Where do dreams go?

Posted on October 3, 2025 by hdh

The Story Spark this week was something similar to a Mad Lib with no directions on what type of word to put in the blanks. We were to pick one of the phrases within the Story Spark as our writing prompt. We had 25 minutes to write.

The sentence I took was “the ________memory of her/him/them _________”

Where Do Dreams Go?

I wondered last night, where do dreams go after you have them, and why are they forgotten so quickly? 

I’m sure that there is a reasonable, scientific explanation. But that is no fun looking up. Nowadays, science, as we know it, seems to be being debunked every day. So why not let my creative, unscientific brain choose its own theory? Worse comes to worst, if I’m proven wrong, and enough people read my explanation and it fits their belief system, it will be adopted. That might depend on who’s running the country then, but it’s not going to stop me from trying. 

In my opinion, dreams are never forgotten. They are created by a section of your brain that has multiple functions. One aspect is the creative writing component. It’s the reason why, when given a prompt in a writing group, you can invent things, capture true memories, and embellish them with things you think might have happened, and go places where you have never gone before, meeting people you never knew.

Once it has this story, it can share some of its contents with you while you sleep. We call them dreams. 

Next, when you have completed or partially completed as much as your brain wants to share, it stores that material in a part of your brain that scientists and medical professionals have yet been able to discover. Those stories are so deeply stored and locked away that you forget whatever it was you were dreaming about. 

A filing system is involved, allowing more vivid memories to remain higher up in the storage area than others. 

So why keep all those memories, and where is the proof that they exist? Many people in our world possess the ability to access these memories. They tend to be older individuals of all genders. 

When examined by doctors, who deny the existence of this phenomenon, they diagnose these individuals as having dementia or Alzheimer’s disease. 

It is that area of the brain that stores these memories that unlocks and releases some of them, to the extent that individuals replace some of their short-term and long-term memories with these stories created throughout their lives. 

Their minds are being overloaded with memories of things that they and they alone have experienced, but didn’t share and have forgotten. 

From an outsider’s perspective, such as that of a doctor or a loved one, they may appear to be failing, losing their memories, when what may be needed is to allow them to share those unwritten memories/stories aloud to all. 

Until the scientific world can discover where these hidden stories are being kept or learning how to allow those stories to either stay locked up or be released at a much slower pace, we will continue to be ignorant of the beautiful and creative minds we all have. 

Maybe we need to find another storage place in our brains, maybe in our hearts, where the real memories we have, that we didn’t dream, can be stored permanently so that they can be re-released after all our dream memories have been exhausted. 

At least, that was what was going on in my head as I slept last night. 

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A Choice I Made

Posted on September 23, 2025 by hdh

This week’s story is about a choice I made when I was five years old. It is a piece I wrote and performed on September 16, 2007, where I recorded it. The theme for that event was – Life Lessons. In 2019, for a Digital Storytelling Course I was teaching, I took the recording and made a digital video using that recording.
Instead of the written copy of this story for this week’s theme of ‘Choices’, today, I’m sharing with you the digital version of the story I wrote. It runs a little over 8 minutes.

https://youtu.be/LJqvSPDBrd0?si=JdSqlgGTX-Zlu60J

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Behold the Flame

Posted on September 22, 2025 by hdh
This week’s story spark was Write and Read. I took the prompt – The language of fire. We had 20 minutes to write.

Behold the Flame

 It was a sultry day with nothing to do. Then again, it is always a sultry day with nothing to do. I mean, everything is the same around here.

You wake up, you get your overskins on, you go out, and you look for food. If you are lucky, you find something that has died on the path that you can bring home to eat. 

Then comes the hard part. You must figure out how to eat this thing that you have found. As luck would have it, I found a very pointy rock that allowed me to break my dead kill into pieces. 

Of course, eating it is no easy task either. This food is very stretchy and hard to break. If there were only a way to soften it up.

