Dreams && Writing!

[THE LADY OF MIDNIGHT]

So when I was younger I used to think I was the only weird one that uses my dreams as great inspiration to my writing. As I've grown and talked to other people about their writing styles, I've found that quite a number of people are being inspired by their dreams.

So I wonder if it is just our creative nature that is fueling our dreams and in turn gives us volumes of ideas to write up on.

I often write down my dreams because they are so good I don't want to lose them.

I'd love to hear your input about how dreams help/don't help you in your writing.

[Abaratian]

One example immediately came to mind when seeing this:

Once I had this dream. It was incredibly detailed, and I remember it like it was the dream I just had last night. It involved a girl who was a storyteller, and a race of shadowlike monsters who wanted to hear her stories. I've always wanted with my whole heart to write the story about the dream. But it's been years and years, and the rest of their story never came to me. I never had another dream that revealed what was happening in the world, or who the monsters were, or anything. So as much as I'd like to write about this dream that I have, I don't have a story to tell. It's just one scene without any explanation. I suppose as a writer, my job is to fill in the blank spaces. But I have this really... hard to describe feeling... like if I made up what was going on, it wouldn't be true to what was actually going on? It would feel like...

Sometimes people tell me about their dreams and I can just tell they're lying about them, you know? Have you ever experienced that? When someone mentions a dream they had and you just KNOW that they're completely exaggerating or probably just inventing some dream that they'd like to have but didn't actually have? Well, I feel like if I filled in the empty spaces of this story, I'd be lying about my dream.

It's been literally haunting me ever since I had the dream. :/

[LoganTheGeshrat]

I actually used my dreams once to influence RP characters I made that, in turn, sort of turned into an original idea in my head...Originally I was afraid of using these things from my dreams, because these were very evil things, and I felt that since they came from me dreams they were a....More palpable kind of evil than one I'd just create. But I got over than and used the ideas. I do still remember that foreboding feeling about using those dream-ideas, and wonder if it'll ever come back to bite me in the butt...

Dreams are very mysterious things, definitely...One dream I had in particular sticks out to me, where I had a short moment with a girl...Nothing really inappropriate at all, but this girl was a "dream girl" after all, and I keep thinking that if I ever do have a similar experience to the one in the dream, I'll know that girl's the one

I get how you feel, Abaratian. Maybe you could try to....Daydream the rest? Heheh.

[tarrielass]

Dreams are one of my main sources of inspiration. Sometimes they concentrate on a single person, sometimes the plotline is the main thing. Some months, or perhaps more than half a year ago I had a dream about a young man, whose girlfriend was suffering from some kind of a severe illness. The actual part where things started happening began when the guy just decided to pack up his things, take his bonnie lass on his arms and just go away, and there was a beautiful white horse outside their home. And then they rode away to somewhere where I knew her illness could be cured. It was such a wonderful dream, I started writing about it. Hmm...I originally wrote it in Finnish, but I could take some time some day and translate it, if anyone would be interested? ;D

[THE LADY OF MIDNIGHT]

I looove all the input you guys are giving!

I thought of these poems by Clive Barker:


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"I dreamed I spoke in another's language,
I dreamed I lived in another's skin,
I dreamed I was my own beloved,
I dreamed I was a tiger's kin.

I dreamed that Eden lived inside me,
And when I breathed a garden came,
I dreamed I knew all of Creation,
I dreamed I knew the Creator's name.

I dreamed--and this dream was the finest--
That all I dreamed was real and true,
And we would live in joy forever,
You in me, and me in you."
— Clive Barker (Days of Magic, Nights of War)

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"I dreamt a limitless book,
A book unbound,
Its leaves scattered in fantastic abundance
On every line there was a new horizon drawn,
New heavens supposed;
New states, new souls."
— Clive Barker

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