Harry Potter vs. the Monsters Dream

I think it’s important for writers to write down their dreams. Here’s one I had on the night of July 4^th.

#

Three of the Harry Potter characters were leading a group of children through a forested realm thick with monsters. Each monster was at least two to three times the size of a human being and were mostly bony on the outside, often with spikes.

Harry, Hermione, and Nigel paused on a knoll that was clear of trees. A hologram appeared of General Patton (who looked like George C. Scott). He congratulated them on making it this far. He ordered them to proceed to their destination as fast as possible, killing as many monsters as they could along the way.

The three agreed amongst themselves that the order was contradictory: If they killed as many monsters as they could, they would not travel at best speed, and they would not survive. (It’s possible they had lost some children along the way—the tone was quite dark.)

Harry led the way. They did not fly, but a couple of times as he held Hermione’s hand and she held Nigel’s hand, Hermione’s and Nigel’s feet left the ground.

photo by DavidDjJohnson 

They arrived at their destination without losing any more children. The three of them went into some kind of control tower. There, they toppled something as thick as a telephone pole onto one of the monsters, crushing it.

Harry read an instruction sheet that stated they were to wait until 2:00 am for everyone to arrive (they had arrived around midnight).

An adult sponsor appeared and asked Harry if he had read the instructions. When Harry said yes, the sponsor said the sheet indicated they were to wait until 12:30 am. Harry, Hermione, and Nigel realized they could not trust this sponsor.

The control tower turned into the cockpit of an airliner holding the three of them. Another hologram (not of Patton) congratulated them for arriving. Obviously, this was how the children would be evacuated. Hermione sat in the pilot’s seat and put a headset on.

photo by Zaheer12a

#

  

As an afterwards, I can’t say I’m a Harry Potter fan. But this is the second vivid, detailed dream I’ve had of the characters. The first one was posted here.

Grant Imahara Passed Away

So the news came in that Grant Imahara of Mythbusters fame passed away. He was only 49. He had a brain aneurysm.

I thought he was the smartest guy on the show. He was on what was called the “B Team,” but they tended to do the more inventive things. He was a pretty modest guy on the show, but as an electrical engineer, he built the robotics—such as a robot arm that swung with such force, they had to have a decapitation warning. He might be most famous for his robot cat, which was completely unconvincing, except for the dogs it was designed to fool.

photo by Gage Skidmore 

I knew he had early fame from designing Deadblow, a winning robot in the Battlebots competition. But I didn’t know he designed the arms of the Energizer Bunny. And he also updated the R2-D2 robots? He lived quite a life.

Christopher Tolkien Dream

I believe it’s important for writers to write down their dreams. Unfortunately I just have a stub of my most recent one. Everything else faded.

I made a phone call to the Tolkien Estate. To my surprise, Christopher Tolkien, the son of J.R.R. Tolkien, answered. He pronounced his name tol-ken, instead of tol-keen. Rather stupidly, I asked him if that was how the name was pronounced. He said yes and repeated himself.

That’s all I remember of the dream. I undoubtedly had it because of all the buzz about The Silmarillion. But it so affected me that while I was sitting at work I thought about how the name was pronounced tol-ken, then I realized it was just a dream.

So I was thinking at work about how J.R.R. Tolkien made charts of the phases of the moon for The Lord of the Rings. He remarked that he could not have Aragorn look up and see a full moon one night, then have Gimli see a full moon a couple nights later. He also kept charts of how fast Shadowfax, Gandalf’s horse, could run.

I’ve developed a spreadsheet for my novel manuscript Fairy War, a retelling of The War of the Worlds. Cylinders from Mars are landing in different major cities of the world, and this is how I kept track. Learn for the best.