The Trouble With Dreams

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Dreams are a fantastic resource for writers. They’re expansive, highly detailed, and free.  A writer can tap into them 24/7. Some people are able to harness their dreams, called lucid dreaming. They have  the ability to participate in their subconscious dreams. Over the years, I’ve read various lucid dreaming techniques and tried to implement them.

I don’t have very good control. Like most people, I successfully interact with my dreams just before waking. If I do, I’m full of regret when I’m fully awake because the dream is over.

There’s only one trouble with my dreams: they’re unpredictable.

Sometimes I program myself when I’m heading to bed. I think about the chapter I’m writing, the conflict my characters need to solve, or their next step. I ask open ended questions of myself, which cannot be satisfied with single word answers. Dreams might give me a glimmer of plot or character insight if I let my subconscious explore the world I’ve created and take me along its journey.

At other times, like during the never-ending trauma that is the covid pandemic, I try not to think before bed. Worry and stress, in particular, keep me awake. This holds true for worries about my characters, my plots, and my business. The world and everything I can’t control spins in my head until my eyes burn with exhaustion.

My Creative Well

More often than lucid dreams, I’m shown new captivating stories. I wake up with an urge not only to capture the scenes I lived through in my sleep, but also develop them fully. Apparently, my subconscious doesn’t realize that I’m only able to fully develop one novel/genre/plot at a time (short stories and posts notwithstanding). If I worked on all of them at once, I wouldn’t meet my deadlines!

What’s an author with so many ideas to do? I developed a bank of content and ideas. Some of the themes or characters make their way into my current works in progress. Other characters, like Pacific, and the young Valkyrie who doesn’t have a name, keep me company in the quieter moments of the day, between daydreams and errands, waiting for the day when I turn my attention to their stories.

Dreams are unpredictable (save for the few blessed humans who have full integration of their conscious self into their unconscious self). That’s the best and worst thing about dreams. Whether the content is influenced by real life or not, I love having new stories in my mind every night and finding a way to craft words around those images.

And I love my ridiculous dreams. Last night I chased after my mother’s chihuahua, The Brain (yes, after the mouse), and had to retrieve him from the beehive in the siding of my house. What? Both she and the dog died a while back. Then my own dog (also dead) had to go out for a pee – but we were already outside. Double whaaaa? Makes no sense.

What about you? How do you capture your dreams in your creative pursuits? What’s the weirdest dream you’ve had?