The ones in the other shelters have found a way to take those sharp rocks and attach them to fallen branches. I’ve seen them use those rock branches to get live beasts to die. The others throw their rock branches, and when the rocks stick into the live beasts, they turn into dead kill. 

I’ve been collecting lots of those branches, big and small, and piling them in front of my shelter. 

That big bright thing over my head is getting darker, and it’s not even sleep time yet.

I hear a loud noise coming from the overhead space. It seems to be getting louder and louder. That usually means that the wet will be coming soon. 

Before it comes, I see something that I have never seen before. It is a very bright streak of brightness. It looks like it is going all throughout the overhead. Now one of those bright streaks has touched my branch pile. The branches are starting to glow. I go over to pick one of them up and immediately drop it on one of my dead kills. My hand hurts a lot. And then the water comes. Lots and lots of water. My hand feels better.

Soon, all is quiet again. The water has taken away most of the hotness on the branches. I pick up the dead kill. It feels different. I can easily break it up with my hands. I eat it. It is much easier to eat. 

I try and pick up one of the glowing branches, but not from the glowing part. I already know that the glow feels comfortable. 

I bring it over to the other shelters. I touch their piles of branches and put their dead kill into the glow. I push their dead kill around with one of their rock branches. As long as the stick part doesn’t touch the glow, it doesn’t get hot; only the rock part does. 

They all stare at me. When the glow is over, I give the dead kill to the others to try and eat. They grunt with pleasure. 

I have discovered something new and important. I will call it after me. I name it Stir Fry.

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The Fall

Posted on September 13, 2025 by hdh

The Story Spark for this piece was – Fall Vibes. Instead of going in the direction of Autumn, which is where the prompts seemed to direct the group. I chose to fall into another direction. 

The Fall

I’m falling. 

Not the falling that happens every now and then, because the sticky rubber on the bottom of my shoes catches on the wooden floors in our house. 

Not the kind of emotional falling, like falling in love, or falling in a fit of despair. 

Not the falling that happens between people, when you fall out of favor with someone.

Not the kind of falling that comes from being duped by someone trying to trick you, or falling for a joke or prank.

I am literally falling. Think of Alice in Wonderland falling down a hole in the ground, and you can picture what I’m doing.

How did I get here? That’s a good question, since I’m not quite sure myself. I’ve often had dreams about flying, but never falling. And this is too real to be a dream. 

I don’t see the bottom of where I’m falling to, and when I look up, all I see is blue skies with great white puffy clouds. 

What’s interesting is I know I’m falling as I can feel the air whoosh by me; however, the distance to wherever I’m falling and the clouds in the sky don’t change their perspective. They appear to be standing still. Could that mean that they are falling at the same rate as I am?

Since I can’t see my intended doom rising up to meet me, I have time to ponder all these thoughts. 

Well, if I were falling to my death, what thoughts should I be reliving? Certainly, the happy ones. The people I love, the places I’ve been to, the sights, sounds, and smells of my life?

I certainly don’t want to waste time on the bad things and poor choices that I have made throughout my life. 

I’m waiting for the slide show of events to appear before my eyes, which I understand is the norm before one passes on. 

But should I waste time on all that pondering if, in fact, I am not falling to my death? 

In that case, should I be opening myself up to new possibilities? More stories to write and tell. More adventures to go on. 

Quite a dilemma.

I think I’ll close my eyes and wait. Everything I’ve done, I’ve done. What is to be will be. I’ve become calm and accepting.

 

All of a sudden, there is a sudden silence. The wind stops. The motion feels non-existent. A voice is heard.

“Mr. Heilbrun, you have completed your treatment. The psychoneuralizer has been successful. You are free to go.”

I find myself in a room. I am sitting in a chair. I recall volunteering for this innovative stress treatment.  I’m not sure exactly what they did to me or how I got into this chair. But I definitely feel better than I have been for days.

