—My Dream Journal—

Is a pretty frightening place.

And it is what it sounds like—for the most part. A journal replete with my dreams. Bits of them, some more fleshed out than others, but all in a mishmash bulleted list with little—aside from the occasional date stamp—structure. It began a while back, documented physically with pen and paper. A couple years ago I transitioned to digital, now just stored in my phone as an extended note (see an excerpt below).

I have pretty nutty dreams. In part, I think, because of the prescription drugs I take (for my health, of course). Melatonin helps me sleep; it also delivers on the wild dreams front. Sometimes I see the hat-man. If I weed before bed, the surreality is multiplied. Lucid dreams are not uncommon; about twice a month I enter a dream in which I have agency. If you’ve never experienced one, you’re lucky, I think? As for the other culprit(s), I’m not sure. Most of you reading this (all three of you) are probably smarter than I.

Folks are likely familiar with the in-between—the liminal space between sleep and awake. The right-when-you-wake-up moment when you’re not sure if you’re still dreaming. This moment is what I find to be the sweet spot: the moment to document. It’s fleeting, so you need to be quick. Sometimes this happens seconds before I lose consciousness. Infrequently it’ll occur in the middle of the night. No matter the time of attack, I grab the blue-light monster and jot down all I’m thinking and all I remember—grammar be damned. Sometimes I text myself if the head space can’t immediately locate the Notes. I don’t dwell on it. I go back to sleep, or I wake up. The dream is gone, the memory of it, too.

But the Dream Journal saves the day.

I can review my scribbles and recall exactly of what it was I dreamt—or the gist of it. Many of the dreams I write into short stories. Most of them are body horror or horror-adjacent. Most of them feature spaces and places and creatures and perils of which I cannot conceive while awake. Many find themselves in scenes in my novels. But most are just saved for later. Some are just for me.

And some things, so they say, are simply not meant to be discovered.

Give it a shot. Document a dream. Live the ride. Beware the stranger.

That’s all for now.

-Taylor

P.S. If you want to see the hat-man.

TJH -- 02.17.2025