesting there are many different types of dreams. When it comes to the paranormal community, these dreams become very complex indeed! Here are a few categories to ponder.

Types of Dreams

Nightmares - upsetting and vivid dreams involving negative emotions. Some nightmares can lead to sleep deprivation and physical illness. In the paranormal world, there are some that believe nightmares are caused by negative entities. 

Night terrors - a dream that causes fear and dread. The dreamer will awaken in terror with no recall of dream content. Night terrors and sleepwalking usually run in families. Since the dreamer may report seeing people, animals or other entities in the room upon awakening, the paranormal community suggests these dreams may be supernaturally induced.

Belief Dreams – Dreams, prophetic or otherwise, that have shaped religion and belief systems across the world. Many prophets in history have reported receiving messages from the divine in their dreams.

Problem-Solving Dreams – Dreams that deliver a message or aide the sleeper in overcoming a problem in their waking life. Some believe that such messages are delivered by a messenger such as a guardian spirit, angel or someone who has passed on.

Recurring Dreams – A sign that we aren't paying attention to the message given. Ignoring the dream may lead to unresolved issues. In the paranormal world, recurring dreams are thought to be important messages from those who have passed on. May go hand-in-hand with problem-solving dreams.

Lucid Dreams – An awareness that the dreamer is in a dream state. The dream can be manipulated by the dreamer. May lead to out-of-body experiences.

Mutual Dreams –When the dreamer shares the same dream or experience with another person.

Psychic Dreams – Dreams in which premonitions take place. The paranormal community suggests these dreams are due to the dreamer having psychic powers or receiving messages from a messenger (ie. guardian spirit, angel or someone who has passed on).

Sleepwalking - performing activities that are usually performed during a state wakefulness. They can be as simple as sitting up in bed or walking to the bathroom; or as complex as cooking, eating driving, or even homicide. My grandmother used to sleepwalk in the forest around her farm house. This was frequent and lasted well into her teenage years. Her brother would follow to make sure she didn't get into trouble!

Dreams with Recurring Dream People – Similar to recurring dreams, these dreams are populated by people the dreamer hasn't met in waking life. The paranormal community has several explanations for this, including guardian spirits, angels or those who have passed on. I have two recurring dream people that pop up on a regular basis. Likewise, I experience a recurring place (and dream) every couple of months.

Tangled Tuesday-The Beginnings of a Story

I'm writing this on a Sunday morning. I had a terrible time sleeping last night. I kept waking with sentences in my head and the distressed feeling I'd forget them. The beginnings of a story though I'm unsure where it will go. I'm sure the characters will tell me later. Two points of view. They haven't told me their names yet--but give them time.

***

She wandered the castle ruins. The breeze brought with it what sounded like the distant murmur of voices. She settled on a pile of stones, listening to them.
The stones exuded warmth borrowed from the day's sun. She touched them, the heat soaking into her fingertips. If she could just make out the words, a story would be told.
Pictures from long ago flashed through her mind's eye. The pictures flipped through like a shuffled deck of cards until they slowed, each card a frozen snapshot of a point in time. Fractured sentences and fleeting emotions followed. One stood out. The most insistent one.

He watched as she tilted her head to one side, seemingly listening to his silent plea. Thousands of years had passed and he was used to silence. He moved through time like a forgotten and unimportant memory. He had been important once. He had been loved. But now...he was silent. He approached her and she edged away, making room for him beside her. A sliver of hope pushed its way into his heart.

He sat and began to tell his story...

#Paranormal Wednesday-Dream Languages

One of my most useful writing "tools" are my dreams. I keep a pen beside my bed to write notes on my arms and legs (I've given up on the paper thing). Sometimes I find sentences the next morning that make no sense at all, simply because I don't remember writing them. Other times, the sentences themselves are indecipherable. Not because my handwriting is awful but because my dream people were speaking in a different language. Those dreams are more perplexing because I really can't explain why I have them.

In one particular dream a woman was speaking to me in Spanish, which is a language I don't know. I knew it was Spanish and I could tell she was very distressed but seriously, my dream needed subtitles.

Several years ago, I dreamed a man was sitting on my bed and speaking to me. It seemed important because he repeated himself several times, quite emphatically. I woke and phonetically wrote what he said down so I could make sense (or no sense) of it the next morning. After doing a search I figured out it was Gaelic. Even more perplexing was that the sentence actually made sense and ended up being very helpful in what I was writing at the time.

So why does this happen? It could be that I've heard the language before and it got stored in my brain. Or it could be that our brains are far more complex than we think.

My husband was watching a movie several months ago. I was in the kitchen and busy with something else. Half-listening, I heard and understood what was being said...until I realized they were speaking a different language and then, I didn't. It was like I had it for a split second and once my brain adjusted itself, it was gone. The movie was a Welsh Indie with subtitles. I asked my husband if the actors had switched to English at some point and he said they hadn't. Which left me with a big ??

So here's my idea: maybe our brains have the capacity to comprehend all sorts of languages, regardless if we've studied them or not. Maybe somewhere deep inside all the languages are there--like stubborn, inaccessible folders.

But again, maybe this is one of those unexplained things.

A Spectrum of Speculative Fiction Blog Hop

Crossing Over

by Clarissa Johal

  

Speculative fiction—crossing the line between real and the imaginary. Hypothetical story-telling.

I’m going to tell you a story. A ghost story. Whether or not it’s real doesn’t really matter because hopefully, I’ve got your attention. 

There is a house at the edge of town, a very elegant Victorian house. You know the kind I mean, one of those Victorians that looks as though it’s been decorated with lace and gumdrops. 

