Dreamtime’s Glossary

My daughter, Emily, kindly made this collage of my glossaric insomnia

Night Writers!

Some nights just as I drop off to sleep, words roll into my head.  My heart sinks, I know this sensation.  This is not what my mother called the witching hour, around 3 am, when the gremlins call.  That is the stuff of bank balances, ignominy and indebtedness.  This is a new affliction.  Well new, but now aged enough to be a familiar.  It started not long after I began to write my first book.

They show up individually, lone footloose forerunners

But that’s it, I’m done for.  I hold my breath; the corps is on its way.  With centrifugal force, they arrive: words multiplying, gathering speed, aligning and coalescing. 

I don’t know which sense to nominate.  I don’t hear the words, I can’t see them, yet there is nothing ethereal about this transmission, they rattle my skull, insistent, teasing and robust.

Sleep is unthinkable  

Some nights, I greet them with wondrous joy.  Phrases and couplings that have eluded me by day are child’s play now.  Other nights, I groan because if the muse has insomnia, it will be a long night for me. 

I reach for my notebook to capture dreamtime’s glossary and try to think what I have eaten or imbibed, what I have done or not done, to summon the word brigade.  If I knew, perhaps I could sell it as a cure for writer’s block and having triggered battalions; make another fortune if I could find the remedy and send them all back to barracks and the bookshelf. 

Do your dreams match your occupation?