Does Writing Get into Your Dreams?

Thanks to watching Sci-Fi's "EarthSea," I had a nightmare last night about a dragon.

My friends and I were exploring this old concrete bunker, and as we went up higher, we found baby dragon tracks leading up to the smallest chamber.

Needless to say, we did a quick about-face, but I was the slowest one, and here came mother dragon. I turned around, looked at her giant red eyes full of rage and thought, "Wait, I can't die - I'm the point of view character."

For the next two seconds I thought I was one smart guy. But to mother dragon I was only breakfast.

So I got to wondering - just how much does writing get into your dreams?

writing and dreams

I'm an avid and lucid dreamer.

Characters, scenes, settings and scenarios from my writing appear in my dreams most nights.

I never get a break.

:x

Re: writing and dreams

I've noticed, that more deeply involved in a story that I am, the more vivid the dreams are, and more in tune to the story. When I have a tough scene I'm trying to work out, or if I painted my characters into a corner, and suddenly can't figure out how to get them out, I obsess, and I almost always come up with a workable solution in a dream. It might not be the -final- solution to the quandry, but it's better than none at all, and I can work with it.

Re: writing and dreams

I dream a lot, and my dreams are like movies -- complete with camera movements and lighting and character close-ups. I got some of my story ideas from my dreams. But no, I don't dream about writing. I dream about previous work places or school or people I know, but I don't dream as a writer or anything that is related to writing.

Re: writing and dreams

My dreams have nothing to do with my writing, and if I tried to write based on my dreams, it would make no sense at all, as my dreams tend to be completely messed up, and once I wake up and remember them, I realize that they make little sense whatsoever.

Dreams

I tend to dream in story fashion - beginning, middle, end, with a plot, and characters. Some mornings when I wake, I jot them down so I don't forget.

I once dreamed a whole book, and proposed it to my editor. When she approved it, I wrote it, and it was one of the most complicated books I've ever written and one of the most draining. However, it was the easiest to plot. I'd already done it sleeping.

Too funny.

dreams

It actually sounds kind of fun to have such vivid dreams.

I can't say that I have anything like that.

On the other hand, when I'm in the middle of writing a story, it doesn't matter where I'm at or what I'm doing, ideas are popping into my head right and left, which makes work a bit harder.

Re: dreams

I don't normally have dreams related to what I'm writing. But quite regularly, just as I'm about to fall asleep, my mind will start thinking about what I'm working on and I spend the next twenty minutes scribbling in a notebook. This is useful but irritating, as by the end my brain is buzzing and it takes me ages to get back to the edge of sleep.

I also have very vivid dreams, but the ramblings of my mind during sleep doesn't make good material.

Re: dreams

Dreams definitely play a big influence in my life. Some dreams I've had came true (really!) but they have mainly played a huge role in my writing.

My (unpublished) children's book came to me in a dream, complete with a title. My first two novels (one in circulation and another going through the revision process) have characters influenced by their dreams. The first one even came to me in my dream, as well (though I previously dreamed about two main characters for many years). And, once again, that's how I got the title.

Sometimes, when I get too deep into a book, I will dream up scenes with my characters and also figure out solutions in my dreams. I've even had a dream where a character asked me why I had something happen in a story.

I also have vivid dreams and have experimented with lucid dreaming techniques. It does really offer a creative the chance to really explore a variety of options and new worlds!

Re: dreams

Writing rarely get into my dreams -- but I have written several short stories based on dreams...

Re: Dreams

My writing puts me to sleep. Not that it's boring (well, to me it isn't:\ ), it's that I go to bed thinking about the characters, the plot, where I'm going with it, and before I know it, dream-city. Only I don't dream about the book. I dream about anything but. My dreams, though, are wonderful convoluted stories in themselves, and I've written short stories from some of them. (I do remember my dreams in the morning.)

