Well, so far, we've learned that it's not a good idea to get too lost in your dreams. And now, we're starting a new series, on why it's a good idea to honor the expiration dates on the goods, that you purchase in the stores.
But it has come to our attention that we can now go online and provide Interactive Fiction. But not like you've seen before. Sure, you can get insight from Outer Space via, say, an awesome emissary like Nancy of the Zeta Reticuli,who absolutely knows that there is life out there (as well as knowing that being human means more than just being able to give the call to your Government).
It seems that the future is "interactive fiction". For example, has anybody read one of those "Twist a Plot" novels? That's a tease. More later.
Kenneth Wayne Parker
1000 Smith Level Rd. #E16
Carrboro, NC 27510
P.S. I hope nobody got lost in those links.
March 3, 2014
February 22, 2014
New Series of "Speculative Fiction": "Expiration Dates"
Hello, I'm planning on writing a "few stories" into this BLOG, in the next few days, on the topic of Expiration Date. Before I get to that, I want to go into the topic of "Speculative Fiction": The person who I attribute this to is Harlan Ellison.
Expiration dates. How often do we see these, when we purchase "stuff" at a grocery store? Milk, for example. If it's within its "range", and kept correctly cold, it "should" be OK. And if not, the store you purchase it from should "cheerfully" refund your money. However, if you leave it in the "fridge" too long, where it's more than, say a week and a half past its "expiration date", drinking it can become "an adventure"!
But, especially after the first story, I plan on going past, just food. For example, there was an awesome movie "a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away", called Logan's Run. It, in turn, is based on a book, about 10 years before the movie, also called Logan's Run. I actually like the book better than the movie, but there's a lot in common, but other things that are different. In both, you aren't "supposed" to grow up, past a certain age. (The actual age is different, by the way). In the movie, you go out, in a blaze of glory, in something called, "The Carousel" (with awesome Special Effects, of course). In the book, it's a "pleasure-inducing toxic gas". Less special effects, but more believable.
Another example of a Horrifying "expiration time" is the movie, "the Wizard of Oz". In a late scene, the Wicked Witch of the West has captured Dorothy and has her locked in a room. She turns over an hour glass, and "informs" Dorothy that, when the sand runs out, her life ends! And THAT turned into the movie that gave me the WORST nightmares of ANY movie in my LIFE! (And I have a LOT to compare it to, including the Living Dead series, as well as some Italian Zombie "flicks", including ones by Lucio Fulci). And WHY would I have worse nightmares from Wizard of Oz, than say, "Day of the Dead"? Because I have NO idea WHAT was to happen, when that sand ran out. What would it feel like? How long, between the "first sensation", until the "final death"? And so on!
Anyway, I'm not sure how many stories it will take, for me to get my ideas across. But the first one will begin with the idea of, say, milk or a sandwich, and what happens when the time runs out.
Thank you and best regards,
Kenneth Wayne Parker, Carrboro, NC
Expiration dates. How often do we see these, when we purchase "stuff" at a grocery store? Milk, for example. If it's within its "range", and kept correctly cold, it "should" be OK. And if not, the store you purchase it from should "cheerfully" refund your money. However, if you leave it in the "fridge" too long, where it's more than, say a week and a half past its "expiration date", drinking it can become "an adventure"!
But, especially after the first story, I plan on going past, just food. For example, there was an awesome movie "a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away", called Logan's Run. It, in turn, is based on a book, about 10 years before the movie, also called Logan's Run. I actually like the book better than the movie, but there's a lot in common, but other things that are different. In both, you aren't "supposed" to grow up, past a certain age. (The actual age is different, by the way). In the movie, you go out, in a blaze of glory, in something called, "The Carousel" (with awesome Special Effects, of course). In the book, it's a "pleasure-inducing toxic gas". Less special effects, but more believable.
Another example of a Horrifying "expiration time" is the movie, "the Wizard of Oz". In a late scene, the Wicked Witch of the West has captured Dorothy and has her locked in a room. She turns over an hour glass, and "informs" Dorothy that, when the sand runs out, her life ends! And THAT turned into the movie that gave me the WORST nightmares of ANY movie in my LIFE! (And I have a LOT to compare it to, including the Living Dead series, as well as some Italian Zombie "flicks", including ones by Lucio Fulci). And WHY would I have worse nightmares from Wizard of Oz, than say, "Day of the Dead"? Because I have NO idea WHAT was to happen, when that sand ran out. What would it feel like? How long, between the "first sensation", until the "final death"? And so on!
Anyway, I'm not sure how many stories it will take, for me to get my ideas across. But the first one will begin with the idea of, say, milk or a sandwich, and what happens when the time runs out.
