WORMS DIGEST: Summer
Dreams have been on my mind a lot this month.
My mum has the wackiest dreams of anyone I know. Whenever we've shared a room, she'll suddenly laugh in her sleep or start singing strange lullabies. The next morning she tells me she was racing away from monsters in a flying car, all excited. I've noticed that these dreams seem to come with an incredible burst of creative energy, which makes me wonder: could it be that the wackier someone's dreams are, the more imaginative or creative or imaginative they might be?
I've always been really jealous of artists and writers who have wacky, vivid dreams. For example, Mary Shelley dreamed of a scientist kneeling over a creature he had created, which became Frankenstein. Stephanie Meyers Twilight began with a dream about a girl and a vampire talking in a meadow. Even Paul McCartney almost finished writing the song “Yesterday” in a dream.
Here's a wild dream by Caroleen Schneeman.
Writing wacky short stories has made me want to have wacky dreams of my own, to boost my imagination and hopefully spark more originality. So I've been experimenting with a routine to encourage that. Now keep in mind I am still testing this for myself, but here is a little guide to what I've been doing.
First of all, I picked up an amazing book from Donlon, called Archive of Dreams: A Surrealist Impulse to get myself in the right mindset. The book explores how surrealist artists collected, recorded, and used their dreams as creative material.
Right at the start of the book there's a quote that stood out to me and gave me an a-ha moment. I think it explains why I am so drawn to experimental literature. I realised there is a strong comparison to be made between dreams and experimental writing. Dreams, like experimental writing, are inherently avant-garde. They offer a huge sense of freedom. They don't follow a linear structure. You could even say that experimental writing moves like a dream, flowing in unexpected ways, and ignoring conventional rules.
Cool, eh? :-)
I also believe that what you consume before bed heavily influences dream content. Which is why I've been reading a lot of Leonora Carrington just before going to sleep. I want to travel to Paris soon too, as there's a major exhibition of Leonora Carrington's legacy at the Luxembourg Museum, which looks incredibly inspiring. Ticket sales now open: discover the surreal world of Leonora Carrington | Musée du Luxembourg
I find that when I immerse myself in Carrington's stories, my mind keeps thinking about it subconsciously while I'm sleeping. Animals, monsters, and feminine mysticism are archetypal images and they tend to reappear in dreams because they are deeply rooted in the psyche, so reading books rich in these elements will–fingers crossed–encourage wacky dreams.
I've also been blocking my socials before bed with an app called Opal (it's free). It's helped a lot as my brain gets less overloaded and has more space to create its own wild, original images, untouched by whatever boring stuff I saw whilst doom scrolling.
Another book I'm obsessed with is called Sci-Fi Magick, Queer L.A. It explores Los Angeles from the late 1930s through the 1950s–60s, showing how sci-fi clubs and esoteric spiritual groups provided queer people with spaces to meet, create, and envision lives beyond societal constraints.
I especially love this quote from the book.
“Within these safe boundaries of the imagi-nation, science fiction fans could express the pleasure and possibilities of inhabiting new identities. This was crucial to the contemporaneous homophile movement that similarly found its voice through secret networks.”
I love that these wacky, creative movements brought people together and strengthened the LGBTQ+ community. It just proves that believing in unconventional ideas like the importance of dreams, aliens or ghosts aren't just wishy-washy, they can be deeply political too.
On another note, I recently discovered Emmalea Russo's Dream School. Emmalea Russo is a writer of two novels Vivienne and The Moon Papers, as well as an astrologist and teacher. The dream courses are offered online and look incredible. Here is the link. DREAM SCHOOL 2026 — EMMALEA RUSSO
Here’s the schedule I’ve been following to create more wacky dreams (I think a lot of this work, similar to Conrad’s somatic rituals, is about being in the moment, letting the imagination take over, and not being too self-critical about it.)
7 pm- I dress up in costume–I own a lot of ball gowns–and I dance to music. Ideally, it’s a fairy-tale type of soundtrack. Albums like The Muppets (original motion picture soundtrack), The Lord of the Rings theme, or anything along those lines.
7.30pm- A nice bath to relax. The key is to relax so that the mind can wander into fantasy land.
8 pm- I burn candles and incense (like The Compost Library custom incense) in my room and read Leonora Carrington for thirty minutes to an hour.
8-9pm- I do a 20-minute guided meditation in bed. I also find it helpful to revisit David Lynch's talks on consciousness on YouTube. David Lynch on Consciousness, Creativity and the Brain (Transcendental Meditation)
9pm- Sometimes I’m not quite ready to fall asleep, so I watch a fantasy-themed series, like a Jim Henson show that's free on YouTube. The Storyteller | FULL EPISODE | The Soldier and Death (the important thing is to really imbue the fantasy into your mind)
10pm- Right before nodding off, I say a little prayer for wacky dreams. I once heard Lily Rose Depp say that her acting teacher told her to ask her subconscious mind for information about a character before going to sleep, as part of her research. Supposedly, she woke up the next morning with exactly the insight she needed. So, with that in mind, I ask my subconscious to bring me wacky dreams.
11pm- Lastly, don't forget to write your dreams down first thing in the morning in a diary. You never know, they could turn into a great story or piece of writing.
Last Thursday, I had this dream where I was up on a grassy hill with lots of windmills on top. The windmills kept collapsing because pigs were grabbing onto their sails. My job was basically to stop the pigs from getting onto the windmills in the first place.
I'd say that night my schedule was a success, but I need to make tweaks so that it happens like this every time.
Let me know how your experiments with wacky dreams go. <3