Re: Dreams

A lot of my more vivid dreams end up as short stories. I wake up, scribble down notes in a file so I don't forget them, and go back to them later once my brain has had time to sort the good from the bad.

On the other hand, I've never had one of my novels show up in my dreams. I guess my brain is tired of dealing with it by the end of the day and wants a respite.

Re: Dreams

whoa, whoa, wait!!

This isn't the dream?

Re: Dreams

About getting ideas from writing, Mark Twain was once asked his secret for writing, and told the assembled journalists to take a nap.

I envy Karen and Greenwolf for being able to remember it all. I had an amazing dream once, the stuff of pure horror, and when I woke I knew I had an incredible story. But as I lay there in a cold sweat, recalling each unexpected twist in this genius plot, I fell back asleep. By morning all I could remember were two words: mad gorilla.

Other times I’ve seen myself write something, like a two-page poem that’s just so perfect it stunned me, and when I wake up I could write down only the first line before I forgot all the rest. (If only we could tape-record our dreams, or at least get a transcript.)

And finally, about that almost-asleep time that Amber wrote about, that really is a treasure house of creativity. Jenny Boyd has a section on it in her Musicians in Tune book, which is a great resource for any creative work.

Keith Richards once said he woke up from a dream with the riff to “Start Me Up” in his head, pressed record on his tape recorder, played the chords, and fell back asleep. When he woke up and listened to it, he had ten seconds of music and a half hour of snoring.

Paul McCartney had the music to “Yesterday” in his head when he woke up one morning, and there’s that line in “Let It Be” about his own mother, Mary, appearing in one of his dreams when he was all stressed out and telling him to “Let it be.”

And yes, rtilryarms, this is a dream, from which I am trying to awake.

Re: Dreams

I've never dreamed about my writting. I've dreamed about movies and TV shows though.

I also have very vivid dreams sometimes, and sometimes they make sence. I've had two that I plan to turn into stories.

It was really funny acctually. I had a really neat dream and I thought it would make a really cool story, except there was one thing that I couldn't answer about the story. I puzzled over it, and in a couple of nights I had a dream that explained the question.

My muse works in strange ways.

Re: Dreams

This is a very interesting topic. I have been working on a fantasy/adventure trilogy for over three years, and thinking about it virtually all the time, but, now that you mention it, I cannot remember dreaming about any of the characters or events even once. Maybe nature makes sure that we don't OD on our creations?

Re: Dreams

My dreams are hardly ever about the project I am working on. Most of them are completely useless. About a month ago I had a dream a group of terrorists took an airport hostage, and they wanted keys. If we didn't have any keys, then BOOM, we were dead. I seemed to have one, covered in gold glitter, that used to open a dressing room on the "FRIENDS" set. We all boarded a plane, I was sucked out and woke up...

I mean what kind of crap is that? I wish I would get inspired by dreams, but terrorists in search of keys, well, is quite useless.

The only dream that really was useful in my writing, was one I had where I was locked in a school. It added a great metaphor in my autobiography, as I felt my years in high school were like being in prison.

(And the previous post about being on the edge of sleep and then getting inspired, and sitting there for 20 mins writing in a notebook, is exactly like I am. It's good to know that I'm not the only one. I sleep with a notebook EVERY NIGHT, almost afraid I will forget an idea I had, while thinking before bed).

Re: Dreams

I notice in my life, there is a strange thread of coincidence between my dreams, daydreams, and reality. Weave them all together, and that's where I live.

I havem rarely, dreamed a short story. It worked pretty well.

As for "Earthsea," it just gave me nightmares. That had to be the worst adaptation I've ever seen in my life.

I dream a great deal, always in vivid color, but never about my writing. Instead, I dream my way into things I am reading. As a lover of history and biography, I have found myself (in dreams) serving as a staff officer under Stonewall Jackson in the Civil War and as an aide to George S. Patton. Maybe my own writing will get in there sometime.

