Dreams

[reggyneo4]

Ok I have a question for as many users as possible.... When you were reading the book did you ever have dreams or nightmares? if so when did they start and what were they about? if you don't mind.

I started to have then right after the tattoo ink closet part and i don't member what they were about but they were REALLY scarry and I woke up in a cold sweat many night until i got to the part where the walls started to cave....

This also seemed to have happend to my english teacher who i let read the book after me.

Did this happen to any one else or only us two? images/smiles/icon_confused.gif

[Sintina]

Whoa. That's freaky and stuff.

I don't remember any of my dreams while I was reading the book except a couple, and they weren't scary.

In one, my dog (who was pregnant at the time) got loose and started running with all these other German Shepards that just appeared on my land out of nowhere and I was trying to figure out which one was the father of my dog's puppies... then in the same dream, my boyfriend's dog had puppies (but that is WAY WEIRD, because my boyfriend's dog is a BOY). He didn't like hearing about that at all, but I had watched his dog have puppies in the dream... so his dog got a sex change in my dream.

Then another one was about me being in a beauty pagent, but it was only the county beauty pagent (but it's really weird because I'd NEVER even consider being in a beauty pagent!) Then, somewhere along the way, I was being hunted and chased by these evil, mean people and my friend from Maryland showed up with her friend's pre-mature baby... then all sorts of weird stuff started going on, I don't remember it all. But I was mad about something when I woke up.
My boyfriend blamed that one on the pizza we ate the night before. images/smiles/icon_rolleyes.gif

[jewels]

While reading the book, I woke up every morning feeling like I was stepping out of a horror movie. It was insanely COOL! Of course, I'm naturally a bit demented images/smiles/icon_smile.gif It freaked me out---glad to hear this has happened to others! images/smiles/icon_eek.gif

[Ardis_21]

I haven't had any nightmares since I've began studying HOL, but I have noticed something strange. I'm normally very date and time conscious. My internal clock can't be beat. But, since I've been reading this book, I often find that I have no idea what day it is. It's not a big deal, but I think worth noting to all who care.

[reggyneo4]

I know what you mean about the internal clock thingy... When ever i was reading the book it seemed like time went twice as fast...or slower depending on how you look at it... I would read what felt like 30 minuts i look up at the clock it is almost an hour and a half later...

But back to the dream thing does anyone belive that your dreams/nightmares were caused by the book? images/smiles/icon_eek.gif

[monkphin]

i know what you meen about dreams ive had them since reading..i dont know what point i was in when they started and i dont remember what they were...whats worse is that a few years ago i felt like i was being watced whenever i was alone at home.and frequently had mild hallucinations(no i wasnt using anything at the time)thing is since reading the book they have started again.i run upstairs to bed at night(sounds stupid i know but hey paranoia is pretty powerful)worse of all i stopped reading the book a while aago(about a week and a half ago)i know i know i will start over in a few days but my point is since stopping reading my nightmares are becoming far worse and more vivid and personal....maybe im just going slowly(?)insane..its understandable considering the circumstances ive found myself in recently(i dont wanna go into it)or maybe...i dunno ive gotta try and finish the book i know the answers in ther somewhere

[ThomasJ]

For the past two nights I've had realated dreams, in which everyone is obsessed with some mathematical equation. For some reason, one can only enter integers into this equation. This equation starts as an obsession, and is followed by madness.

In the first dream, I tried to enter ¶ into the equation, and was only driven more insane.

It was not until I threw the damned thing away that I finally became a functioning human being again.

But last night...I must have started all over...

(Sorry, just thought I'd add to this madness that we've seemed to embark upon recently.)

[casseigh]

i've met johnny in various states of his descent into madness in my dreams. i'm writing one of these dreams into an art project i'm doing. it's from johnny's point of view, which you can find here (http://home.ec.rr.com/iliadawry/cassandra/johnny.html). i'd appreciate any criticism on writing style, which still needs some work (hi kimba!), and remember, this is a work in progress. you can send comments to me here (casseigh@hotmail.com?subject=heaven's near nearing johnny), and if you want to see the project that's in from the front, you might look here (http://home.ec.rr.com/iliadawry/cassandra/). (for the record, the whole shebang is about cassandra from the iliad.)

in any case, yes, the house itself and the themes of the book have been invading my dreams since i started it, and maybe even before when a friend was reading it.

cassie

(edit: adding a feedback address & a link to the cassandra project front page.)
(edit again: clarification & typos. ugh!)

[ January 10, 2002: Message edited by: iliad awry ]

[ January 10, 2002: Message edited by: iliad awry ]

[Silence]

I'm fairly lodgical.
I don't belive that the book would be a cause of anything such as nightmares.... or time loss. Or some such thing.
If any of those things would happen, it would be my fault, and not the book. I'm barely 150 pages into it.

And in yet, last night, I had a nightmare.... I drept that there was a young girl in my house, and she was dying. It was a terminal illness, or something. She was no one I knew personally. She told me that she didn't want to die alone, and she convinced me to take this poison that would slowly kill me. They were a handful of large red and yellow round pills.
I took them.
And I was dying.
In my nightmare, her face, the walls, were moving slowly, and blurry.
It was so vivid and real.
I was really dying.
Then it occured to me that I didn't want to die. That I didn't have to just because of her.
Then I woke up.
Thats how it always ends....

[Twix]

Hey, Iliad, just wanted to congratulate you on an ever-cooler story. images/smiles/icon_smile.gif

Kimba

[Mirrorshades]

Hmmm.... The first night after I started reading HoL, I had a dream which was dominated by cats. I was carrying my friend`s dead body through an airport at first, and when I finally got to rest, it turned into a cat. I saw my four year-old neice, and she morphed as well. There were a variety of others in the dream, ranging from the cute to the wolfhound-sized black terrors.

