Letter from the Editors

“I sink down on the black plumes of sleep.” -from The Waves by Virginia Woolf

Let this magazine be your dream journal. Let it be the receptacle of all the fragments of your nighttime hallucinations that you failed to grasp. Let it be the record of those liminal spaces, where you plummeted from wakefulness to sleep, snagging memory, fear and anxiety on the way. Let it be your dreamscape, sometimes horrifying and sometimes blissful, but always fantastic.

Our greatest challenge when setting out to create an issue centered around dreams was conveying the complexity and the intensity of emotion which they inspire. To do this, we selected certain sensations that dreams invoke, and created shoots to emulate these experiences. “Entanglement”, for example, examines the dream trope of a partner or friend’s betrayal. “Sinking in” emulates the experience of falling from one dream setting straight to another with helpless abandon. Even “Dinner is Served”, a fantasy world of extravagant, maximalist fashion and opulence, is colored with a certain strangeness: see how the eyeless people all stare at you, as though you’re an unwanted guest at this nighttime gala?

The features further explore the individual experiences of sleep, and how our feelings and anxieties can bleed into our dreams and haunt us there. In “Jasmine Only Blooms at Night”, Tiara Partsch explores the watery bounds between a boy’s bed and the backroom of our minds; the relationships we make and break might visit us there long after the end. “You’re a Dream, Darling” by Natasha Martin paints us a sickly sweet scene; but wait, what’s that sinister feeling lurking beneath the surface of this perfect fantasy?

It’s my hope that before embarking on the journey which is to come in these following pages, you can surrender yourself to the strangeness, off-ness and otherwise perplexing-ness of dreams. I hope that in these photos and features you can spot yourself, and perhaps regain a piece of that long-forgotten dream that told you something about yourself. Because after all, what are dreams if not the strange reflections of a funhouse mirror?

Now hush, it’s time for bed.

Melina Schaefer Editor-In-Chief

Each night, as we’re ushered out of reality and into the land of dreams, our inner creative awakens. Our sleeping state acts as a blank notebook page, the ideal backdrop to craft a fictitious realm in detail. In the process, our unconscious mind immerses us in a state of limbo; we fade in and out of our make-shift realities, constantly teetering on the edge of imagination. We’re pushed to the edges of our consciousness– hearing the calls of reality from our dreamscape, will we choose to re-enter the concrete? Or do we dare remain an actor on the stage set by our inner visionary?

It’s said that the cast of our dreams can only consist of those we have come across in reality. Maybe we’ve passed each other on the street, both making our way to class, absentmindedly sipping coffee or checking a recent text. Perhaps we’ve occupied the same lecture hall, fingers tapping against our keyboards, synchronized in a flurry of typing notes. Maybe, just maybe, you’re sat across from me in Angell Hall, where I’m perched, brow furrowed, chewing on my lip as I draft this letter.

Although nothing more than two isolated paths intertwining, these minimal encounters all set the stage for us to appear in each other’s dreams. Each fleeting moment, just barely facial recognition, is enough for you to find yourself embedded in my subconscious. What creative interpretation of you will my unconscious mind conjure up? Will you be the antagonist of my dreams? The love interest? A background character?

ONLY IN MY DREAMS looks to uncover the complex nature of our dreams, whether they be grounded in reality or born from our imagination. In exploring how our dreams take shape, who appears in them, and what they mean, we can traverse the innermost corners of our minds, intimately learning about ourselves and our surroundings along the way.

So allow yourselves to nestle into this issue as if it were your favorite satin sheets. Pulling your duvet up to your chin, we invite you to drift off into a haze of your deepest desires, most absurd fantasies, and darkest fears. Upon the break of morning, who knows how the landscape of reality will have altered.

Sweet dreams.

Brooklyn Blevins Print Features Editor