Do you dream about what you're writing?

[Black Dragon]

Does your writing ever get into your dreams? If so, in what way?

And did such dreams help you to develop or improve your story?

 

[JoanofArch]

Sometimes I've had odd dreams that inspired some new story ideas. I wrote a story called Digging For Birds which was loosely inspired by a dream...I've never actually dreamed about anything I was in the process of writing, though, which I think is a shame. It seems like it would be helpful. I feel like dreams always cut to the chase, so to speak.

 

[Map the Dragon]

I have dreams that are so fantastically realistic (imagery not reality) that it is almost a shame sometimes to wake up. However, I have never been so lucky as to dream about the worlds in my own writing. As a matter of fact, I have never dreamt of any world that I know from literature. But how cool would that be!

 

[Jenna St. Hilaire]

Like JoanofArch, I've sometimes dreamed things that I thought would make good story ideas, and actually have one novel in the works based on some images from a dream. As far as I can recall, though, none of my stories have ever made it back into my dreams.

Other stories, all over the place... lots of fun dreams about Harry Potter, and one rather terrifying Wheel of Time one where the Seanchan had me collared and I was trying to keep Rand from getting captured... which makes me wonder whether a dream from my own finished novel would be more pleasant or frightening.

 

[Kelise]

I try to. It helps me be more in the mind set to start writing the next morning, instead of wondering what next to write. If you dream about it, think about it whilst waiting in line at a checkout in a shop, whilst waiting for a bus, etc etc, you can usually start writing immediately as soon as you sit down to do so.

 

[Chilari]

Many of my stories come from dreams in the first place, but I never dream my stories after committing them to paper (or Word file). I try. I think of my stories as I'm going to sleep. If I remember what I was dreaming, usually if I am woken up soon after going to bed, then it makes no sense whatsoever. I have very vivid dreams sometimes, though. Good when they're nice dreams, or simply weird, but not so good when they're nightmares.

 

[BeigePalladin]

yep, that's where the entiery of it comes from all my twisted little dreams...

and for mourning star, I'm serious - I wrote the initial notes in my sleep, and then continued it the next day, amid dreams filled with random demon attacks and crazy magic peoples...

 

[myrddin173]

It's entirely possible that I dream about my created worlds, I just don't know. For some reason I don't remember any of my dreams (except for this one from when I was a small child where I in the dream I woke up and there was a buttler standing over me with a knife... I was an odd kid). The closest I come is daydreaming, and i do actually daydream about my created worlds.

 

[Cinnea]

Does your writing ever get into your dreams? If so, in what way?
And did such dreams help you to develop or improve your story?

Yes, and yes.

Well, not very much. And not very often. At least not that I remember.
Two or three times, perhaps, I've remembered a dream where my main characters apperared. Onve they even was in the surroundings I've created for them.... Anyway, it did not make me change the story, but the snippets I remembered from the dreams made me understand the character better - and it did influence the way I wrote him later in a particular scene.

Then I've had a dream that would make a perfect prolouge just as I remember it ... now, if I only could build a plot around it =)

 

[Map the Dragon]

So...crazy weird one last night. Not fantasy, but worthy of sharing nonetheless.

(I'm white btw), but last night I dreamt I was slave (say in early American maybe). I was black and was with a friend. We were on the run. We eventually came to some sort of room or cabin. In the back of the cabin was a small door (think Alice and Wonderland small). Men were chasing us and we saw them coming when we looked out a cabin window. So...we shrunk and went through the tiny door. Surrealism maybe? On the other side was the only fantasy-like element - a world of tiny people who had also run, but they were of all colors and races and seemed to have a pretty darn good life.

When I alone went back through the door, I was normal sized again. But, then I was a white slave with black people coming after me..fighting ensues and I wake up.

I'm weird.

I didn't eat or drink anything funny before bed; I promise.

I'm missing a lot of the great details that made the dream so real and amazing, but you get the gist.

 

[Digital_Fey]

Sometimes, if I'm lucky. Although it's usually so nonsensical that trying to adapt the dream to fit with the story it's based on would be ridiculous, it does sometimes help me get a sense of characterization, or of brief images that might be part of the motif I'm going for.

Apparently some of Lord Byron's contemporaries were in the habit of eating raw meat in the evening in the hope of stimulating horrific dreams they could use for their gothic novels. Whether it works or not, I doubt I'd go that far

 

[Telcontar]

The only time I can remember dreaming about anything I've written was a really, really cool dream. Full of action. One of my main characters (Kray) was chasing one of my minor characters (Padraig) through some sort of cellar/dungeon thing. Wooden walls, stone floors, and torchlight are still very clear in my mind. Kray eventually kills Padraig, which didn't originally happen in the story. However, the dream was so visceral and exciting that I decided to give Kray the satisfaction of the kill in the story as well (yes, these two were enemies already).

 

[CicadaGrrl]

Have two novels based from dreams. The basic set of core characters. The igniting events. Basic plot.

Dream a lot of other things that are cool but haven't gotten their way into books. At least, yet. If I am pulling hard days on a project, I will start to dream within my world or with my characters. Most often I am included as myself--not the author, but someone the characters meet. The scene will fit into the characters and the arc, but almost never be something i have written or planned to write. If it is good enough and further rounds out the book I may use its carcass for food later though.