What Do Writers Dream Of?

I’m lying inside our van, horizontal but not laid straight, listening to the world wake up. The darkness has various shades due to a jagged strip of stormy light seeping through a break in the curtain. 

As the night's excesses wear off, my head throbs relentlessly; my mouth’s bone dry no matter how much water I sip. My mind races on.

Normality picks up a pace outside but I try to ignore the muffled sounds and any thought of thoughts in case they string together into meaning. Reality is still slanted and slurred inside the metal can.

I am physically shattered, but real rest escapes me, instead there’s shattered sleep sliced with shards of fragmented memories: fraught thoughts, blurred lines, snippets of broken conversation and mismatched words. Time slowly ticks by and I cannot help reflect on everything past.

My eyes flicker open and I’m faced with drops of condensation slowly edging down the inside of the glass. I blow out bursts of frosty vapour while my warm legs twitch relentlessly under the duvet.  

As my mind slides in and out of consciousness, it’s hard to pick apart what is real or false, or if I'm actually sleep.  

What do writers dream of? A voice inside my head asks.

I answer carefully. When asleep, not a lot. Our sleep is scattered, our minds overly-active. We churn conversations, memories and aspirations over (and over) in our heads. Our thoughts are too furious for uninterrupted rest.

What do writers dream of? The voice asks again. Don’t they dream?

I open my eyes. 

Yes we dream. We dream more than most, but usually when we’re awake.  

Nisha P Postlethwaite is author of 'The First Sense' fiction eBook based in the Lake District and Cumbria, available from several online retailers. To find out more visit www.nppostlethwaite.com

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