Smiggles the Dreamer

While I was searching for references to "Smiggles" online a while ago, I came across a book series about imaginary creatures called Bottersnikes and Gumbles who live in a rubbish heap in the Australian bush. It's a series of books written for children and one of the characters is a Bottersnike named Smiggles.

There's no real reason to believe that it was the inspiration for Adam Lanza's username, but I'll explain why I would bother to mention it.

One thing about the series that might connect to Adam is the fact that the books were supposed to have been inspired by the environmentalist movement in Australia, with the Bottersnikes representing the selfish people who pollute the Bush and the Gumbles representing the environmentalists, who do their best to clean it up. Since Adam was concerned for the environment from a young age, it is possible that he was exposed to these stories as a child and remembered them later on.

Also, even as an adult Adam seemed to be amused by children's entertainment that was strange, unsettling, or even creepy. He posted a number of children's videos on the Columbine forum and it was noted that he saved numerous puppet videos on his hard drive, as well. The content of this series is certainly strange. It would be a major leap to say that he definitely knew about this book series, but I think that if he did come across them, they would have made an impression on him. A children's book that stars a group of lazy and rude little creatures who are always playing tricks on their fellow Bottersnikes, while using the poor Gumbles to do their bidding, seems like something that he might remember. It's slightly reminiscent of what I would imagine the The Big Book of Granny to be like, though with violence that is much more mild and silly.

Here's an excerpt, just to give you an idea of the content.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

So what would this have to do with the name Smiggles? As I mentioned, Smiggles is a Bottersnike, but the interesting thing is that he has a special talent that no other Bottersnike has.

The Wikipedia page for the series describes Smiggles this way:

Quote :

Smiggles – The only ‘snike whose dreams become solid. Whatever he dreams of something they appear a shade of purple and they are sometimes harmless. But if he gets Nightmares they become really aggressive and the only way to get rid of them is that Smiggles wakes up.

Here is how it is explained in one of the books.

Quote :

For very lazy people dreaming can be a way of getting things done, and this Bottersnike named Smiggles was useful sometimes because whatever he dreamed of became real — until he went to sleep again, then his first dream vanished to make room for his next. The trouble was that no one knew whether Smiggles would dream what he was told to dream about or something quite different.

and

Quote :

The trouble with Smiggles was that his dreams became not true exactly, but solid, so that everyone could see what had been going on in his sleeping mind. Sometimes the things he dreamed were useful, just as often they were not; either way it made him different from the others and they seldom let him forget it.

Adam lived in a kind of dream world of his own and this certainly made him different from the average person. He spent hundreds of hours roleplaying online, exploring imaginary worlds for fun and creating characters that probably had adventures much more interesting than his real life, where many days were spent alone in his room in front of a computer. He had innocent fantasies about owning hamsters, telling a friend that he owned them, posting pictures of them online and even saving websites on hamster care to his hard drive, despite there being no evidence that he ever had one at home. He had dreams of joining the military despite his obvious problems functioning in a sheltered suburban life. He also had some dreams that were much more sinister.

Could Smiggles the Bottersnike have any significance, if Adam happened to name himself after a creature like this on a forum dedicated to mass shootings?

Quote :

And it was not safe to leave him there — so close to the lyrebird’s nest. Willi pondered the problem anxiously. ‘Suppose he dreams a gun? I think I’d better throw stones at him till he wakes and — O grasshoppers!’ Willi cried, looking closer at the knobbly form in the fern, ‘it’s too late! He is dreaming!’

In a metaphorical sense, this is exactly what happened with Adam. A dangerous dream was stirring inside of him. No one had any idea, but everything he talked about on the forum, he dreamed of one day doing himself. He wanted to make these dreams "solid," so unlike the majority of people who research and discuss these sorts of things, Adam brought his dreams into reality and made them real, just as Smiggles did every time he fell asleep.

There's no proof that the name Smiggles came from this character in a children's book, but I was struck by the connection when I first came across this series and I thought that it was interesting enough to mention here even if there is no relationship between the names.

That is an interesting observation you have made sscc, it is certainly possible that Adam may have been read those books as a young child and those books definitely may have made an impact on him. There is no solid proof to say that he read them and that was thus his inspiration for his alias smiggles but it certainly seems to be a notable possibility. The theme of the stories you mentioned being about environmentalism and dreams seems to at least in my opinion significantly increase the odds that Adam had known about these books and was inspired by them.

I am convinced there is still even more information and clues out there about Adam that have yet to be discovered. Obviously the biggest cache of evidence is sadly still being withheld from the public by the police. The police know a whole lot more about the back story and motives of Adam then they are letting on.

What is the name of this book

Oh I remember reading this book in Primary School,
it's called Bottersnikes and Gumbles.
The first book was published in 1967.
Though there are other books in the series,
I can't remember off the top of my head though...

There's also a criminally bad animate series if you're interested

I've wondered a while what "smiggles" meant to Adam, and I've never heard of this story before, so it's an interesting guess. Good post.

Thanks for your responses. I wasn't sure if what I was saying here would make any sense to anyone but me but it sounds like I'm not completely out of my mind for making this association. Glad to hear it.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] I agree. There is a passage from the book Newtown: An American Tragedy which alludes to the idea that Adam wrote all about his thoughts and plans for mass murder in his journals. Of course they will claim he was a psychopath partly because of what he has written but they won't release the text for us to read.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] The excerpt from the picture and the other text excerpts are all from a book called The Selected Adventures of Bottersnikes and Gumbles but this isn't the only book in the series. It was just one that I was able to get my hands on for free.

Very interesting information, i like the philosophical view points you took on this to connect it to Adams thinking.

interesting.