Interpret as you will....

Mirrorshades

[badlydrawnboy01]

Not so much dreams, but today I was taking a shower and started to get the feeling that if I closed my eyes to wash my face the walls were going to come together and crush me. Also, I just bought "Haunted" by Poe today, and in one of the recordings, it talks about November 6th and Anne. My girlfriend's name is Ann and her birthday is November 6th. Eerie.

[Francis Glances]

I sometimes see ghost-spiders. Does this count?

[gumboeditor]

I never had nightmares that I know of (of course, I have trouble remembering my dreams and they're usually extraordinarily odd anyway...). When I read the book, I usually started around midnight and then read for about an hour or two each night.

I had A LOT of trouble falling asleep the nights I read from the book, two nights in particular: the night after reading Johnny's "experience" in the tattoo parlor and the time when Navy went into the maze on his own (the first time) and Daisy called him back to the house.

As my wife slept peacfully next to me, it seemed that the walls of our bedroom were moving in and out and I swear I could see things moving in the hallway that leads to our bedroom. We live in an apartment complex and there are always a lot of weird noises you can hear from neighbors and the street outside...so I'm not sure how much that influenced my imagination.

I was struck by the power of this book's words to make the still room around me come alive. Very cool. Very creepy.

[Jasmine]

I shouldn't have read it all the way through at once. The dreams got so bad, and I couldn't sleep more than an hour or maybe two at a time. I woke up panicking, but the only thing I could remember about most of the dreams was feeling terrified, chased, and dying. The book began to occupy my thoughts at strange times (I would think about it while eating, in the shower, having sex, weird times...) and even now, that I've finished it, the dreams haven't stopped, though I don't normally wake up more than once or twice in the night now. I've never read anything like it, or had anything have this kind of effect on me before.

[Gdansk Man]

i never had dreams because of reading the book but a couple of times I found myself uncounciously (sp?) drawing doors and houses on my papers...and it kept me from being able to go to sleep and braought back my fear of the dark (which i've still to shake) this just proves what a magic fantastic piece of work this is
cheers

ps. while i was reading the book for the first time my SR year of HS I found that Lude reminded me of one of my friends so I had her check the book out from the library and a couple of weeks later she dropped out of school and ran away from home...the only thing she took from home (or so her litle sister told me) was the library's copy of HoL...true story

[ January 15, 2002: Message edited by: Gdansk Man ]

[Pulseless]

dreams dreams dreams. when i first purchased this book i spent three days doing nothing but reading it and drinking enough coffee and NoDoze to keep me up while i did. when i finally did sleep i had a bizarre dream, the central focus of it being an incredible fountain that spurted hallways instead of water. the sprays of liquid hallway overlapped eachother, which created bends and fractures in their images. in the many hallways i saw a darkness, the walls were ashy and for some reason yellow, like an old parchment. i wondered and remained at the fountain for a bit.

yeah, weird one. try explaining to your friends what a "fountain of hallways" looks like...

-P-

[myrkvith]

I haven't had dreams as much as I seem to have waking experiences that are rather like small incidents in the book--displacements of objects, or changes in space that I, and others can't explain. The book didn't scare me--it's so much like how I've always experienced life that it seemed completely real and oddly comforting. It's like it began manifesting itself in my waking life in a concrete way. For example, I was helping a friend take measurements of her apartment for new carpet (she's never noticed anything strange about her apartment before),during the time period when I was rereading HoL for the second time. She and I both measured the main room and her bedroom and wrote down all the measurements--we double checked everything. When the carpet guys came the next day with the carpet cut to fit, it wasn't big enough for the living room by almost a half inch all the way round--of course they didn't believe that two women could possibly have measured correctly (even though I've done stuff like this dozens of times). So we remeasured and the room was, well,a little larger than when we measured it the night before. I thought about the book but didn't say anything--and she didn't know about it. They recut some carpet right there from rolls they had with them. (she had to slightly change her color selection). I don't know if the room has gotten any larger--at least she hasn't said anything. Things like this have always happened to me in different ways--but reading HoL seems to make them more present in material life. I don't know why.

[kilroy]

the dream cycle has been very surreal since my experience with the book which has had a very musical effect on me not sounds but more meter and rhythm which has found its way into my subconcience- dreams of falling always at night very vivid and cold. thoughts of feeling completely alien but aware during dreams- as though i recognize that i am not from here. an odd flow of the ebb and flow of anxienty and peace often spilling over into one another. sounds vague but very palpable

[JanexBastion]

Does MZD have any idea what he's created? The book has serious effects on one's state of mind. Personally, I felt the same way Johnny must have felt at times, like by not finishing the book I would be driven insane. As far as dreams go, I haven't had any. As far as the book's part in dreams, I find very possible. The mind tends to dwell on things it doesn't completely understand, or that it finds utterly interesting. These thoughts are then manifested in the dream sequence. I believe its a commonly held belief that dreams are often made of things that the mind (concious, subconcious, or otherwise) is focusing on, or has focused on. I've also heard that it sometimes takes months, even years before one truely starts to feel the effects of reading HOL, and I eagerly anticipate such effects myself.

[stillaspider]

I've had quite an odd experience, I had a dream concerning the book BEFORE I read it.

About a week or so before hand I had a dream about a two story house that I and my wife were living in( I don't have a wife in real life).

Anyways, the events I remember from the dream include me staring at the bedroom from the hallway, as a passage way from the bedroom to another room has appeared. I didn't see it appear, I just know it did and I know it's wrong for the same reason I know the woman beside me is my wife and that I love her. Dream logic or whatever. So I decide to go into the room and check out the passage way but I get a few feet towards the passageway and everything gets cold, black and suffocating, I can barely crawl out into the hallway, but I do and the next bit of the dream is my wife and I crying in each others arms.