Thank you and best regards,
Kenneth Wayne Parker, Carrboro, NC
November 20, 2009
The Saga of Amelia -- or -- Getting Stuck in a Dream
The Saga of Amelia
--- OR ---
Getting Stuck in a Dream
Cautionary "fiction" story by Kenneth Parker Begun January 18, 2007.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Forward (by Ken Parker): Dreams
I am convinced that everybody dreams. I consider it to be a necessary part of the infrastructure of life. Now, dream recall is another story. In fact, dream recall is an art that can take time to develop for many people. The reason for that is that the entire memory system in a dream may be completely different than for regular waking life. In effect, the dream can have its own past and its own projected future that has nothing in common with waking life.
I have been interested in my dreams for much of my life. I started a semi-regular dream journal in March of 1980 and have never regretted it. I found that the best way of recording my dreams was to have the journal right next to my bed so I could start writing before I allowed thoughts of my upcoming day to come up. That is actually quite important because what can quickly disappear is what I will call the "card catalog" for the dream memories. In other words, the dream memories often disappear all at once.
There are many kinds of dreams, as well as many triggers for dreams. Obviously, what was said, done or even eaten during the day can have a major effect on the quality of dreams. But I have had dreams that did not appear to have anything at all to do with my waking life. And dreams can obviously be pleasant or unpleasant. Nightmares come to mind here. Also, people report recurring dreams. I have not experienced this phenomena myself, but firmly believe that it represents a person's Essence (or "higher self") attempting to get his or her attention. Dreams can be highly symbolic, but I do not believe they have to be. I believe, for example, that some dreams may be memories of other times, often from other lifetimes or from other parallel versions of the current lifetime.
I will now discuss one kind of dream I have experienced frequently because I believe it to be central to Amelia's story. It is what I will call an "Epic Dream". My definition of an Epic Dream is a dream that 1. takes up a lot of subjective time, 2. includes a large amount of scenery, and 3. includes a number of people who are true participants, rather than just being "extras". In addition, I can often search my "dream memory" while I am writing the dream down to get a "back story" that may go back years before the part of the dream I am experiencing. Some of my Epic Dreams may take many pages to write down.
One special kind of dream is what is known as a Lucid Dream. It is where a person figures out, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they are dreaming while the dream is in progress. I have experienced this myself more than once. The dream becomes extremely vivid at that moment, and it often becomes possible to gain control over the dream. I bring this up because Amelia became lucid in the dream that is key to this story. In fact, this story is a cautionary tale to those who regularly have Lucid Dreams because it points out a possible pitfall to be careful of.
There are many resources available to learn more about dreams. For example, "Lucid dream" brought up 448,000 entries in a Google Search. Wikipedia has a number of articles on dreaming: [1] and [2] among others.
--------------------
Chapter 1: A Dreary Life
Let me introduce myself. I am Amelia. I am a "Past Life" of Ken Parker. At the time of this story, I was a suburban housewife with nothing really to look forward to. I had made some bad choices, most notably my choice of husband, who tended to be more interested in liquor than in work, family or social obligations. Unfortunately, that made life at home quite unpleasant. The one silver lining is that we had no children. If we had, that would have made things even worse when my husband lost his job. He was not home much, preferring to be out with his "buddies", but that was preferable to the frequent tantrums he would throw when he did show up at home.
When I look back, I can certainly find that I could have handled things much better than I did. I hated confrontations, and so did not handle the situation with my husband very well. This takes place a couple of hundred years ago and so we did not have the benefit of pop psychology. But looking at it from my side, I would have been described as an "Enabler", as I would do what I could to "smooth things over" for my husband. We also did not have the benefit of Alcoholics Anonymous, but that may not have helped anyway as it normally requires the alcoholic to recognize that there is a problem, which my husband absolutely did not do.
After my husband lost his job, my life became even more dreary than it originally was because we quickly ran out of resources for living. I consider this the direct trigger for what came next.
--------------------
Chapter 2: My Dream Life
Even as a child, I had a rich, fantasy life. My upbringing was a lot better than my married life. In fact, I was encouraged to talk about my dreams, which encouraged me to remember them on a regular basis.
Once I was married, my dream life felt almost more "real" than my waking life and I often would be upset when I woke up from a dream, because it was usually quite a bit more pleasant than what I had to look forward to at home. In fact,
Looking back, I can see that I was approaching a breaking point, especially after my husband lost his job. If I had not done what I did, I would have likely had a nervous breakdown.
--------------------
Chapter 3: Getting Stuck in a Dream
Before the dream that is key to this story, I started doing everything in my power to dream as much as possible. It was easy to do because my husband was not home much in the last days, allowing me to sleep by myself. I would nap as much as possible during the day and only do the minimum necessary to get by in my waking life. After the money ran out, I really lost all incentive to accomplish anything at all. As I stated, I was at a breaking point.
