2023
For a while in my twenties, I kept a dream journal with the aim of learning how to lucid dream. I didn’t succeed, but I started to remember my dreams in minute detail—the texture and weight of a fabric, for instance, or the exact layout of a nonsensical building with interconnecting rooms but no ceilings. Then something unexpected happened: I started to recognize the people from my dreams. I would pass people in the street, and instead of thinking “this person lives in my neighborhood and I’ve just never noticed them before,” I would think “I am asleep.” The title “Fever Dream” is reminiscent of this bizarre feeling, of sleeping in broad daylight, of waking without truly being awake. The cover art by Doan Truong captures this feeling—I am transfixed and unable to look away. I hope you feel the same way.
While reading through the submissions we received for this unthemed issue, I was struck by recurring themes: Storm Trooper masks in Jill Goldberg’s dystopian “Super Flower Blood Moon,” and Alex Cafarelli’s story “Think of Storm Troopers” where two fathers lie dying. Another father dead in Kayla Czaga’s poems, “Rules for Living” and “Pain Killer.” Other pieces in this issue have repeated mentions of forests, birds, compulsions, the otherworldly—in Ainslie Hogarth’s commissioned story, “Bad Egg”, we follow the protagonist’s ominous decisions in the midst of an apocalyptic storm. The overall effect is one of walking through shifting dreams; of exploring a collective consciousness.
Other dreams bring comfort. Sophie Crocker’s “blight season” in the shape of a tree heart lays seed for new beginnings, and in her interview, Janika Oza speaks passionately about ancestral knowledge, intergenerational storytelling, and the importance of community.
Lastly, some thank yous to my own community: to Ruchika Gothoskar, Tara Preissl, and Monica Calderon for your generosity and support in bringing this issue to life; to everyone at Room for letting me helm the collective as Managing Editor; and to previous issue editors for making this look easy, I can assure you that it was not!
—Shristi Uprety
