Dream World by Julie D Cooper

J D Cooper is from New Zealand, but has lived in England for nearly as long as she spent in her homeland. She confuses people with her accent, adores the month of September, and plays with dogs at every opportunity.   When she is bored she fiddles around on the harp and reads fairytales. 

Currently she is finishing her collection of short stories, The Wishing Tree and Other Dreams, helped by her nightly excursions into the dreamworld.

The funny thing about dreams is that they can be very confusing. 

When you are a voracious dreamer, like me, and you are shocked into wakefulness by your alarm clock right in the middle of another tantalising excursion into the neverworld of your subconscious, well, it takes at least half a day to extract yourself from it - like trying to get cobweb off your fingers - and re-enter the real world.

But that’s not the most confusing bit.  The most confusing bit is when, a few days later, or perhaps a few months, you remember something that happened to you, or something that somebody told you, and you begin enthusiastically relating this to whoever is listening.  Only, shortly after you launch into this tale from your ‘memory’, you begin to have doubts as to whether in fact it is a memory of a real experience that you had in the real world, or simply a dream.  Turns out, more often than not, it was a dream.  (At this point you seriously begin to wonder if you’re developing early-onset dementia.)

This is not an uncommon occurrence for me; it’s an everyday one.  Which explains why my life frequently feels like a strange blend of fantasy and actuality, and why you might see me wandering around town with a faintly puzzled expression.  But it does make me wonder about the thin line between illusion and fact.  And the ‘fact’ that our perceptions are as stable as the sand at low tide: who’s to say that what we think happened, happened? 

Fortunately, many of my dreams come conveniently story-shaped. They unfold like a narrative.  They generally have that tantalising blend of being based in a familiar, recognisable world, with something unexpected and dark and fairytaleish thrown in just when you least expect it.

You can get a taste of my dream-tales on my Facebook site, where I quote from them weekly. There is also an interview at Brit Writers.  If you are curious, and want to read more, please tell me - I may even start my own blog site and put a few stories on it in their entirety.  I have only just started looking for a publisher, but I understand this can be a long and arduous journey. 

In the meantime, I will keep dreaming.  

Julie D Cooper