 

“Thank you for helping us improve this device before we go public. We would appreciate it if you would take the time to fill out a simple survey as you leave.”

 

It’s hard to fill out a survey when you are not quite sure what you actually did. Of course, I knew that if I filled out the survey, I would get a never-ending stream of emails and advertisements from them, and I wasn’t about to fall for that now that I’m stress free.

 

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Spaced Out(ed)

Posted on September 9, 2025 by hdh

Spaced Out(ed)

“Space, the final frontier…to boldly go where no one has gone before.” – Gene Roddenberry

I know what Roddenberry was talking about, being an avid Star Trek fan. But for me, you need more than boldness to conquer space. And, I’m not talking about the one where the stars and planets are located. 

“Space” is a never-ending place that we’ve all been to and that challenges us daily, right here on our own planet. 

You just came home from shopping at the local supermarket. Unfortunately, when you get home, you discover that you didn’t check the refrigerator before going shopping. Now, you have multiple items you just brought home – fruits and vegetables, cartons of liquids, packages of meat, jars of condiments, dressings, a bin full of assorted lunch ingredients, etc., and you notice that you have limited “space” to store them and keep them from being spoiled. What do you do?

You plan on redecorating your living room, but is there space for the old furniture and the new ones you were thinking of purchasing? Should you rent a storage unit? 

You can clear out a lot of stuff to make space, but did you ever think about where all those things you throw out go? Does the town have enough space to dispose of your waste? Have you ever passed by a landfill? Not a pretty sight, or smell.

I’m not sure about other writers, but my desk, between electronics, writing materials, and supplies, is in constant upheaval as recreating space to do things makes for very creative manipulation.

Considering a house move to a smaller residence in your future. Check out your space in the basement/cellar compared to your new abode. I would imagine that there is a major discrepancy between the old and new spaces for everything you own. What to keep? What to throw out?

And then, there’s the space between things. Do you all like parallel parking? I don’t. Even in parking lots, being able to pull into a space between two parked minivans or trucks is a talent I don’t excel at, considering that the original parking lines were designed for smaller sedans. 

What most of us need is something like Doctor Who’s TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimension(s) In Space), where it’s bigger on the inside than the outside. That might solve some of our storage space issues. 

And I cannot leave this discussion about “Space” utilization without bringing up the use of emotional and intellectual space, which, to me, is the most important space.

We all need a private space occasionally to break away from the toils and troubles in our lives. A place where we can relax and forget about the things that demand our attention – work issues, home and family responsibilities and expectations, the inundation of self-centered individuals, who do not use the “space” between their ears to listen, respect, empathize, or understand others, in order to do what’s right. 

However, we also need a public space. 

 

No, Gene, I wouldn’t call “Space” the final frontier. It is the ever-present frontier, the here and now frontier, and it is challenging. Some spaces we can fill on our own. Others require us to cooperate.

Perhaps we do, as a group, need to boldly go forward… together. 

Let’s make space for our future, let’s make time for it also, and let’s make these voyages a trek worth taking. 

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Say that again?

Posted on September 4, 2025 by hdh

The writing prompt was “That was funny”. I had some fun with a computer and reading sentences. 

Say that again?

When you read your writing to yourself, your brain sometimes puts in words that aren’t there but fit the sentence you thought you wrote, so you don’t pick up that you misspelled a word or put the wrong word in. It helps to have someone else read your piece aloud to you so that you can pick up on those errors. I used to do that with some of my students to see if they could identify their mistakes. I didn’t do this often. 

 

In the age of technology, some writers have a computer read text to them. Have you tried that? It helps to hear your work so you can correct your mistakes. I’ve tried that a few times, but the computer lacks the feeling of the work, so there is usually no emphasis, where needed, in the piece. 