I thought the dream was weird when I had it, but then a week or so later when I read the book, the dream really freaked me out. I had no previous knowledge of what the book was about except for the cover pics.

Also, less freaky, and less similar, a real life situation. the house I am living at now has started moving within the past month or so. Might be just a shift or foundation problems, but some walls are cracked and some don’t line up exactly anymore.

[Azrael]

i've only had the book affect me twice. once, when johnny tells the reader to keep his/her eyes focused on the paper, and to imagine that the house is breathing on the back of his/her neck, ready to pounce. and two, oddly enough, at toms 'death', if the house can really kill anyone. there was something odd about his last words. they were kind of creepy. as for dreams? i have been dreaming a considerable ammount since reading the book, but nothing all that disturbing. i find myself dreading the process of opening my bedroom door in the early morning, when it is dark and cold in my house (my breath doesn't frost, but it comes awfully close). I dash up the stairs on occasion, but i do that after watching unsolved mysteries, so that's no extraordinary achievement. what really helps me get through the day is to think that z wrote this. it's from his mind. that's that. what you experience is all that fear and hate bottled up, lost somewhere inside your head. this book was just a bottle opener. look at it that way, embrace that fear. relish in it.

Az

[dungeon_master88]

These dreams have crept their way into my subconscious as well. It's funny, Johhny told us that this would happen. I find myself thinking of nothing else other than the book, I have had at least one nightmare that I can remember.
I was in a house with some other people, some I knew and others I don't. What is strange is that, for some odd reason, all of us had guns much like that of Holloway's. I really can't remember the story, if their was one, of the dream though I do remember getting a keen sensation of being trapped within too much space. I do not normally suffer from Agrophobia but after that dream I felt that paralyzing fear. Much like Johnny's attacks, as quickly as it came, it was gone again.
Johhny warned us.
Ardis_21... I know exactly what you are talking about. I began reading Hol at about 11 pm the other night and the next thing I know is that it is 3 am. Of course, I continue to read, work in the morning be damned. 4 am rolls around, in the blink of an eye, and I finish my night with Jed's jaw being blown off.
Pleasant bedtime thought eh?

[bologna36]

I had three dreams, all very similar, and strangely enough, at the same times in the book as other people mentioned already. After the tattoo parlor experience, after the part where you're supposed to just block out all distractions, and imagine the claws and teeth and all that coming toward you, and when Navidson first goes into the hallway alone. The basic idea of the dreams was me, standing in the hallway, walking slowly through it, walking around, and hearing the growl. Then, like I was watching a movie, I would see a pair of red eyes, a glistening set of dripping, razor-sharp teeth, and some unnaturally long, sharp claws, running through the hallway like a giant wolf closing in on its prey, me. It moved like a giant wolf, but it didn't have a body. It wasn't just that the body was so dark I couldn't see it, but rather the body literally didn't exist. The eyes, claws, and teeth were just suspended in space and running down the hall like they were attached. I saw the claws closing in on me, from behind. And even though I was watching it happen, I couldn't warn myself. Then I watched myself turn around just as the claws pounced toward me, and I thought I was going to die right there, when suddenly the hallway extended incredibly quickly, pulling me away from them. Doors began swinging shut from the left and right between me and the claws as I was pulled farther and farther away from them. Finally, as the hall stopped moving, I glanced behind me, and could see the staircase, very short, and the exit back into the house just a few feet away from the top of the stairs. Then I would wake up.

What really got to me, though, was one day when I was biking at night to get some ice cream. I live in a fairly small town in Maine, and I was reading the book in November, so it was pretty cold. I was biking on a small road that has very few streetlights. I hit one stretch where there are no lights. I couldn't see a thing, even the road in front of me. I was cold, biking faster than I should have been at that point, and couldn't see anything, and suddenly, I was absolutely convinced that the road was going to simply open up in front of me into a giant abyss and just swallow me up. Fortunately, it didn't do that. But I was sure it was going to.

[sevaeLfOesuoH]

I've been having fraction dreams.....they started about a month after I read the book. I started seeing things happening and then later on when I was awake they actually happened. I'm not sure if it was the book or not that caused these fractions, but I never had them before I read the book and now I seem to have them all the time.
I actually consulted a therapist because of this because some of the things I saw were quite disturbing to me....especially when they actually happened in real life....I couldn't figure out for awhile why things seemed familar to me and then I soon realized that it was something I dreamt.
Anyhow, I have since reshelved the book and decided that I would read it again when my mind seemed more clear. I'm not sure I took to this book as most others on this board have, but I'm sure my time will come. Until then....

[liquidr]

I've had a recurring theme in my dreams about a house very similar to HoL, since I was 5. A friend of mine is Seattle has also shared this same theme. We only found out by chance through conversation. Has anyone else felt like reading HoL was a homecoming, not a visit? images/smiles/icon_eek.gif

[SpydurPoet]

Well. I see I am not crazy. When I read the book the first time, time ceased to be time and instead it seemed to be a gellous liquid that I existed in. The second time, the dreams came, of a house I lived in about ten years ago. In every dream there was someone trying to break into the house, but never through the door, always through a window that was about 20 feet off the ground. Amazing how one book could have such an affect on so many people.