Dreams and Writing

Over the years I've developed a trick. I keep a notebook and a pen on my bedside table. When I wake up, I immediately reach for the pen and notebook and start writing. Sometimes, I don't even open my eyes.

I have very specific criteria I give myself. I don't have to remember the dream (because you almost never can when you try too hard). But I do have to write my impressions. Then, I find myself remembering in chunks. I've had to practice - it's not something that comes easily or naturally for me, but it can be done.

Earthsea was indeed a bad dream (the TV show, not the books).

I have extremely vivid dreams, much of the time with complex plots and characterizations, in color, all the bells & whistles. Apparently my dream production company is a good one. ha ha

But at least I'm not George Orr.

My dreams go both directions. I sometimes receive a bit of creative kick from my dreams -- a couple of my horror short stories have been derived from dreams.

And my writing also feeds into my dreams, but usually it's in a negative way, in one of those endlessly frustrating dreams where you keep pounding salt, as it were.

Like I'm on deadline but I can't get my writing to go anywhere, or I can't find a sheet of paper to write on (sometimes my computer breaks too). A typically frustrating dream. That's usually when I'm on deadline and tired.

The other night I did dream a nice dream, that I had been selected as a crew member for the next Mars mission. I was elated (I've always been a huge spaceflight / exploration fan), so I went around telling my friends that I'd be away for 2-3 years.

I was so excited and happy to be chosen (I think, in my dream, that I was going to be a computer & electronics guy.

Dreaming a movie

I dream a lot, and my dreams are like movies

Click to expand...

Same here. I have actually "cast" real actors in my dreams, usually action stars. Some of the actors I've had in my dreams have been Mel Gibson, Tom Cruise, Clint Eastwood, and then some older character actors like Brian Dennehy.

Understand that I don't dream I'm making a movie, but that in my dreams, it's "real" and the actors just happen to be playing parts.

In my dreams I have full color panoramic view and surround sound, scenes complete with extras.

Like not long ago I dreamed I was at the Astros baseball stadium (I'm a big fan and go to a lot of games). I was walking along the promenade, and there were hundreds of people in my field of view, families and guys and gals and all sorts of folks, just like you'd really see -- old, young, kids, all races, different clothing, full color & action. I could hear the crowd, the announcer, the music over the speakers, smell the concession food, everything very realistic.

This is only one example of how vivid and realistic my dreams are.

Occasionally, I've dreamed that I've been drinking and in my dream, I'm drunk (this happens when I'm actually stone sober). And although I don't do drugs anymore, I've also dreamed I was smoking weed and got stoned, and in my dream I perceived things as though I was high.

Now that's a complex dream.

Re: Dreaming a movie

"You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write."
- Saul Bellow

"I used to greet each morning spitting blood in the washbasin, having the night before gnashed the inside of my mouth while dreaming I had misplaced a comma in my writing of that day, throwing off the pattern of speech given to a character who lived two hundred years ago."
- Thomas Sanchez

Re: Dreams and Writing

I'm going to tell the truth, but I have to admit what I am about to tell you is potentially cause for umm long term admission, k?

I somehow have given complete access to my sub, and super concsiences to my characters.

And, when I sleep, they do-in a word-not. They talk. They go out in a yellow 1955 Chevy for a burger. It's funny, but of the 24 characters in my series, there is never more than five or six at any one time, and they are busy trying to figure out either their own POV to the current scene, or they are talking about the possibilities that have developed for the plot as a result of the current scene, or....


I have even had a dream where no less than three of the characters, while sitting in a very 1950's diner (that I have never been to-quite unique, especially in this dream) tell me at the precisely same moment in the dream, what to do with a scene in the novel. I did. It worked. And, in a future dream, these guys showed up, and were "high - fivin' each other a few nights later.

The characters seem to know very much about where they want to go, and especially where they want the Novel to go. I have learned that, when I listen, they make it better. What a way ta cheat!!

No, not me..........I don't like wearin jackets backwards, if you please.......