 

Then there is the other obstacle that computers reading sentences have to deal with – heteronyms. Heteronyms are words that are spelled the same but sound and mean different things. I decided years ago to put my computer to the test. I gave it a number of sentences, each containing two words that made sense in the sentence if read correctly, but were pronounced differently. I wanted to see how well the computer did. I’ve tested those same sentences over the years and have added more to the list as I think of them, and I will say that computers are getting better, at least Apple devices are, but they’re still not perfect. It’s a fun thing to try.

Here is a list of the sentences that I have found so far. Feel free to add more to them if you can think of any.

 

I had to present to Congress the day they gave me my birthday present.

 

The book I had to read was read by Thursday

 

I had to polish up my Polish before the visitor came.

 

I was going to address the audience about what each person’s address was.

 

If he was going to abuse his child, he would be arrested for child abuse.

 

He sang bass music to announce the return of the fisherman who caught a bass.

 

It was a close call, but he had to close the door after I came in.

 

I had to console him after he lost his radio console.

 

Derek firmly stated that he would rather contract pneumonia than sign the medical contract.

 

You can lead a horse to water but only if it is a lead weight.

 

A cat may have 9 lives, but he lives them one at a time.

 

He was putting on his shirt on the golf putting green.

 

He had to record his record of the high jump.

 

The bandage was wound around the wound.

 

The farm was used to produce produce.

 

The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.

 

He could lead if he would get the lead out.

 

The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert..

 

Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.

 

When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

 

I did not object to the object.

 

The insurance was invalid for the invalid.

 

There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.

 

The buck does funny things when the does are present.

 

While holding on to her thread a sewer fell down into a sewer line.

 

To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

 

The wind was too strong to wind the sail.

 

Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear..

 

I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

 

How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

 

The manual I use doesn’t explain the machine’s use.

 

The mourning dove dove out of the sky.

 

He was content with the content of the program.

 

Here is a recording of my iPad reading all of the sentences I wrote. If you can’t hear the recording, you can try to highlight the sentences and then ask your computer to read them out loud. Try to follow along:

 

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A Friend Indeed

Posted on September 1, 2025 by hdh

The story spark was Perspective. The writing prompt I chose was a quote by Angela Farmer, a renowned yoga teacher, which is used in this piece.

A Friend Indeed

Never pay attention to me when I am shopping by myself. I am not alone. There is a part of me that questions every item I select. Questions of size, quantity, brand name, ripeness, expiration date… You get the idea. 

I’m sure when a number of you go shopping, these types of questions pop up in your head, too. You look at a shelf of goods, pondering the necessity versus the cost, or the quality versus the generic or brand name. You, then, make your decision and put it in your cart. All of this was done internally, and no one else is the wiser.

I, on the other hand, make these decisions after an external conversation with my good friend and advisor – me. Who else would I talk to?

We now move out of the store and into an outside or inside task. It might be gardening. It might be a walk in the neighborhood. It could be working at home, vacuuming, or writing. 

And who is with me, you might ask. Sometimes it is Christina, but my friend, me,  is always there butting his nose into my goings and doings. There are any number of times when I say something out loud and Christina, from another room, will either say, “What did you say?” or “Are you talking to me?” in that knowing voice that acknowledges that there are times that I am not talking to her, even though there is no one else in the house. 

I’m not sure who is talking to the animals or insects when I’m outdoors and they are attempting to interact with me, positively or negatively. Am I the culprit, or is it me?

I’ve grown accustomed to the looks that I get from real people who notice that I am talking and there is no one around me. 

I don’t get as many looks as I used to, since it’s a lot easier nowadays. Many people wear earbuds with their phones and have actual conversations with people you can’t see.  

As Angela Farmer, a renowned yoga teacher,  said, “The thing about aging is, you make friends with yourself. You can finally meet yourself in a loving way.”

The older I get, the more conversations I have. I mean, who knows who I am better than me? If you don’t believe I do, just ask me. If you can’t, I surely will. 