[pootietang]

You know what gave me nightmares the other night. Rosemary's Baby. I had never seen it before but someone else on this site mentioned it and I was like o yeah I got to see that film cuz I never have. I guess I was tossin' and turnin' in bed and the cat (who is apt to sleep at the foot of the bed when my girlfriend is not present) took the brunt of one sweeping toss and I heard meow-gurgle traipsing off, no doubt feeling insulted and dejected. I think what creeped me out the most about that film was (although, there is the very astute hint that perhaps the whole thing still is just in her head) that everyone, husband included, was against her. To anyone who has ever seen this film, you will realize how scary and dangerous old people are. To others who are yet naive, rent this flic and see for yourself that our elders are not to be respected but to be feared. Evil - straight up evil. Anyways, I think that having nightmares from HoL is contingent upon what your own fears are. If you have fears of being lost or the dark then it definitely can play on that. Balir Witch most certainly did, so affectively so that I believe many who didn't even know that they had a fear of getting lost realized it throughout the watching of the film. However, for others who derive pleasure and find an eerie, paradoxical comfort in their anxieties, those specifically pertaining to concerns regarding the unknown would find less and issue or measure for nightmares then they would dreams allowing access to the scenarios which they could integrate themselves within via their predisposed identifications with the characters (is Navidson or Truant) and their fictious circumstance. That is to say, some may dream, almost in lucid fashion, according to their wishes to be placed in the same situations as the characters in whom they have found a profound relative relationship with. Others consider their dreams as nightmares because they are working through a certain trauma. So the former is about indulging oneself in a macabre delight while the other is as Freud suggested, a from of repetition compulsion. The former is a desire while the latter is a practice intended to, in a sense, practice getting the hell out of a situation. It would be cool though if the text actually had the possible effect of dispersing such supernatural phenomena. The one, kinda waking dream though, that I could remember having has to do with all the booty Johnny and Lude got. I mean,remember that one list that Johnny gave of Lude's conquests. Damn, dogg, that's like a lifetime for most folks.

[5th_Child]

So far I have only had one dream that directly relates to the book, in which I was eternally turning around to see something behind be, but whatever I was trying to see remained fixed on the edge of my vision, even as I turned. I have however found that a recurring dream I have been having for several years has changed dramatically, though there is a little to much detail to go into here.
I have had a lot of sleeplessness though, especially the first night after I began reading. I will wake during the night, and then find sleep imposable due to what I can only describe as fear. Not specific or rational fear, but simply fear. I toyed with the idea of stopping reading but found that I simply had to finish the book, something I did as quickly as possible to allow myself to begin to recover. I have only just finished, so I am yet to find if my sleep patterns will change.

[Twix]

Hee, I haven't experienced any HoL dreams yet. On the other hand, I have had two very pleasant dreams of meeting Poe and MZD (well, okay, only Poe in the first one--MZD was walking down a path, I was yelling for him to slow down so I could talk to him and he didn't hear me). In my dream, they were both very wonderful, nice people. images/smiles/icon_wink.gif Boy, I'm a total fanboy, aren't I?

Kimba

[furtherbum]

the night i finished the book, i had two nightmares. of course, in reference to silence´s <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote
I don't belive that the book would be a cause of anything such as nightmares.... or time loss. Or some such thing. , of course i realize that it is my own mind and not the book. and my mind was a little ragged after finishing the book (the last session consisted of candles and philip glass craziness). i awoke from my first dream in a cold sweat...had to lay towels on the bed to stay dry. turned on my light to try a little more comfortable reading. john knowles´ stories of prep school boys didn´t work, and i awoke two hours later from the second(now 5 a.m.) screaming "help". both dreams involved dead family members. i have nightmares every couple of years (so certainly not common), and this was my first since high school probably. the next night i slept better, but still somehow catch myself unconsciously drawing black boxes from time to time.

[bologna36]

Well, I've just finished my first re-reading of the book, but yesterday, before I'd finished it, I had a bit of a frightening experience, and there's no denying that a lot of the things that were going through my head were directly influenced by HoL. I'm not going to bother typing them here, though, because I wrote it in my online diary, and it ended up being four pages long. So if you want to read it, the entry is right here (http://http://bologna36.diaryland.com/house.html).

[Mena Averi]

I don't remember the dreams anymore, but the nights were disturbing while reading House of Leaves. The nights that I read, my boyfriend and I would both have strange dreams to report to each other upon waking, or I would awake up to him talking or moving wildly (arms flailing and legs moving like he was running in his sleep). These events didn't occur before I read the book, and haven't happened since I finished. The strangest thing is HE hasn't read the book yet. I wonder what will happen when he does.

[Mena Averi]

I thought I would add something else, Dream/House related.

The reason that this book intrigued me in the first place, is that it reminded me of a recurring nightmare I had over the course of a couple of years. (they ended about 4 years ago)

Here it is if you're interested:

I am in the first story of a 2 story house.
There is an oppressive sense of danger. I have the urgent need to get out of the house.
Every door I open leads to a different room or hallway. In each room there is another danger/fear. (the walls close in or the floor slides out, or the doors won't open and you are trapped.)

Every time I dreamed this, there was some other danger/fear to conquer in a different set of rooms. But it is always the House itself that embodies the danger. Once I was able to face the fears the house offered, I was able to leave through the front door, and I never had the dreams again.

I never told anyone about these dreams.
When I started reading House of Leaves, I felt like the author somehow tapped my brain.

[jsburn]

i can't say i've had any nightmares, cause i rarely dream, or remember dreaming, but i have noticed little things, little sounds i hear, creaks and moans of my house. and the little dark spots in the corners of my eyes as i look around, the little hallways right there, but when i look they are gone.

jsb

[starfish]

ok i just started reading HOL again i bought the book 6 months but when i started reading at first i felt like my whole personality was changing. i also started to look at my house differently.but then i didnt have dreams that seemed out of the ordinary. when i started to read again i didnt feel weird but my dreams were strange. just this morning i woke up not knowing what day, time, month, year....it was.though i did look at the clock, the time felt wrong in some way. i guess its not really the dreams but how i feel when i wake up who knows maybe im crazy images/smiles/icon_redface.gif images/smiles/icon_confused.gif

[hitme]

the book so far hasn't produced any bad dreams for me. But the cool thing was, um, I guess, that JT's dreams reminded me so much of nightmares I've had in the past. Of being afraid to sleep because of the nightmares at times. The true synchronicity was when, towards the end of JT's narratives, he talked about a blackness waiting to devour him in his sleep. THAT struck home because I've experienced a similar sense of terror - and I ain't afraid of nothin.

