The bastard brother of dreams

I don't sleep easily. Never really have.

I've always been prone to nightmares, some particular ones that have kept popping up since I was 4 years old or so.

Bear in mind, this is not based on scientific knowledge, merely my perception of it, but it does seem to hold up reasonably.

When a child is born, their entire world is themselves, and whatever's within earshot of them. They do not percieve the world outside their immediate sphere, because they are not aware of it, nor capable of understanding it. Thus, irrelevant. And while an infant may feel an immediate fear of being alone, they don't realize fear as such. Barring abandoned babies, I doubt any recently-born will ever feel lost for longer than it takes for a parent to scoop it up and hold it.

I don't think babies have nightmares, because they haven't developed their worldview enough to understand exactly how much there is to be afraid of.

When a child grows up, it starts sensing the world around it. And slowly, it dawns, that while the world is a gargantuan playground to frolick in, it's also a vast expanse of indifference toward the child. The world persists, regardless of the child. One is no longer the focal point of existance everywhere.
This is where the nightmares kick in, I reckon. The slow coming to terms with existance as we define it is scaring. The wondrous, but ultimately simple, mind of a child cannot accept, immediately, the fact that the world simply doesn't care. Yet the child is left to come to terms with it by its own accord.

Everyone who dreams (and I believe most everyone do, remembering them is another matter entirely) experiences nightmares. It's inevitable that at some point, your mind walks down a dead-end path, and gets trapped by its own (lack of) logic.
Everyone have had nightmares where they are chased by something. An image, a thought, a monster or just the feeling of something hot on your heels, lurking around the corner.

And I have no doubt that if I were to ask any child at the age of 4, if they'd ever had a nightmare about being alone or abandoned, they'd nod in agreement.

As a child grows older, they learn to cope with their existance. Their lives again turn back into a microcosmos of expectations, goals, dreams and whatnot. In short, turning back to egoism because it offers a measure of solace. Facing the world's whimsical cruelty with no means of comprehending it simply will not work. And usually, there, the nightmares stop again for children, and don't resurface unless some traumatic event triggers them again.

The next time nightmares start showing up on a significant scale, I surmise, is during adolescence, where we once again dip our feet into the world outside. Taking in external impressions to help shape ourselves and define ourselves also means seeing what the other side of life is about. And the dreams return. They'll fade, bit by bit while puberty has its way with you and you're too busy making any sense of it all, and honestly I don't think nightmares really resurface until you step out of teenagehood and into the ranks of adults. When, once again, you're forced out of the microcosmos because it's expected that you're now an upstanding citizen who'll help maintain the world.

From then on, you're alone with your nightmares, because you're expected to be able to handle them, and the cause of them, by virtue of adulthood alone.

I guess I missed the memo about nightmares stopping at the age of around 8.

And that's the reason for why I'm writing this, because that's one of the ways I have learned to combat it.

Until I was 18, I never talked to anyone about my nightmares, because of the dreams themselves. One of them in particular, as it's been the most consistent of them. It's changed along the years, but in essence it's the same.

In my dream, I am standing in front of a wall. I'm not standing on anything, more like floating in nothingness. The wall stretches unendingly in front of me, the way things can in dreams. I begin to realize that the wall, in some way, is my doing, and while it's never clearly defined for me, I sense that I've built it for a reason.
That's when I turn to look over my shoulder, where I see people. My mother, father, my brother, my friends and those I love or have loved.
None of them say a word, they just look at me, waiting. Blank eyes and taut faces, I never see them move.
I get a sense of restlessness, that turns to worry. They aren't waiting for me to do something, they are waiting, hoping for me to prevent something from happening.

And that's when I realize that I am not awake. Some people enjoy, when dreaming, the realization they are free. Free from rules and regulations, they can do as they will.
I become fearful when I realize I am dreaming, because the comprehension brings with it the thought that I no longer have a measure of control over things around me. That the laws don't apply, that I can take nothing for granted. That I am a subject to the whims of my own subconscience.
And in the dream, I realize that I am standing on the safe side of dreaming. The strange, the wonderful, the mysterious and enticing dreams...and that on the other side of the wall, are the things I fear. The green-eyed wolf made of shadows and angles from another nightmare, the dust-yellow fog that rolls over the hillside in the twilight, The gmork from the Neverending story, the demon in my plush teddybear that causes it to try and savage my throat with jagged teeth. They're all there, on the other side of the wall, waiting to come through.
Then I notice a crack in the wall, that starts expanding into a fine network of shadows.
I put my hands against the wall, trying to hold it in place, hold it together, while I sense the people behind me, silenty staring, and waiting, and hoping. Without blinking, moving, they depend on me to hold this in.

