Perchance to Dream

You wake up in the middle of the night, cold and shaking. What’s going on here?

You have just awakened from a dream, in this case a scary one. Did you know that most people have up to five different dreams per night. Some dreams last only a few seconds while others last up to twenty minutes, and they tend to get longer the more hours you are asleep.

Dreams have been seen as a connection to the unconscious. They range from normal and ordinary to overly surreal and bizarre. Dreams can have varying natures, such as frightening, magical, or adventurous. The events in dreams are generally outside the control of the dreamer, and can at times make a creative thought occur to the person or give a sense of inspiration.

Dreams are oftentimes where I get the inspiration for my fantasy short stories. Where else but my wildly vivid subconscious could I create far away worlds and situations?

Fellow witers, do you remember your dreams? Are they at the core of your stories? Inquiring minds want to know.

Resolute Resolutions

With only a few weeks left in the year, some people (and you know who you are) are still striving to complete the list of resolutions that were made back in January.

In my wild and crazy youth, my resolutions were lofty goals – volunteer in causes that would change the world, contribute to worthwhile charities, etc. Hey, what can I say, I grew up in the generation that lived to protest anything and everything. As I grew older, the resolutions became more personal – work toward a promotion, find the man of my dreams, go back to school, write an epic novel. Still lofty, but definitely more realistic.

Looking back on all those promises to myself that I meant to keep, I find that a surprising number of them were completed. Not always in the same year that I made them, but kept still the same.
Perhaps that is how it should be. Goals and dreams cannot always be fulfilled with the confines of a year. Twelve months is far too short a time for the important things in life. It is the perfect time, however, for the small goals – saving for and then taking a grand vacation, buying that something special you’ve wanted for years. When scaled down, resolutions can actually be kept and then proudly checked off the list at the end of the year.

As for me, I still have one more item on my 2011 list of resolutions, but I am not worried. I still have time to accomplish it, and then I can look forward to sitting back on New Year’s morning with one last glass of champagne in hand and writing down my resolutions for the coming year.

How about you? How many things are still on you 2011 list?