[Sockhat]

from the time i started reading the book up until now ive had a lot of dreams about hell and dying. as some know, i do record these dreams... but they have all been strikingly similar. ive seen an old woman, i could smell the burning flesh of hell or ive spoken directly with god begging him to change the past. i think this might be a reflection of a need for understanding. maybe i want to understand my life or the book.. im not sure. it hasnt always been a nightmare.. but some mornings i have awoken afraid of what just happened. anyone else have anything simiar to this??

[magnus_jor]

i did have a nightmare, actually, but it only lasted a few seconds, or, at least my recollection of it is that long...

i was standing in a huge, dark, chamber, stone walls. in front of me was a man in a dark red robe, i couldnt see his face, but he left a threatening impression. he was holding a candle, the only light in the room. i woke up.

[fatwoul]

I had a couple of dreams that I mentioned in here ages ago but which were destroyed during my purge.

I had another dream last night though:

I am in a small room, which looked like an abandoned bar or cocktail lounge. It feels like it is in the loft of a building - the walls curved inwards as they reached the ceiling - I guess it is the top room in a tower or something.

There is a door in one wall, up a small flight of steps (3 or so). The door is very battered; it has scraps of plywood covering where the glass panels had once been. After a lot of forcing, the door opens outward onto a small metal-grill platform - like a fire escape. However, the platform does not have any safety barriers, so I am scared to step onto it for a while, for fear of falling.

I walk out onto this platform and find I am on the inside of an enormous abandoned building. From the inside, it looks like an enormous tenament building with all the floors taken away, to create one huge room. On the far wall I can see window holes, but they are black - either painted black or the space beyond is dark. There seems to be no floor - or if there is it was so far beneath me it is lost in the dark. I don't look up, but I get the feeling that the ceiling had many large holes in it, because there is enough light to illuminate the gaping room.

The whole time since discovering this room, I have been filled with an inexplicable horror. I am completely terrified but for some reason I cannot control my movements. Finally, I regain control of myself and stumble backwards into the attic bar. I fall down the little flight of stairs and then I wake up.

[hello?]

Not nightmares, but a dream anomaly: In dreams, supposedly the dreamer isn't allowed to read small print. I've heard that any reading at all is supposed to be impossible in a dream, because the part of the brain which allows you to read isn't active during REM sleep. Anyway, I've had no fewer than two dreams in the last month in which I not only read, but read small print as well. In one dream I was reading an email and I distinctly remember reading the word minotaur in red (there's no escape from this damned book!) but I was wondering if anyone else reads in their dreams and if they can explain this, since most sources tell me it's impossible.

[fatwoul]

Our minds are supposed to fill in blanks. Thats what they are really good at. For example, half of the world you see each second is "filled-in" by your brain - particularly in your peripheral vision.

It is also thought that memory can work in a similar way - the brain doing its best to fill in the blank spots in a recollection.

I have often wondered if this is the case with dreams too. I mean, the brain itself creates the entire dream, but is all that information "saved" by the memory, or is the recorded memory of a dream also flawed? Does the brain still fill in the blanks, in order to make sense of the dream when you wake?

For example, hello? How do you know you actually dreamt that you read small print? How can you be sure that your memory didn't just record it that way to allow you to more easily process the story when you woke up?

It could be that in the dream itself, you looked at something and suddenly had a new understanding. However, you may remember this as you looking at that thing and reading small print. Your brain might do that just because that would be a more normal occurance, and easier for you to understand.

The brain is so cool. I wish I had one.

[Rockunro11]

Hello. Aren't you glad I found the right thread to post in instead of starting a new one? Hmm?

Anyway, I just woke up from said dream and I haven't touched the book in a week. So it makes me wonder if you can ever fully separate yourself from the book, if you so choose of course.

In my dream... I was on a weird trip to Washington D.C. and in my hotel room I was reading HoL. Only this version had illustrations or something, and it was just pictures of scared faces. Some were just figurines or something but all were human in form. And another weird thing is that there was a mask in all of their hands. (Party mask, phantom of the opera mask, gas mask) Then on the last page of illustrations there was a shiny, reflective peice of metal that had me in it. Weird, huh?

[Mars]

Of couse dreams are rare around here. But when I do dream, the images are always somehow dim and evicerated. Any somewhat normal or slightly satisfactory dream always transforms into a nightmare that awakens me in a state of panic or greif. Take your pick.
It would have been extremely unlikely that reading HOL would have changed any of this, and it didn't. It only fed my imagination until it was so full I thought my subconsious would burst. And maybe, in some ways it did.
I dream often of hallways, not always long ones, but merely dim ones filled with people. The crowds make me feel the most alone. Empty hallways make me feel more at home.
One dream I was the hallway, and I couldn't move, but somehow I could see everything that went on inside me. Greusome things, tormenting my mind until at last I shook myself awake by trying to get away. Oh how I'd like to get away.

Or would getting away really solve anything?

I can't remember when it was that sleep was my escape from life. Now everytime I lie down I become petrified of the long hours to come.

But so has been my life.

I haven't finished HOL though I've read it from cover to cover three times. Maybe it's just not finished with me.

[EternalSolace]

I don't remember my dreams. I wish I did, but nothing helps. I'm sure I'm having terrible nightmares.