The wall comes crumbling down, I can't keep it together, and from the holes in the wall, shadows flow like a flood into my dream, darkness and teeth and green eyes wash over me, and the last thing I see is the wave roll over all I know and love, swallowing it up. Because I couldn't hold it back.

The people in the dream vary, as real life changes and people part ways, but most everyone I've met from age 18 and onwards stay there.

I don't remember the first time I dreamt this, it's lost somewhere in the early years, but for the longest of times, I didn't tell anyone about the dream, because I remembered the dream and what happened in it. I was afraid that if I told anyone about it, the floodgates would open again, just in reality instead of in my dreams.

I spent years, fearing that what I hid of dark thoughts would one day, if unchecked, flow from me and swallow up everyone I knew.

So I kept it to myself, and in return, it did not spill out.

I write about it now, as I have written on it a few times in the past, to once again try and get some measure of closure to it. By writing it, or saying it, I feel I diminish its power a little, every time, and its hold over me weakens enough for me to breathe normally again.

Unfortunately, I've done it before, and I know, that like an unkillable infection, I can only drain it down to a tolerable level, and keep it there. Eventually, I'll forget about it for a while, and it will come back.

I wonder how this came to happen. What caused me to dream that my own mind would flow through me and bury everyone I know, what kind of nightmare is that? Why would I end up fearing, for over a decade, that I was a conduit for nightmares. What the fuck caused this? It's not normal, I'm fairly certain of that.

At least, for a while now, I can breathe again, with it removed from the back of my mind.

As to the why of me writing about it now?

Simple. I dreamt it again last night. There's a reason for why I usually sleep with the lights on, when I sleep alone. As soon as I wake up, and realize I'm awake, catch my breath and the heart stops pounding like it's trying to escape my chest, I end up cursing my mind, that it won't stop thinking, because awake and asleep, I keep thinking myself into dead-ends.

What this world truly needs...

I've had this idea broiling around in my head for a while;

You know what the world needs?

Fuck online convenience stores that do to-door delivery.
Nevermind the online funeral home sites.

No. I've got it all figured out...

An online store. For emo kids wielding their parents' credit cards. Fuck yes.

Do you have any idea how much stuff I can peddle to these whiny brats?

Picture this:

First off, a classy name like www.darketernalabyssofdespair.com should be a hit. Might want to set up a redirect from something easier like www.uberemo.com or similar, too. After all, while its undoubtably very emo to lack the linguistic complexity of a poly-syllabilic domain name and fail even at that, dyslexic emos should have a chance at this, too.

Second, a design that instill hopelessness and despair. I'm thinking hospital palette here, folks; bleached bone, pastel green, and of course, an almost-black hue of red. (note, the green is just to cause mild nausea in the viewer...call it a minor payback for having to endure emos in the everyday).

Third, and this is where it gets good: What I'd sell.
Obviously, we must assume that any good emo wants music. And self-mutilation tools. Although I'd personally think that listening to bands like Good Charlotte, My Chemical Romance and Evanescence would be punishment enough, these little sufferjunkies need more. I'll give them more. CDs with all of the above, all claimed to be "secret unreleased B-sides". Delivered on self-printed CDs. Every single CD needs to be shattered, though. For self-mutilation purposes. Nothing spells fanboi/grrl as cutting one self with the shards of a CD thought to contain your favourite band's never released tracks. Naturally, this would only be enough for the play-cutters. For the serious ones, you know the ones who don't constantly blog about how they're going to kill themselves horribly, the deluxe item;
Rusty glass shards from a broken mirror.
Fuck yeah. Does it get more emo? I think not!

Also, to the shopping cart needs to be webcams. Shitty USB webcams that never work properly, and only show two colors; Black and some off-chromatic greyscale smudge. Locked at a compression that'd make Dali vomit. And hard-coded to only do 315 x 237 resolution.
I'll sell it under the slogan "I'm so goth, even my WEBCAM is non-conform!"

Also, we need some form of eyeliner that'll instantly cause the victim to cry blood. I'm still pondering whether flour with microscopic glass splinters would work better than mixing black dye with suplhuric acid.

Finally, I'm thinking of selling Absinthe. And by Absinthe, I mean green-flavoured window cleaning liquid. It might not make you drunk, but it'll make you just as sick as if you tried drinking the real stuff to impress your poser friends. The name "Killing Joke" springs to mind. Also, because I know the buyers wouldn't get it, as it refers to a band I don't think concurrent emo stars have (dis)covered and cashed in on. It's either that, or "Final Solution". I like that name as well, though. Maybe Soylent Fairy.

