Imaination

Alright As you probably know I spend a lot of my time watching online reviewers. I love the amount of effort, planning and work these guys put in to it. For some people, like Spoony (AKA Noah Antwiler) and the Nostalgia Critic (Doug Walker) it's their jobs. week in and week out they produce these things. Some are funny, some are thoughtful but most of all they are honest creative endeavours.

I enjoy their work immensely, so much so that every so often I try my own take and if you look hard enough you'll even find my prototype video here. The thing is among these people there is James Rolf, AKA the Angry Video Game Nerd and I occasionally watch his video's too. On monday he posted this and it reminded me of something. I've always been able to remember my first nightmare, and much like his it's inspired my creativity. Mostly through writing opposed to his video out put but it's on the same wavelength.

It was the first night in my own room, I have no idea how old I was at the time, I was so exited. I had a bed rather than a crib, I could stretch, throw myself about, roll, jump and do whatever I wanted. Naturally I conked out before five minutes passed by. The dream was absolutely uninspired, at the start, I just dreamed that the room was bigger. A lot bigger, like the walls had retreated away from me. The half light from the street outside my window cast orange shadows across the room and I began to see things moving in them. Dark terrible things clawing their way out of some unimaginable black void. Gargoyles warped and twisted out of the walls like monstrous cracks in the wall.

There I was, nothing but a blanket between me and stone faced minions of hell. I ran, I ran out of my room and into the hall but it wasn't my house anymore. I could still see the familiar familiar bookshelves and the stairs, but they had moved. Like a jigsaw puzzle that had been put together wrong. The imps and daemons came closer, pouring into existence like a disease. Their shadows in the half light withering paper and ageing it like the passing of aeons.

My parents room was gone, the only hope was to escape, but before I could one of the shadows touched me... and I woke up.

Needless to say I didn't get any more sleep that night.

It wasn't as impressive as Rolf's dragon, but it had a hell of an impact on me. I've grown to love that sort of imagery, the stuff that goes beyond what CGI can do and talks directly to your imagination, tapping into that primal thought deep within you. Not locked on the other side of the screen or imaginary pixels dancing to some program running across a hard drive. There always is and always will be something more physical about books and their connection to the reader.