Something else happened to me last night. At 2am I couldn't fall asleep so I went to my desk and started reading threads here on this board. For some reason, I took out my scissors and started scraping the open sharp edge against the back of my hand. As if I had an itch to scratch. I then drop the scissors and I can hear them clank on the floor. I spend 20 minutes searching around the room, under my bed and behind my desk looking for them, but can't find them.

When I woke up this morning, they were sitting on top of my copy of <font color="blue">House</font> of Leaves, sitting right next to my desk.

Hope this helps.

[Farehamer]

images/smiles/icon_eek.gif

Yep, had a fair few of those. I was living in Canada when I first read HOL (now back in England) and my girlfriend tells me I stood bolt upright and threw the bedcovers across the room in the middle of the night. I then proceeded to stamp on the bedcover trying to kill something. Apparently I looked scared stiff and refused to have any of the cover on me for the rest of the night. I went on to have around 1/2 dozen of these odd nocturnal occurences in the time it took to read the book, and recall being terrified of 'something' in a number of my dreams at the time. Odd, but there you go. Perhaps because HOL is such an intense and gripping read, part of the psychological terror in the book the reader gets wrapped up in, remains in the mind when it's dreaming.....I'm sure someone more informed than me would have a logical explanation....

[artistique0309]

Yeah, I had really bloody nightmares.

Like one of them was where I was kidnapped by this insane guy that killed people just to watch them suffer. I tried to escape but I was tied to something. He would show me bloody pictures of the people he killed.

That nightmare freaked me out so bad that I had to take time away from the book just to feel a little normal. images/smiles/icon_mad.gif

[RainingLight]

Did you watch Red Dragon?

[artistique0309]

nope, I haven't seen Red Dragon yet.

[The Disgruntled Frenchman]

How 'bout identity?

If you haven't, then don't. It's a waste of time.

If you have, I'm sorry for not warning you sooner. images/smiles/icon_sad.gif

[Arielle]

i get nightmares if i've taken sertain medications: anti-histamine, sudafed (spelling?), gravel.
a while ago i realized my nightmares are allways black and white, even when i think back to my nightmares as a kid , those were black and white too. And even when my normal colour dreams are scary it doesn't freak me out because i know they're not nightmares.

i don't remember what happend or specific effents in my dream but i know exactly how i felt: terrified, not as much of dying but more of failing, having to do something i know i can't, but i HAVE to. even when i'm awake it goes on, i'm still terrified but i don't know of what, i can't close my eyes for the rest of the night.

sometimes in the day at school or at home i'll have a flash of terror, set of by something i'm doing, that set off a memory of my dream (or something real) but in a second it's gone and i don't know what it is or why but i'm scared to death.
i got these flashes a lot during reading HOL

the nightmares aren't HOL related since i've had them since i was a kid
but since we're talking about dreams
i was curious if anyone else has dreams/nightmares in which colour plays an important role.....

[RainingLight]

I know that I've dreamed in color, because I often have nightmares that I'm in a big school or hotel or some sort of building and it's in ruins but the carpet is usually red and I always notice, as I'm trying to find my way out, that the carpet is red.

More often than that, I notice smells in my dreams. Usually burning things, for some reason. It's really strange sometimes.

[dancinpetefurious]

curiously, once i started reading this monster my dreams and nightmares stopped. i've heard that the descent (or ascent) into insanity begins with a lack of dreams. its amazing to me that this one book has made such an impact on my (and apparently many others) life. i suppose it only affects you as much as you let it and i have let affect me deeply. oh well, maybe lack of dreaming is better than nightmares. at least nightmares have some substance.

[silentinsomniac]

i know that the book has given me nightmares, but they are few and far between.
however, one in particular stands out in my mind. not because of what happened in the dream, in fact i can't remember even having a dream at all. oh no no no, it was waking up from the dream that stuck with me to this day.
i woke up in a cold sweat, shivering slightly even though i had no windows open to make the room cold. now i didn't sit up screaming or anything like that. in fact, it was the opposite. i couldn't move. couldn't even open my eyes. i knew i was awake, but i was so utterly petrified that i could do nothing but lay there in bed. i even remember wondering why i was so scared, but the question was only in my mind for a moment before it just didn't matter anymore. have any of you ever been so completely scared that you actually couldn't move? let me tell you, it's not a fun thing to go through. although, in retrospect, it was pretty frickin' awesome. anyways, i must have laid there in bed like that for a good 5-10 minutes before i forced myself to open my eyes and go have a cigarette to calm me down.
i have never been that scared in my entire life. ever.
mostly though, the book has simply kept me awake at night. weather it's from actually reading it, or just laying in bed thinking about it, i can't seem to fall asleep before at least 3:30 to 6:00 in the morning. trust me, that sucks when you have class at 8:30.

[Debbie]

ive had a couple of weird dreams due to the book, but ive mostly had really weird real life experiences. ive only been reading the book for two weeks now, but it has definately played a part in my life. i have a library of sorts set up in my closet...similar to the one karen green built in the book. well, i was layin on my couch reading facing the closet (the door was closed, mind you) and i heard this awful thump. i ignored it cause weird things happen all the time, but i heard an even louder thump after a few minutes. when i opened the door, the books at one end of my shelves were on the floor. totally freaked me out. it actually looked like the shelves had shifted.
the second weird experience happened in my boyfriends car. we were on out of florida to south carolina to watch the leaves change colors on the way (its a weird tradition)..well i was behind the wheel and he had fallen asleep, i guess i had lost track of time and whatnot but i ended up in virginia, parked in front of this cute little house. i regained my sanity and hit the highway before my boyfriend woke up. when we got back to florida, that experience was drivin me nutty, so i grabbed my book to check out the description of the house, and the house i was in front of was on the spine of my book.
my nightmare however, was a bit different. other parts of my life have been tied into the book in weird ways. in my dream, im in the house, in the hallways actually, and out of the shadows comes my twin sister. shes tattered and covered in shadows, but i know subconciously that it was her. anyway, it is tied in with johnny's dream of the drunken frat boy with the hatchet. my sister has a hatchet, and she snarling at me, like a rabid animal. i cant move in my dream, i just stand there screaming ' please dont hurt me, come back to me, i love you!" she never raises the hatchet, but when she gets close enough to hurt me, she vanishes and i wake up, screaming. awful thing is, i had it again last night, and today is the anniversary of her death. creepy.

