Dreams for stories?

Cool, you may be one of the first AWers to write hypnagogically.

I've had dreams about one particular novel I've been writing on and off for a few years, anytime I really start to work hard on it. Since I'm purposely making archetypal events and symbols a big part of the story, it's no surprise to me that they start showing up in my dreams as well. I've never had that happen with any of my other writing, that I can remember.

I do have one dream that I intend to turn into a short story (SF). I had the dream several years ago and wrote it down afterwards; I don't remember now how much I thought about the dream after I woke up, but whenever I read my notes I'm astounded at how plot-like they are. The characters are shaping up at the moment, and I'm hoping to have it written this fall.

I had one dream, about 12 years ago, that I still intend to use as fodder for a novel.

I intentionally dream out all my stories, but not all of them stem from original dreams. I'm pretty good at lucid dreaming, so I tend to visualize parts of my novels while I'm sleeping. If I have a tough spot in my book, I can work it out in my sleep.

Last night, however, I had a horrendously long, non-lucid dream that I was the main character of a twenty-four book fantasy epic that was more bizarre than anything I had ever previusly imagined in my life. The dream was divided into episodes, with each episode covering a book (I only got through about three last night--maybe it'll continue tonight). Before each episode, I would see the book shelf that had all twenty-four volumes together. The spines formed a mural of a pivotal scene from one of the books. The "episode" would open with the book magically floating out of the shelf an hovering in front of my eyes, then opening, and I would sort of fall into the pages and become the main character.

I never intend to write these books, but I hope I can continue living in the dream because it was the most colorful, vivid thing I've ever experienced. It wasn't fantasy like anything I've read: no elves, dwarves, or any familiar creatures. Actually, nothing remotely remiscent of European folklore. The setting had a very otherworldly feel to it, mostly bright greens and yellows -- it was an Eden-esque tropical paradise on another planet. Some of the later books had big reptilian creatures on the spines, so I'm hoping I'll get a closer look at those if the dream continues.

Sometimes I get story ideas from dreams..then again it depends on what the dream was..

When I'm deep into my writing, I wake up in the story although at times I have to decipher the symbolism... ha!

For me, I spend the first hour in bed before actually falling asleep planning my story.

I've actually developed several story ideas from dreams. In fact, I'm working on one right now.

My best, shortest and most atmospheric short story came to me as a dream. I woke up and immediately wrote it down. (This reminds me that I need to submit it in the next week or so now that editors are back from the summer and reading again.) One would think that such a thing would require extensive revision and editing, and most of my dream ideas do, but this story seems to be complete just as is, despite the efforts of myself and literary acquaintances.

I find the main thing with dreams is to write them down. Once you get in the habit of doing that you retain the material much better. Otherwise they simply seem to fade away. Yes, you'll wind up with notebooks full of the bizarre and surreal, but there will be quite a bit of usable material in there as well. More importantly, you are bringing pieces of the unconscious to the surface. That's what writers do, and why readers will want to read your work.

alaskamatt17, I think it's crucial that you start writing down whatever you can from your bookshelf dream in order to keep it coming, whether you have any intention of novelizing or publishing it or not.

If nothing else, writing up dream material seems like a good way to practice BIC time and get some material flowing. Now if I could make a habit of actually doing my BIC writing in my sleep as TNT here did, that would seem to be a tremendous time saver.

I've had a few dreams that inspired writing, but only one has so far become a finished project (a short story about a living severed arm. What can I say.) I recently had a very extensive dream which I believe I can turn into a novel, but right now I'm stuck about 3,500 words into it. Otherwise, my "story" dreams have just been very odd, inspirational for an hour or so after waking, and then they are lost. One night, I actually dreamed all night long that I was writing a story. It was the best damn story I've ever come up with in my life. Woke up, and forgot every word instantaneously. *sigh*

A living severed arm? Must be a scary dream.

Perhaps the one truly scary dream I've ever had. Heh.

My very first paid publishication came from a dream. The dream had no plot; it concerned a static image, and the short story came from my trying to explain the image upon awakening.

When I'm being a very good girl, I write down my dreams every morning and spend a few minutes storifying the dream. If the dream isn't helpful enough to provide me with a whole-cloth plot, my challenge is to take the dream elements and make them into a story idea, either by abstracting what plot exists in the dream, or writing a story around the images, or whatever.

I'm totally jealous of you, alaskamatt17--I would love to be able to intentionally dream about my works in progress. One of my "next time I have a lucid dream" ambitions is to engage in conversation with my characters. But I have lucid dreams so rarely, and the lucidity tends to be pretty short, and all I end up doing with lucidity is observing my dream with a lot more attention. "Cool! I'm dreaming! I'm in a dream restaurant! I'm going to taste as many of these buffet items as I can before I wake up!"