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A Familiar Story

Posted on August 28, 2025 by hdh

 The writing for this piece was picture-driven. Here are the pictures I chose for it:

 

 

 

A Familiar Story

The name’s Clyde. I’m what you call a familiar. I was once connected with a rather fun-loving witch named Zelda; however, hard times befell her, and she was forced to give me up. 

I was kept in an animal shelter until I was adopted by Martha, the wife of a bogus magician called Siegfried. She’s a nice woman. She has no idea about the powers I have.  She just enjoys me as a fun-loving little kitten. I am much older than I look. Magic allows me to control that. 

Martha feeds me well, strokes me when she needs some comfort, and lets me play with multicolored yarn when she needs a good laugh. I would always oblige her whims because she loves me, and I grew to love her in return. 

The thing about being an ex-witch’s cat is that I live a long life and have learned a lot of things about magic. I rarely use my powers around Martha, because there is no need to. 

Siegfried, on the other hand, is totally different. As I said, he is a bogus magician. He has no concept of what real magic is. All his tricks are so lame. If anyone would examine his coat and sleeves, even after he purports to have nothing in them, they would find a ridiculous amount of paraphernalia – fake flowers, handkerchiefs all tied together with knots, and any number of assorted playing cards. And then, there is his hat. His penultimate trick. Again, there is nothing in it – no magic. I can attest to that, especially when it is on his head. He holds the hat up for his audience so that they can see inside. Being a dark hat, they can’t see that the length of the inside doesn’t match the length of the outside. He never lets anyone hold the hat in question. The weight discrepancy would be a dead giveaway. 

I’ve been talking to the two rabbits he uses lately about how they were being treated. They were very clear that they were horribly abused. Siegfried wouldn’t reward them if they cooperated in his act.  On the other hand, he would punish them if they didn’t cooperate. When he holds them up to the audience, the people don’t see how hard he is squeezing them to instill compliance. 

Because of his wife’s love for animals, Siegfried never let the rabbits come in contact with her. 

I shared what I could of my food with the rabbits, but it came to a point where I’d had enough of Siegfried when he started to abuse Martha. It was time to act. Siegfried wasn’t the only one who could do magic tricks. 

We were all in the car, travelling to one of his gigs. Siegfried made Martha drive, so he could focus on his magic (HA!). What he focused on was berating his wife constantly during the ride. The rabbits, terrified, were in a box that was tied down on the roof of the car.  

Siegfried was one of a kind, so why not use my familiar powers to make him truly one of a kind? All it took was the correct kind of purr and twitch of my ears, and all of a sudden, he was gone. In his place sat my two adorable rabbit friends. The look on Martha’s face made it all worth it. She pulled over to examine her newfound friends. When Martha got out of the car, she was even more surprised at what she saw on the roof. Tied upon the roof was a very large stuffed winged pink unicorn. Definitely one of a kind.

Martha never questioned what happened to Siegfried. She was glad to get rid of him. She did make a bit of money selling that unicorn to some circus clowns. She didn’t miss Sigfried at all. 

The rabbits and I continue to get along well, ensuring that Martha continues to prosper as she ages. Something I’m very familiar with.

 

 

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Don’t give up

Posted on August 22, 2025 by hdh

This week’s story spark was Someone Says… I chose the writing prompt – Don’t Give Up.

Don’t Give Up

My best friend just stood me up

Don’t give up

I’ll never make it to my destination in time

Don’t give up

My refrigerator just died

Don’t give up

It’s not a solution. It’s just another problem

Don’t give up

There is not one positive thing in the news today

Don’t give up

Why are all those people against me

Don’t give up

I have no purpose here?

Don’t give up

I’m not different from you. Why can’t you accept that?

Don’t give up

The world is coming to an end

Don’t give up

Is this the way it has to be?

Don’t give up

 

We live in a place of change. 

Things do not always stay the same. 

There are hills to climb and valleys to fall into. 

Yet we continue to survive.

There should always be hope.

There should always be perseverance.

