Dreaming of Wonderland

It's been an amazing dream week for me. Following an animated dream (a rarity) the other day, and a flying dream (just as rare), last night I was rewarded with a Dream of Wonderland, a place I've hardly ever visited.

Things there weren't so pleasant in Wonderland. Everything was a little off and totalitarian. There was this dark-haired little girl creating everything with her imagination. She was pretending to be my friend, but I could sense she was evil, or trying to trick me, and that I knew I was being held in this ever expanding Emerald City kind of building for something devious.

Certain that I was to be boiled alive, I decided to flee. I found that when I out-raced her imagination, I discovered flaws in the scenery...parts unfinished...deformed characters...that type of Coraline-esque thing. I eventually escaped only to find the card soldiers in my own front lawn. I followed them to the elaborate Martian-like rock pit that magically appeared at would-be the top of my driveway. The formerly flat card soldiers were then transformed into old men set to judge me. They had conducted a computerized vote over radio waves. All of the evil girl's imagined people voted and I was guilty of course. Of course, the ruling was initially "Off with his head" which they chanted in sunstroke laziness. Before my execution, I somehow managed to sink through the center of the sunlight that blazed upon us.

I woke into another dream. This time I was in a flea market type boardwalk carnival setting. I saw the evil girl again, this time dressed in one of those cheap Disney Snow White costumes. She was very nice. She offered me a hot dog. Like Alice, I realized it must have been a dream.

Why do I share this? After all, nobody likes to read about dreams. But if you kept with it, I'll tell you. You see, several key elements of this dream were directly influenced from scenes in my new novel. Dreams have always been deeply connected to my writing. I often use elements from my dreams in novels. As a reward, I often have the joy of getting some of novels in the form of dreams.

I truly believe Wonderland exists. I don't think Lewis Carroll invented it. He simply gave a name to the place where our imaginations spring from.