Saanen, did you actually mean "writing hypnagogically" as in, during the dream-like sensations one gets while falling asleep or while waking up? (Except I think the while-waking-up period is technically "hypnopompia", while "hypnagogia" refers only to the while-falling-asleep period.) I've totally had stories tell themselves to me during those times. Most noteably, I actually had the Muse chattering in my ear while I was waking up one morning. "Dude! Ok. Get this, it would be so cool..." I was very irritated with Her, but I tried to abstract it into something useful anyway.

Sometimes I have dreams in which I'm reading a book. The words are read aloud in my head, just like when I read especially slowly and carefully, and I "fall into" the book as my perspective shifts from reader to main character. Unfortunately, very few of these dreams result in useable material. Maybe it's through not doing enough of the exercise mentioned in the first paragraph there.

NicoleJLeBoeuf said:

Saanen, did you actually mean "writing hypnagogically" as in, during the dream-like sensations one gets while falling asleep or while waking up? (Except I think the while-waking-up period is technically "hypnopompia", while "hypnagogia" refers only to the while-falling-asleep period.) I've totally had stories tell themselves to me during those times. Most noteably, I actually had the Muse chattering in my ear while I was waking up one morning. "Dude! Ok. Get this, it would be so cool..." I was very irritated with Her, but I tried to abstract it into something useful anyway.

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Yes, that's what I meant--I'm not sure of the correct term. I think of hypnogogia as the "between waking and sleeping" time, which is probably not really accurate.

I used to have dreams that were actually narrated in prose form, but that hasn't happened in a long time.

Some of the theories regarding dreams say how they are the re-evaluating of the day's events, and that they access all parts of the memory, as well as the subconcious.

So... be careful that what you're writing from your dreams isn't in fact the plotline to some tv show you overheard whilst reading a magazine in the doctor's waiting room

I'm lucky enough to be a lucid dreamer so I usually go to bed thinking about my WIP and in that place between sleep and waking I sometimes manage to come up with a way of untangling a plot knot. As for dreams themselves, I've never come up with a jumping-off point for a story, but sometimes, very rarely, I've dreamed of a character, a line of dialogue...nothing much. Dreams, lucid or otherwise, only seem to help me when I've already started a story. It's as if the writing Gods refuse to give me anything until I've made the first move.

I tried to base a novel off a dream I had. It was about some cooky family that erected a fully decorated christmas tree on a beach in the middle of July. That's all I remember of it. Fortunately I was 14 at the time and only spat out maybe 1000 words before canning it.

I think dreams can be useful though. I wish I had more.

I never consiously (spelling) insert a dream into a story, although I'm sure it's happened. The dreams I remember are mostly (but not all) completely bizzare. For instance, a little over a week ago I dreamed about a random piece of clothing floating in the ocean. That was the entire dream- but it included sight, smell, sound, and I'm pretty sure I could feel the wind and taste the salt in the air. Like I said, bizzare.

Cool

That's awesome. What a great idea!

I always have pretty psychotic dreams! My other half always raises an eyebrow or drops his jaw when I tell him about my dreams... LOL!!

I do study dream interpretation though... So when I have one of these psychotic dreams and look it up, it usually turns out to make a lot of sense.

Good Luck & Happy Dreaming!!

TheNightTerror said:

I used to have a book on dream interpretation, but I can't find it anymore. Do you use an online site? I have a backlog of odd dreams that I should try to figure out.

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It's not really a dream interpretation book, but I highly recommend Circlot's Dictionary of Symbols. It makes good reference reading if you're trying to figure out symbolism for your books as well.

TheNightTerror said:

I used to have a book on dream interpretation, but I can't find it anymore. Do you use an online site? I have a backlog of odd dreams that I should try to figure out.

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I'm not sure about online resources, but this site looks pretty good. It's worth a look. I have a massive book that I keep beside my bed so that I can look my dreams up as soon as I wake up. I also have a pen and a notebook so that I can write them down when they are just too strange not to.

I once had this great dream about a guy who could change his appearance at will from a computer terminal in his futuristic car while he was getting away. I don't remember what he was getting away from, though. I did think to myself, while dreaming, that it would be a great idea to use in a story. But it has been a lot of years and I haven't found a story to put it in yet.

Like a few of you here, I think about my story as I go to sleep and sometimes have "That's it!" moments as I drift away.

With the amount of time I spend thinking about my characters while I'm awake, I'm surprised and rather disappointed that I've never dreamed about them or my story. Instead I keep ending up with very nasty dreams about cannibal zombies...

I've dreamt actual stories with beginnings and middles, though I usually wake up before the end somehow realizing that I'm dreaming. What's weird is these aren't stories I'd ever write and I have no idea where they came from.

I know someone who keeps a dream journal. Whenever she can't decide what to write she writes down one of her dreams. I think she has lots of story fodder there.

I have a lot of book ideas that originated from dreams I've had. I've got a book coming out in Feb/2006 that came totally from a dream. And, I knew it was a book when I was dreaming it. I woke up, wrote out the entire synopsis and worked on it from that.

I like getting my ideas from dreams. I look forward to dreaming, hoping I'll spark another great idea.