There are always ways to make things better

But you have to want it.

You have to take the time

You have to be part of the solution

You have to listen

You have to respect

You have to accept differences and seek out truth

You must show compassion and empathy

You must model the world you want to be part of

And most of all,

Don’t Give Up!

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The Family George

Posted on August 20, 2025 by hdh

Today’s Story Spark was Animal Antics. I chose the prompt “Write a story about a monkey escaping from a zoo.”

The Family George

I’m sure you have all heard about Curious George, the character created by H. A. Rey and his wife, Margret Rey. What you might not know is that George was a real monkey, not fictional. George was his family name. He was named Curious George by the man in the Yellow Hat, who found him in a jungle in Africa. Curious seemed an appropriate name considering all the trouble he got into because of his curiosity. You might remember him dialing the fire department while playing with a telephone he had discovered, or him floating above the city, holding onto many helium balloons which he had taken from a vendor. Of course, after escaping from a zoo, he ended up riding a bus, making a mess of spaghetti at a restaurant (where he ended up becoming a dish washer), becoming a window washer, discovering painting, and painting a jungle scene in a hotel room. Such was the life of a curious Curious George.

In my research, I have discovered a number of other members of the George family who, too, had escaped from zoos and had been discovered in jungles.

Here are a few of them:

There was the one caught by the man in the Black Hat, Devious George. This monkey always had a squinty look in his eye. One could never keep track of him. Whenever your back was turned, he would disappear. You would have to wait until his description was mentioned in the news to know what he had done, such as the time he caused an accident with a truck delivering 50 crates of bananas to an Amazon Fresh store. He somehow escaped and consumed a large quantity of them before being caught. 

There was the monkey caught by the man in the Beige Hat, Tedious George. It took forever to get this monkey to do anything. He had a blank stare and found nothing interesting, so he did the same dull things every day.  Of course, the man in the Beige Hat didn’t have much of a life either. 

Another family monkey was caught by the man in the Green Hat. Anxious George. This one was always shaking. It was impossible to potty train this one. Any medium noise, such as a knock at the door or the stove timer going off, would set Anxious off with a screech and a shake, and on more than one occasion, a loss of bladder control. The man in the Green Hat frequently turned the same color as his hat.

The monkey found by the man in the White striped Hat, Repetitious George, had his hands full, too. Repetitious always did the same thing over and over again. There was no way to teach him anything. He had to do things more than once. And, he was always cleaning himself, as if there was something dirty on his hands. I believe this monkey was the origin of the term OCD. 

The worst of the George family was Nefarious George. He was found by the man in the Red-Orange Hat. You could never predict what this monkey was up to. It was the boss of this family. He changed his behavior constantly. He’d do one thing and then do the exact opposite. There was a lot of hate in this monkey. I have no idea why the man in the Orange Hat kept him. It must have made him feel powerful to have such a strong-willed monkey. The man was known to brag to all the other George family owners that he had the very best monkey of the lot.

The last family member I’ll share about is Obsequious* George. I’m not sure if this monkey was a true member of the George clan. This was the most confusing of the monkeys connected to the George family and was certainly the oddest looking. He was also found by the man in the Orange Hat. This monkey started out with red hair. It lived in the same place as Nefarious George and loved to hang around with him. What made this monkey so odd, besides its red hair, was that over time, its red hair turned yellow the more he followed Nefarious around, and then changed again to be completely orange. My research didn’t find much uniqueness about Obsequious, other than it always hung around trying to be favored by whatever Nefarious decided to do. 

For now, I will continue my research into the George family of monkeys as they escape or are found by members of the Colored Hat Society. I’ve already uncovered some other named ones – Serious George, Atrocious George, Cantankerous George, Delirious George, Facetious George, and Obnoxious George. But those stories will have to wait.

 By George! I’ve taken up enough of your time. 

 

 * obsequious – exhibiting servile compliance; fawning

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