Summer is here and my entire right arm is completely fucked. Pretty much going to be 40 degrees this week, so I’m hunkering down with a bunch of low-energy left-handed projects and some fierce air-conditioning.

Wish me luck and minimal nosebleeds.

One of the side-effects of warm weather (aside from an inability to retain solid food) is that my sleeping capability becomes markedly worse than usual. Which isn’t all bad, because my dreams have always been the most vivid and plentiful during bouts of insomnia. For those not in the know; the main reason I began drawing as a child was as a means to better illustrate the goings on of dreams to others.

_{Such as this “magic fish” which looks more like a red and blue axolotl.}

Many of the characters I draw originated as recurring characters from dreams- heck, there are entire relationships and story arcs based on happenings pulled directly from dreams.

_{Prime example: Khye.}

Sometimes being unable to sleep properly is frustrating, but for the dreams a little frustration is really a small price to pay. Part of me worries that any sort of intensive medical intervention would result in a possible inability to remember dreams as frequently or vividly.

_{A healdess dog which crawled out from a deep-freezer. Despite the appearance of the animal, the vibe of the dream was one of loneliness and hope, rather than fear.}

So I’ll continue to sleep badly, draw the things that make sense, and tell stories to anybody willing to listen.

Here are four recent dreams which were each loosely connected:

1. I was at the cinema with some friends, and it was really huge. Like, whoa, indoor stadium huge. The screen was at the front of the room (naturally) and shitty smaller screens were kind of scattered randomly around the other walls and ceiling.The important part is the seating, which was set up in straight rows, like normal, except they alternated with one row facing the front of the room and the next row facing the back. The seats facing the back could swivel, but only half way (otherwise they’d hit the ones facing forward). So if the allocated seating landed you in a seat facing the back you’d either be stuck looking at the shitty small screens or get a sore neck from the weird swivelling thing and I was like “WHY THE FUCK DON’T THEY JUST MAKE ALL THE SEATS FACE THE SAME WAY?!” Which was of course ridiculous at the time, because clearly the seats needed to be properly balanced like that lest they all topple over (dream physics).
2. I was playing in a corn field near a farm and saw a turkey walking down the road. Naturally I stopped what I was doing to go and catch the turkey. When I got close he flipped up onto his back and continued walking along upon the tips of his wing-feathers.This came as no surprise as it was a perfectly normal thing for a turkey to do.
3. There was an experimental type of livestock farming where lambs were taken from their mothers and instead raised by cats. The cats would raise them to a certain size, then take them out into a swamp, tear their throats out and drown them. The farmers could then collect the bodies for meat and skins. (It was quite graphic.)These farms had several problems, including but not limited to: – Cats bonding with lambs and refusing to kill them, even going so far as smuggling them out. – Cats consuming entire lambs after killing them. – Cats becoming addicted to lambs-blood and continuously bleeding them before they’re big enough, leading to infection and premature death.
4. A delinquent boy (around 10-12 years old) gets home to find his foster family have moved out of their house and abandoned him while he was in school that day.
   It doesn’t come as a total surprise.

   He gets by day-to-day through stealing, and the occasional murder, aided by a small group of stray and feral cats.

   He later meets up with another boy who is in a similar situation (though more honest and less prone to murder). Begrudgingly he accepts that the two of them (and cats) will have a better chance of survival if they stick together.

   
   _{Sketches of the two boys.}

   As winter sets in the boys quickly realise it is too cold to continue squatting in abandoned residences and start to think of alternative options. Murderboy suggests a motel while Honestboy points out that they have no money. Murderboy suggests either breaking in or simply doing a runner if it is not necessary to pay upfront. Honestboy begrudgingly agrees to doing a runner, but not breaking in.

   
   _{The boys were unnamed during the dream, hence “Murderboy” and “Honestboy”.}

   Several motels turn them away (due in part to their dishevelled state, but also for their entourage of cats).

   Very late in the night they come to a motel where a woman is working. She figures out quickly that they have no money but doesn’t want to leave them in the cold, so offers to let them stay one night for free in a storage room. They agree and she disappears to clear some space for them, returning shortly to show the boys to their room.

   
   _{No lie, there was homoromantic subtext going on between the boys.}

   Murderboy freaks out and has a panic-attack when he sees that there is only one set of bedding laid out, Honestboy attempts to calm him down (because seriously, sharing a blanket beats the hell out of freezing to death), which seems to be going okay until he lands what is supposed to be a comforting hand on Murderboy’s shoulder and inadvertently makes everything 100% worse.

   
   _{They were given cat-shadows because I couldn’t get actual cats to fit properly within the image. [/lazy]}

   After a fit of yelling and crying Murderboy retreats into a state of dissociation and goes outside into the cold, Honestboy and the cats follow with a blanket.

   
   _{Murderboy is the angry one, while Honestboy is politely sarcastic.}

   They all sit in the cold together until morning.

   None of them sleep.

The cinema dream transitioned into the turkey one because that’s what was playing on the screens- so inevitably became what was actually happening.
The turkey dream connected to the lambs one (despite being had on different nights) as both were set on farms.
Then the lambs dream connected to the one about the boys because cats played a large role in both (… and now that the connection has been made I’m prone to wonder if the cats were planning to tear the boys’ throats out at some point).

Now I just need to join the boys dream back into the cinema one and I’ll have the first draft for a shitty art-house film. The next Akira Kurosawa right over here, yeah?
… Not quite?