Today we are part of a blog tour for the book Somnium by Deirdre Swinden, with a guest post all about Nightmares…
Leaping into the Nightmare Realm
By Deirdre Swinden
Picture it. You’re warm and snuggled in your bed. Your body is relaxed, and your brain has at long last determined the bills and other issues that have been plaguing you can wait until tomorrow. You’re headed toward sleep.
And then it happens.
The bed drops out from beneath you, opening onto an abyss, and you’re falling without cause or reason. Every muscle in your body jerks upward to save you from the drop. With a gasp, you come fully awake and realize you’re still lying right where you were.
If you’re like me, at such a time you may recall the moment in The Sixth Sense when Cole stops at the junction in the school hallway, shivering and unwilling to look up. He describes the sensation as falling down really fast, and it’s how he knows he’s in the presence of the restless dead.
Is it ghosts? Or just one of those little jokes our subconscious minds like to play?
According to the Cleveland Clinic, the sensation is a common occurrence that nearly 70% of the population has experienced in some form. It’s called “sleep myoclonus or hypnic myoclonus,” and typically happens at an early stage of sleep when your mind may be awake, but your muscles have relaxed. Neurotransmitters send out a signal for the body to check in—basically helping to reassure the brain the muscles are still alive. The result is a strong jerk, and your dreams are history for a little while longer.
In my novel, Somnium, I use the sensation as the jumping off point for Nathan Keller to enter the minds of those afflicted by deadly nightmares thanks to a glitch in Somnium Corporation’s dream advertising technology. I chose the sensation because to me, it feels as if your spirit has somehow left your body and plummeted into the depths of some strange and unfriendly place. In Nathan’s case, that place is Gillian Hardie’s nightmare realm, and his body is in mortal danger every time his mind makes the leap.
Would you leap into another person’s dreams? Tell us why or why not.
Reference:
“Why do I feel like I’m falling or twitching as I’m falling asleep?” Cleveland Clinic, May 6, 2024. https://health.clevelandclinic.org/why-do-i-feel-like-im-falling-when-im-falling-asleep-video. Accessed on June 2, 2024.
Somnium by Deirdre Swinden
Immerse yourself in a terrifying blend of psychological horror and high-tech science fiction in this riveting novel where dreams can kill. Gillian Hardie experiences nightmares so intense they threaten her very existence, thanks to a glitch in Somnium Corporation’s groundbreaking dream advertising technology. Every night, her sleep unleashes monsters that her body reacts to as if they were real, pushing her to the edge of despair.
Armed with her lucid dreaming skills, Gillian battles these horrors, but when an accident traps her in a perpetual dream state, she must rely on Nathan Keller, a nightmare warrior, and Dex Cooper, an Operator, to navigate this nightmarish reality. With her darkest fears manifesting like never before, Gillian faces a race against time to survive a threat that could unleash unimaginable horrors from the depths of her mind.
TRIGGER WARNINGS: This novel includes a brief depiction of sexual violence, gore, and nightmare imagery.
Book Link: https://geni.us/Somnium
Author Bio
A successful writer/editor in the corporate world for more than two decades, Deirdre Swinden is currently living and writing in North Carolina. She received an MFA in Creative Writing from Arcadia University and has published short stories in Griffel Literary Magazine and Grim & Gilded. Early in her writing career, she won the Popular Short Story Contest at the 2000 Philadelphia Writers’ Conference with her short work, “Shooting Televisions.”
WEBSITE – https://deirdreswindenauthor.com
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