And then it happened: A most magical dream on a different planet. I was not even human in this dream, but an androgynous (neither male nor female) creature that could climb trees easily. While the dream was in effect, there were a lot of inhabitants on this planet, as well as lush vegetation and lots of animals. While the dream was occurring, I figured out that I was dreaming. It happened when my body signaled me that it needed my attention. At that point, I was equally aware of myself on this planet and in my bed. But, now knowing that I was dreaming, I immediately made the decision that I did not want this dream to end. Ever! So now, with the knowledge that I was dreaming, I did everything I could to ignore my body's signals to come back. And it is not really easy to do that, as the body can be quite insistent in its demands. But I stuck with it. And finally, my body stopped complaining and slipped into a coma.
--------------------
Chapter 4: The Coma
I only got the details of what happened next at home when I recently got a chance to review my lifetime. What is a coma? I now know that a coma is the human equivalent of going into hibernation. Bears go into hibernation every winter but humans only normally go into a coma when they are either badly injured or gravely ill. But every so often, a person who is healthy will go into a coma without an external reason. That is what happened in my case. My husband finally came home and found me like that and promptly called our doctor. I was taken to a hospital where I died two weeks later.
--------------------
Chapter 5: Back to the Planet
I had an immediate feeling of relief when my body stopped complaining. And the dream continued. But gradually, the other inhabitants of the planet started dying out or otherwise disappearing. So the dream started losing its magic. But I was quite stubborn about staying on that planet. I'm convinced now that I had some opportunities to leave the dream, but ignored every one of them, because I absolutely did not want to go back to that dreary housewife life.
So it took a number of years for me to figure out that I was now alone on a planet. I now know that this was a "prop" for a dream, but it was one that is maintained, as far as vegetation is concerned. But life started getting a bit lonely.
. . . . . . . . .
And now, I am stuck on a planet, hoping to one day be rescued.
To Be Continued...
--------------------------
Footnotes:
[1] (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream for more information).
[2] (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucid_Dreaming for more information).
------------------------------------
--- OR ---
Getting Stuck in a Dream
Cautionary "fiction" story by Kenneth Parker Begun January 18, 2007.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Forward (by Ken Parker): Dreams
I am convinced that everybody dreams. I consider it to be a necessary part of the infrastructure of life. Now, dream recall is another story. In fact, dream recall is an art that can take time to develop for many people. The reason for that is that the entire memory system in a dream may be completely different than for regular waking life. In effect, the dream can have its own past and its own projected future that has nothing in common with waking life.
I have been interested in my dreams for much of my life. I started a semi-regular dream journal in March of 1980 and have never regretted it. I found that the best way of recording my dreams was to have the journal right next to my bed so I could start writing before I allowed thoughts of my upcoming day to come up. That is actually quite important because what can quickly disappear is what I will call the "card catalog" for the dream memories. In other words, the dream memories often disappear all at once.
There are many kinds of dreams, as well as many triggers for dreams. Obviously, what was said, done or even eaten during the day can have a major effect on the quality of dreams. But I have had dreams that did not appear to have anything at all to do with my waking life. And dreams can obviously be pleasant or unpleasant. Nightmares come to mind here. Also, people report recurring dreams. I have not experienced this phenomena myself, but firmly believe that it represents a person's Essence (or "higher self") attempting to get his or her attention. Dreams can be highly symbolic, but I do not believe they have to be. I believe, for example, that some dreams may be memories of other times, often from other lifetimes or from other parallel versions of the current lifetime.
I will now discuss one kind of dream I have experienced frequently because I believe it to be central to Amelia's story. It is what I will call an "Epic Dream". My definition of an Epic Dream is a dream that 1. takes up a lot of subjective time, 2. includes a large amount of scenery, and 3. includes a number of people who are true participants, rather than just being "extras". In addition, I can often search my "dream memory" while I am writing the dream down to get a "back story" that may go back years before the part of the dream I am experiencing. Some of my Epic Dreams may take many pages to write down.
One special kind of dream is what is known as a Lucid Dream. It is where a person figures out, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they are dreaming while the dream is in progress. I have experienced this myself more than once. The dream becomes extremely vivid at that moment, and it often becomes possible to gain control over the dream. I bring this up because Amelia became lucid in the dream that is key to this story. In fact, this story is a cautionary tale to those who regularly have Lucid Dreams because it points out a possible pitfall to be careful of.
There are many resources available to learn more about dreams. For example, "Lucid dream" brought up 448,000 entries in a Google Search. Wikipedia has a number of articles on dreaming: [1] and [2] among others.
--------------------
Chapter 1: A Dreary Life
Let me introduce myself. I am Amelia. I am a "Past Life" of Ken Parker. At the time of this story, I was a suburban housewife with nothing really to look forward to. I had made some bad choices, most notably my choice of husband, who tended to be more interested in liquor than in work, family or social obligations. Unfortunately, that made life at home quite unpleasant. The one silver lining is that we had no children. If we had, that would have made things even worse when my husband lost his job. He was not home much, preferring to be out with his "buddies", but that was preferable to the frequent tantrums he would throw when he did show up at home.