But this one stands empty and in disrepair. It holds a tangible air of something forgotten. In the back, there’s a doghouse that used to have a shepherd chained to it. Now there’s nothing but a few cobwebs and a scratched place in the corner where the dog tried to dig its way to freedom.

I dream of this house every couple of months, though I’ve never actually been there. A layer of dust covers the furniture and floors, it looks untouched every time I visit. For some reason, however, a fire always burns in the fireplace. There’s a part of me that feels the fire has been lit because the house knew I was coming.

There’s a ghost in this house. Oh, didn’t I tell you that? Well, there is. I’ve never seen him face to face, but I know he’s there. Waiting. 

I catch him ducking into the shadows, elusive as always. Sometimes, I feel him standing behind me, but when I turn, he’s gone.

There are times I’ve visited and done nothing but gaze into the fireplace. The ghost and I have an unspoken impasse during those dreams. The hours will tick by and neither one of us will say a word.

Other times, however, I’m overcome with fear and choose to run. He becomes quite upset and I can hear him yelling. I run up the stairs and down a long hallway lit by gas light fixtures. One of the bedrooms is small with a single window that's been boarded up. I choose that one. I hide inside the bedroom’s tiny storage closet, thinking the ghost won't be able to find me there. The closet door has uneven gaps between the wooden slats and a handle that can’t be locked from the inside.

But there is no running. He’s behind me and I’m no longer trying to keep the door closed, but trying to push it open.  I can’t seem to get my fingers to work the latch and the more I claw at the door to escape, the closer he comes. 

I wake from the dream with adrenaline coursing so strongly throughout my body that I’m quite literally in pain for several minutes.

Regardless, I keep going back to the same house. And he’s always there.

Who is this ghost? Is he a fear of something? Is he brought on by stress? I can tell you what he sounds like and what his presence feels like. I can’t however, tell you what he looks like. I can tell you what the wallpaper in the bedroom looks like. It used to be beautiful, stripes and little blue cornflowers, but time has taken it's toll. I can tell you what the fireplace looks like because I spend many hours gazing into it. I can tell you what the house looks like because I see it before I find myself standing in its living room. 

The house hasn’t changed since I first dreamed of it when I was six years old.

And neither has he.

What is real in our mind affects our perception of the world as we know it. Layers of time and emotion affect real life places. The blur between reality and our dreamworld is sometimes crossed.

Dreams figure prominently in my novels.

BETWEEN, a ghost story of a different kind.

How far would you go to redeem yourself?

As a young girl, Lucinda was able to see spirits, a gift that didn't come without its problems. Now, a dedicated young veterinarian, she is committed to the idea that every life can be saved.

After a devastating accident, Lucinda tries to escape her past by moving to a small town. There, she meets a newcomer and feels an immediate connection with him. But there is another mysterious stranger to the small town, one that stirs within her a mixture of unease and desire.

As Lucinda is drawn into a bitter tug-a-war from the forces around her, she is likewise pulled into a dangerous twist of past and present events. Forced to make difficult choices, she finds that the two men are locked in not only a battle for her life...but a battle for their salvation.

Excerpt:

A young woman stood beside the bed, anguish on her face. She looked vaguely familiar, though Lucinda couldn’t place her. The forgotten colors of her blousy dress had faded into indistinct shades of grey. The woman grasped Lucinda’s hand and pressed a key into it. Lucinda felt the jagged, metal edges pricking her skin. Somewhere in the distance, a car engine roared to life. The woman’s lips moved but the growling engine drowned out all other sound. The sound became louder.
Growling. Darwin was growling.

“Darwin?” Lucinda woke with a start.

The shepherd growled again and hopped off the bed, padding into the living room.

A quiet knock sounded from the front door. Lucinda rolled out of bed to answer it.

Pushing Darwin aside to open the door, she peered sleepily into the moonlit night. A breeze blew across the clearing, stirring the grass. Confused, she shut the door before the breeze could make its way inside.

“Come on back to bed, Darwin. Nobody there.”

As she pulled the blanket up to her chin, the knocking started again.

Lucinda slipped out of bed and walked back into the living room. The sound clearly came from the other side of the door, faint but unmistakable. She slid her hand quietly over the knob. At once, the knocking stopped. Turning the knob slowly, she pulled the door open a crack, heart pounding in her chest.

“Hello?” An icy breeze slipped by her thigh as the scent of ozone assailed her senses. Her heart beat erratically. “Darwin, no!” The dog tried to push past her, growling once more. Rattled, Lucinda closed the door with a bang and locked it.

Lucinda lay in bed and shivered, unable to get warm. A chill slipped under her covers, stealing up her spine. The smell of roses clung to her blanket, the warmth from their scent seemed to be at war with the cold. An hour passed and she finally dropped off to sleep.

For the remainder of the night, the two unseen presences in her room remained at an impasse.

BETWEEN buy links:

Amazon.com 

Barnesandnoble.com 

Musa Publishing 

Now onto the Giveaway!

To win an ecopy of BETWEEN (Kindle, Mobi, NOOK or PDF) you can:

1) Follow this Blog OR

2) Add BETWEEN to your Goodreads shelf OR
3) Like my Author Facebook Page 

It’s that simple! Winner will be chosen at random and notified on March 11th.

**PLEASE leave a quickie comment so I know who you are and which you've done. 


Don't forget to visit my fellow author's blogs for more giveaways!

**House photo courtesy of Morguefile.com edited by Clarissa Johal