--Kai

[Themnoria]

GAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!
GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT!!!!!
YOU'RE! NOT YOUR!
images/smiles/icon_mad.gif images/smiles/icon_mad.gif images/smiles/icon_mad.gif images/smiles/icon_mad.gif images/smiles/icon_mad.gif images/smiles/icon_mad.gif

[Themnoria]

WHY DON'T YOU JUST ASK HOW TO SPELL IT??????!!!!!

[DeathandMaiden]

I tell you what the problemo is: I think the whole "getting nightmares" thing is overrated, a device used by MZD that was taken too seriously by some people, and they got nightmares.
Now I've had dreams where I've been run through a meat grinder, where I'm pounding the mattress with (actress/girlfriend/your mom) and she turns into a giant pillow full of eyeballs, or the obligatory "I'm in school naked and nobody is paying attention" dream. So far no HoL dreams. And, while musing over potential HoL-based dreams is interesting, as interesting as talking about any kind of dream can be, how prevelant the HoL nightmares really are. Tho, who's to say who is dreaming what, and what they're not dreaming, definitely isn't myself, but, still, HoL isn't a very dream-provoking book, unless your're Johnny Truant.

[Themnoria]

I had this awful nightmare that suddenly everyone forgot how to spell...which caused the end of the world, of course.

[DCIRevolutionChick04]

I haven't gotten any nightmares, I've done too much dream research and study for those. And my internal clock has always been a bit off. But something has happened to me since I picked up the book two years ago. I can't stop reading it. I'll put it down for a few weeks, but I always end up picking it back up to check something out, and then I end up reading it through again. I don't know how many times I've read it, but it is a bunch........ I'll even read through all of the notes.

[Necrofaery]

I just had my first HOL dreams and it was kind of weird. I was being taken on a tour of House of Leaves and my girlfriend was there with me. All of a sudden some guy came in telling everyone to move and stuff and some people said that since there was no more contact with the outside world they had established their own police. The "officer" ordered everyone to put things down and was barking commands when he noticed someone with a pipe and "fined" them for having it. That was about it, but I did get an overall creepy and desolate feeling about the place I was in... it had ashen walls and we all had halogen lights.

[Themnoria]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Necrofaery:
[QB] said that since there was no more contact with the outside world they had established their own police. The "officer" ordered everyone to put things down and was barking commands when he noticed someone with a pipe and "fined" them for having it. That was about it, but I did get an overall creepy and desolate feeling about the place QB]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>


Ha ha. Sounds like this board.

images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif

[kjtendyke]

It was a few months ago when I started reading this book, so I can't remember exact details, but I remember having nightmares about this book. I vaguely remember myself in the tattoo shop where Johnny worked as if I was Johnny. I felt like I was going crazy.

At some point in the book I had to stop reading it because I couldn't differentiate(sp?) between what was real, what was a dream and what I had read. I started thinking I was really loosing my grip. Now, after finishing the book, I wish I had been able to read it straight through. So, I just started reading it again for the second time. I think I can do it this time images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif

[WhenNothingWas]

<center>Koyote Smoking

http://www.angelfire.com/realm2/etherealtemple/KoyoteSmoking.jpg </center>

[nothingmuch]

I always have dreams and I usually remember most of them, but a little while ago I posted a particularly HoL-oriented one that I had after spending a little while on this board for the first time since I read the book. You can read it here (http://www.houseofleaves.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=002596).

[Scarf]

Mmm, a first post.

Dreams are frightfully interesting things, influnced highly by what we see and do durring our waking hours, dreams strike me as the subconcious's way of riddling out things so that it makes sense within it's own frame of thinking - a translation.

My dreams - those I share with Wolfgang, a character I write - are a tad on the abnormal side, though I'm not sure I can say that, seeing as all dreams are less than 'normal.'

Silence. Never is a sound heard - not while the Tree stands, black and brooding against a sepia tone sky, cloudy, hazed due to the sun behind thin clouds. The tone is somber - yet not distressing. As said, it is seen in sepia, grain runs across my view, (Though I am unsure if I a myself, so I'll just say 'the view.') like an old film, ever, still, ever silent.

A noiseless wind blows through the branches of what I gather to be a large oak. Barren and empty, it feels as though it is winter, but unsettling is the fact that there is no sound, as hard as the wind blows, I cannot feel it, unlike watching televison, this all surrounds you, and yet you are unable to take part in the moving - the hearing - the feeling of all that is around you.

A single leaf.

This is the only thing of colour in the dream, Brillant orange, spotted with flecks of brown, it sways, desperately clinging to the tree in the ferocious wind.

Suddenly, the sense that it no longer cares, and realizes that at some point, it too must fall comes upon the leaf, without a mind. And it falls.

Carried off into the wind.

All sounds imaginable pour in at once, snapping you awake, causing you to cover your ears, your skin afire with the sensation of a thousand ants crawling, biting, devouring.

Though you are awake, you do not ever escape the memory of all the sounds, and the intense pain.

...You just started reading the book last night. It sits, unmoving as any book would on your nightstand.

My dreams... are perhaps... Normal.
My mind deals with things the best way it can.

[JuggaloStatix]

whoa..a noob post...kickass...