When I look back, I can certainly find that I could have handled things much better than I did. I hated confrontations, and so did not handle the situation with my husband very well. This takes place a couple of hundred years ago and so we did not have the benefit of pop psychology. But looking at it from my side, I would have been described as an "Enabler", as I would do what I could to "smooth things over" for my husband. We also did not have the benefit of Alcoholics Anonymous, but that may not have helped anyway as it normally requires the alcoholic to recognize that there is a problem, which my husband absolutely did not do.
After my husband lost his job, my life became even more dreary than it originally was because we quickly ran out of resources for living. I consider this the direct trigger for what came next.
--------------------
Chapter 2: My Dream Life
Even as a child, I had a rich, fantasy life. My upbringing was a lot better than my married life. In fact, I was encouraged to talk about my dreams, which encouraged me to remember them on a regular basis.
Once I was married, my dream life felt almost more "real" than my waking life and I often would be upset when I woke up from a dream, because it was usually quite a bit more pleasant than what I had to look forward to at home. In fact,
Looking back, I can see that I was approaching a breaking point, especially after my husband lost his job. If I had not done what I did, I would have likely had a nervous breakdown.
--------------------
Chapter 3: Getting Stuck in a Dream
Before the dream that is key to this story, I started doing everything in my power to dream as much as possible. It was easy to do because my husband was not home much in the last days, allowing me to sleep by myself. I would nap as much as possible during the day and only do the minimum necessary to get by in my waking life. After the money ran out, I really lost all incentive to accomplish anything at all. As I stated, I was at a breaking point.
And then it happened: A most magical dream on a different planet. I was not even human in this dream, but an androgynous (neither male nor female) creature that could climb trees easily. While the dream was in effect, there were a lot of inhabitants on this planet, as well as lush vegetation and lots of animals. While the dream was occurring, I figured out that I was dreaming. It happened when my body signaled me that it needed my attention. At that point, I was equally aware of myself on this planet and in my bed. But, now knowing that I was dreaming, I immediately made the decision that I did not want this dream to end. Ever! So now, with the knowledge that I was dreaming, I did everything I could to ignore my body's signals to come back. And it is not really easy to do that, as the body can be quite insistent in its demands. But I stuck with it. And finally, my body stopped complaining and slipped into a coma.
--------------------
Chapter 4: The Coma
I only got the details of what happened next at home when I recently got a chance to review my lifetime. What is a coma? I now know that a coma is the human equivalent of going into hibernation. Bears go into hibernation every winter but humans only normally go into a coma when they are either badly injured or gravely ill. But every so often, a person who is healthy will go into a coma without an external reason. That is what happened in my case. My husband finally came home and found me like that and promptly called our doctor. I was taken to a hospital where I died two weeks later.
--------------------
Chapter 5: Back to the Planet
I had an immediate feeling of relief when my body stopped complaining. And the dream continued. But gradually, the other inhabitants of the planet started dying out or otherwise disappearing. So the dream started losing its magic. But I was quite stubborn about staying on that planet. I'm convinced now that I had some opportunities to leave the dream, but ignored every one of them, because I absolutely did not want to go back to that dreary housewife life.
So it took a number of years for me to figure out that I was now alone on a planet. I now know that this was a "prop" for a dream, but it was one that is maintained, as far as vegetation is concerned. But life started getting a bit lonely.
. . . . . . . . .
And now, I am stuck on a planet, hoping to one day be rescued.
To Be Continued...
--------------------------
Footnotes:
[1] (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream for more information).
[2] (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucid_Dreaming for more information).
------------------------------------
When judging these stories...
When judging these stories, please judge by content and not by form.
I am currently studying "Verbal Comportment" (mainly for public speaking, but some for writing skills), and this will include some advanced English classes in the future.
Thank you and best regards,
Ken Parker, Seattle, Washington
I am currently studying "Verbal Comportment" (mainly for public speaking, but some for writing skills), and this will include some advanced English classes in the future.
Thank you and best regards,
Ken Parker, Seattle, Washington
The Alida Chronicles
This BLOG will be a preview of my Science Fiction stories.
I figure that I can Start them here, and then, if people are interested enough, somebody might slip me an Advance or some such.
Take a look at my other BLOGs (About Me is the route), and you should know that I have many topics to choose from for my stories.
Thank you and best regards,
Kenneth Parker, Seattle, Washington
I figure that I can Start them here, and then, if people are interested enough, somebody might slip me an Advance or some such.
Take a look at my other BLOGs (About Me is the route), and you should know that I have many topics to choose from for my stories.
Thank you and best regards,
Kenneth Parker, Seattle, Washington
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