Where do you get your inspiration from?

Without a doubt, mine comes from my subconscious mind. I find that no matter how much I delve into subject matter that inspires me or immerse myself in visual stimulus, it never comes out in my artwork until I've experienced it as a dream or seen it in a near-dream state.

I think I might be more influenced by dreams than a lot of other people, however.

I have a strange sleep disorder called hypnagogia/hypnopompia in which just as I'm falling asleep or waking up, my mind goes into a dream state. This means that I will still be aware of my surroundings, but I will see things that aren't there. Hypnagogia- as I'm falling asleep it usually consists of me thinking there's something loose in my room and it needs to be contained- usually insects or snakes, and sometimes a person, or piles of heads that are welling up out of my bed. Having a hypnopompic episode means that I never fully get to sleep, because I keep half walking up attempting to get the things out of my bed.

Hypnopompia happens when you are coming out of REM sleep. It is also connected to Sleep Paralysis -your body is paralyzed while sleeping so you don't actually get up and wander around while dreaming. Hypnopompia for me is usually much more intense than than hypnagogia. I wake up, and see my room, but there is an event that happens that can't actually exist. Some people think that this is actually the explanation for people's alien abduction stories. The first hypnopompic episode I can remember is waking up and seeing the grim reaper standing at the end of my bed. There was a scythe floating beside him and he said "Aha!" By far the most terrifying experience I've had was waking up to my entire room being engulfed in flames. I've had a lot of strange experiences with a lot of strange malevolent entities showing up in my room. The hard part is remembering the moment when you realize that you actually are awake. There is some shift that happens, and I can move again, and am only left with the memory of what just happened.

This doesn't happen every night, and the intensity varies a lot with how stressed I am at the time, or if I am in a new location. Usually I find that if I have this happen at night I don't really end up dreaming. I remember a few times that I have been so afraid of experiencing this that I would end up waking myself up before going into REM sleep. Needless to say this is really unhealthy.

These experiences are always really intense and emotional for me, and despite the fact that I know that my mind is creating them, and they are not some external force (aliens, ghosts or whatever) I always come away the next day feeling closer to some esoteric truth. And aside from them always being horrible, they always give me an uplifting desire to create.

I think having night-time encounters with my worst fears and surviving them drives me to create work that is based in darkness but lifts itself up out of that. It comes up in using generally grotesque imagery, but in a way where monsters can just want to be loved as well, and horrors can still have rainbow colors.

Here is are a few sleep related Wikipedia links:
REM Sleep
Hypnagogia

This is just the first part of my subconscious influence, but as this is already a fairly long post, I will save the rest for another time.

Until then super perfundo on the early eve of your day.