[Yakhater]

I’m glad to see no one has reamed you out for your question yet. I may remind some of you that I posted a very similar query not but three months ago, only to receive the ire of one “Fat Wall.” But that is all in the past. In the present, the present present, I have a nightmare to share with those not weak of heart:

It began in a vast field or plain, most likely in Hell. I had in my hands an axe that bore a remarkable similarity to the weapon wielded by a particular dwarf in a particular Oscar winning movie. Being in Hell, I decided it was up to me to inflict the worst of pain on the damned souls surrounding me (did I mention that I was surrounded by damned souls?). I hacked and slashed my way through the surprisingly corporeal and squishy souls of millions upon millions of child molesters and genocidal maniacs, until not one was left standing. At this point I saw before me an enormous staircase boring into the ground out of which came a smallish gentleman with a medical coat, a briefcase, and funny little glasses. At this point I think it’s only fair to warn you that this is the type of dream usually experienced by certifiably deranged people, and I apologize for any imagery that may offend. Do not read on unless you are a serial murderer, if you are a serial murderer, I bet you’ve had dreams like this before.
The little man opened his mouth and moved his lips. He made no sound but I realized through lip-reading or some such thing that he said to me, “now the work begins.” He opened his briefcase, removed a medical sewing kit, and proceeded to sew an arm to the hole that had once contained someone’s genitals, prior to the fury of my axe. I watched him work for what seemed like far too long, sewing body parts to other body parts and creating bizarre crimes against decency. He never needed to use a scalpel, for I had done all the slicing for him. I must drive home how grotesque the entire situation was. He sewed bodies into physiologically impossible and mind-bendingly graphic poses. Each body was covered in shimmering sweat and plasma while gelatinous mixtures of bodily fluids and excrement clumped around the seams he had made with his coarse, black, plastic thread. Most of the bodies were sewn into disgustingly sexually explicit positions, which I will not share here. I am sure many of the readers here can imagine the horrible combinations that could be made with headless, limbless torsos and plenty of biological odds and ends to stick in assorted orifices, both natural and axe-inflicted. He also seemed to delight in crudely changing the genders of particular individuals. To finish up he made himself a chair and couch from the most intact bodies, in the most obscene setup he could find for them. He took off his filthy coat, under which was a brand new perfectly white one and set off down the stairs he had come from. As soon as he left the bodies began to move and groan, and I turned around to see a tower of flesh begin to sway. The people somehow came back to life and were coordinating the movements of their estranged heads, arms, legs, torsos, organs, and genitalia to crush me beneath them.
At this point I woke up and tried unsuccessfully to banish the dream from my thoughts, all the while staring at my closet. I was sure the fields of Hell and the giant staircase were inside.

So in conclusion, I am a dangerous psychopath. Avoid me at all coasts, because I must be some sort of sick monster to have this in my subconscious. images/smiles/icon_mad.gif Grrrrr!

[Scarf]

images/smiles/icon_wink.gif Was bound to make a post sooner or later.

[Me? Need to edit? Lies.]

[ March 03, 2004: Message edited by: Scarf ]

[fearful_syzygy]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Scarf:
your skin afire with the sensation of a thousand ants crawling, biting, devouring.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

<p align=justify>formication Path. [f. L. formīcātiōn-em, n. of action f. formīcāre (see <font size=1>FORMICANT</font>).] An abnormal sensation as of ants creeping over the skin.</p>

<font size=1>(a common side-effect of extensive use of cocaine or amphetamines)</font>

[Scarf]

Huh, never knew that. Though I'll look further into why that is now.

Personally I think it had to do with the fact that I dealt with ants crawling about in the kitchen earlier in the day.

And I hate ants.*lol*

[cb]

I had a dream. It was really short, but it reminded of House of Leaves. All the dream was, was this:

All I saw was black, like a screen. Then appearing before my eyes and in my ears, were words typed and a voice that read them. The feeling and mood to this was sad and dark, and of regret and apathy. This voice and these words, although appearing external, felt to me like they were mine, and I was telling them to someone. All it said was this:

I guess you know what fell out, .

me


That was my dream.

[ March 03, 2004: Message edited by: ANTI subv3rt1054 ]

[hello?]

I have lots of dreams about finding super rare editions of House of Leaves, like the green edition in which Karen's name is written in green, spiky letters, tucked away in an obscure corner of a bookshop. I always get so excited in the dream and very disappointed when I realize there is no such edition, and then pissed because I'm awake and the world is shitty once again.

Coincidentally, I found a hardcover edition on a bargain shelf at Hastings for only 8 dollars. It's not a special edition or anything, but it's still my most prized possession.

[Yakhater]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote
The feeling and mood to this was sad and dark, and of regret and apathy.

How can something be regretful and apathetic. I gonna wait for an answer. Also, what an awesome dream that must have been.
Also, no one found my dream fascinating or worth commenting on. I'm not finding the catharsis I was hoping for.
Why doesn't everyone recognize the fact that my life and my emotions is infinitely more fascinating than anything else that has ever been posted. Oh, well... your loss I suppose.

[cb]

Yeah, it was a short dream, obviously, and far less complex and bizzare than most of the dreams I have.
In using the words regretful and apathetic I was only trying to descibe the feeling I felt when I expirienced this dream. It was not a common feeling for me and I was trying my best to describe it, some feelings are hard to descirbe, at least for me.
It was regretful in a way, almost like something bad or wrong had happened, and regret was felt after that bad event- regret for not changing something, or preventing it. And then apathy, I felt apathy in some way, like something bad had happened and I thought or knew nothing could be done to take back what had happened or make it better. So although I felt regret I was also just apathetic. passive, and accepting of the situation, sort of depressed- in the dream.

..or somthing like that, my dreams and feelings in them, don't often make much sense.