All of this should be promoted under the collection name of "These wounds/they will not heal/my suffering/eternal" or similar, so they can proudly display the set logo and claim that they invented that line, and that it's the epitome of dark poetry. Fuck Lord Byron and Poe, make way for xPunkGothSk8Grrl89x!

Of course, the page needs to have one of those guestbooks full of signings from people who don't exist, who claim that my online store has increased their penis/bust size, made them a major hit with their peers, and caused their parents to ground them for a year. 110% rebel. I'm angling for the grounded part to be the authenticity part on the site, in case you're wondering.

Now, you might ask yourself, as one potential investor asked me;
"But, how do I know that my substantial investment (of no less than a few thousand dollars) will not merely be squandered on absinthe, shrooms and hookers?"
That's actually a pretty damn good question. You don't. Apart from that I've yet to spend money on hookers, and I don't do shrooms. But as was pointed out, "if you have the two first, I think the third comes automatically."

In short, invest now! Help make the world better, one bleeding wrist at a time.

Also, I intend to pack, alongside any order, a step-by-step guide to successful /wrist action. I reckon that if you can't even figure out how to kill yourself through means of whatever I'm selling, you need all the help you can get.

...Did I mention I'm not that fond of emo subculture?

Friday night snowfall

And here I thought it was going to be a boring walk to the 7-11.

Situation: 2 AM, I'm slightly hungry and feel like a walk. Obvious choice is to achieve both, and visit the local commodity pushers at the best time there is to shop overpriced groceries; night-time style.

It never even struck me to look out the window and check how things were looking. Much greater the surprise when walking out the door, and finding a fine layer of snow on the sidewalk.

Of course, a spectacle so beautiful as such deserves my full attention; for just about the time it took for me to simultaneously trip over a tipped-over bike, and subsequently note that someone had already celebrated the snowfall by sacrificing their stomach's contents all over said sidewalk.

Did I mention I live in the 'hood? Chances are 50/50 that it's either high-school, Bacardi Breezer teenage-vomit, or some wretched husk of a human being whose life has slipped through the cracks in every conceivable way who regurtitated the same place mothers take their children to school on mornings.

I guess there's a cloud to every silver lining.

Even that wasn't enough to take away the moment of magic, standing there with snow already melting through my rather leaky shoes. Just a moment of quiet, and of something as cliché as beauty.

The rest of the walk was less memorable, high point probably being the arguably least edible hotdog I have had the misfortune of chomping down on, and my now somewhat soaked socks.

Looking out the window now, I see shades of white illuminated by that sickly iodine lighting from the street lamps. I've missed snow. I'll hate it in the morning when it sloshes around my boots, and I'll hate it when the snow melts, then re-freezes and turns into caps of ice I can slip on and fracture my spine on. Until then, though, I'll enjoy the aesthetics of it.

Also...for that moment of self-appreciation, I look fucking good with snow in my hair. Harrharr.

Yay for self-appreciation. It beats the McEmo times by a good deal.

The end of the beginning

As it goes, it's been a long way in process.

I've almost managed to set up a blog before, but naturally the ideas withered out, and the idea never took off.

This time, hopefully, with a bit more dedication and conviction.

"Now, write it as if you mean it!"

We shall see, anyway. So, what will this wonderful weblog have to offer you, dear reader? Depending on point of view, I might write about something you've thought yourself, writing about something which coincides with your interests, outlooks on life or past experiences, so you can sit there and nod, thinking "finally, a kindred soul" (assuming you don't know me previously), or "Oh ffs, get off your high horse/pedestal/dark emo corner of the room" (if you do know me already). I neither can, nor will, make promises of witty banter or brilliant ideas, nor will I promise this won't contain significant traces of acidity, perfidity and bleakness, if I feel so inclined. The wonder of the internet is just that, we get to present our egoism to the masses, and the closest thing to a hint of responsebility is if we have to own up to our words. Online.

I think I can live with that.

At times, I'll rage against the injustice of the world I see, and I have no doubt that in doing so, in a weblog, I shall change the world for everyone. Because, obviously, my views are superior to others, my thoughts worth more than anyone else's, and this weblog shall become the medium of the revolution!

Wait, shit. I forgot, this isn't hosted on neither MySpace, LiveJournal or DarkDespairingEmoCornerOfTheBedroom.com

So why do this in the first place? I guess it's for the freedom, to put a stake through the ghosts I used to think I'd have to contain. Sometimes, it'll be because I'm bored, or horribly amused, and feeling the need to share it in a more effective medium than spamming anyone I know via instant messengers. Information is optional, and apart from the joy of being able to rant, rave and ramble without the risk of anyone interrupting me, this will also serve for me to laugh at myself from time to time.

So, yeah. Welcome to my little part of the intarweb, coffee vending machine's out of order so please bring your own beverages.