Recalling dreams has always come easily to me. But to this day the one that stays with me the most is my first nightmare. It happened because of the show Ghostwriter.
I had my first recurring nightmares in preschool. They involved the witch from Disney’s Snow White waiting to snatch me in my laundry room. Sleep is a major mindfuck for most children. I was convinced I didn’t sleep until I was three because I couldn’t remember it. But I’ve had vivid dreams and bad nights since, at least, then.
In The Book of Nightmares, helplessness must often appear--how terrifying to be aware and immobilized, lying entombed below ground as the earth thuds on your wooden coffin roof, unable to speak or scream. Or to live in the diving bell where the world around you is all ocean and movement, but you cannot join in: shiny slips of fish quicksilvering past as sharks bare sharp teeth jagged as bright coral reefs beside the long undulations…
A male University of Toronto student filed a claim with the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal accusing his Women and Gender Studies professor of discriminating against him when she failed him for never having attended the course. Wongene Daniel Kim claims that Professor Sarah Trimble’s course was the only one that would fit in his schedule, but when he arrived on the first day, he discovered he was the only male in the class. “I felt anxiety,”…
I was the scared, skinny thing waiting for the bus post-apocalypse. You were the panhandling hunchback with peg legs and excellent tumbling skills. You showed me your member after I declined to give you my bus fare. I’m sorry. I have the money now and would love to take you out. You were dressed like Alex DeLarge from Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange and working the cakewalk. Was it just me, or did you call my…
