I dreamed a dream
Last night I dreamed an entire book. Not just a single story line,
but multi-level plots, developed subsidiary characters, jeopardy
and journeys, changing conflicts and resolutions, and the full
emotional gamut.
As I was waking, I tried to stay with the dream to clarify a few plot points I hadn't quite understood. That's when most if it dissipated, wisping out like morning mist.
I couldn't have written it down as I don't dream in words, I dream in pictures and emotions; and besides, there was too much of it. Most I've ever got from a dream is a short story or a segment of a novel; never the complete screennplay.
I posted this as my status this morning, and several people replied with interesting comments; perhaps they'd re-post them here so others can see, and perhaps others have experiences like this?
How much of your writing is done by your subconscious?
As I was waking, I tried to stay with the dream to clarify a few plot points I hadn't quite understood. That's when most if it dissipated, wisping out like morning mist.
I couldn't have written it down as I don't dream in words, I dream in pictures and emotions; and besides, there was too much of it. Most I've ever got from a dream is a short story or a segment of a novel; never the complete screennplay.
I posted this as my status this morning, and several people replied with interesting comments; perhaps they'd re-post them here so others can see, and perhaps others have experiences like this?
How much of your writing is done by your subconscious?
72 Comments
On a personal level, if any of you remember my story set in the Paris catacombs searching for sketches by the American impressionist Childe Hassam hidden there a century ago - I awoke one morning with the thought in my mind that the initials CM could easily be mistaken for CH and that one of the very modestly valuable Hassam sketches could turn out to be an extremely valuable Claude Monet.
Don't think my comments on your 'status' were interesting, however, so will not repeat here. In response to your last question, I would hazard a guess that a great deal of my writing is 'done by my subconscious'.
Alanboy, we dream during REM sleep, and if we wake up during that phase, then we remember dreaming - but if we wake during a phase of deep sleep, then we don't remember. Yes, dream buttons would be so handy. Why do they fade so quickly?
Tony, that poem - such a great loss to literature! Bless. Yes, I remember your paintings story, and also find that solutions come in dreams, often corkers like yours.
Jill, if I ever dream a solution to a problem, I *know* it is the right solution. I'm so sure that if I'm really really stuck, I try to disengage my brain and take a nap. It works so often.
I dreamt a film script as I was walking in Kent and saw it in visual images, but the origin must have been in my mind - family research. i got in a mess with it and the end result has little to do with my original dream
I think an idea lodges in your brain and develops of its own accord and people who write, or paint, or compose music, have rather trained their minds to do this. What does Stephen Pinker think? Next week I will begin reading his latest book.
Intuition rarely lets me down, if ever. I find, as it seems you might, that if I *think* things through too much that is when things don't work out or I begin worrying and do myself no good.
As for writing and artwork, I find my best is achieved if I let stuff 'flow up', although, of course, brainwork is needed also, especially when revising!
Liss, I also used to think it was evidence of life after death; now I'm not so sure; I mean energy - or matter - may not be able to be destroyed, but it doesn't mean it has to remain in the same configuration, does it? It might/does disperse into its constituent parts, which may regroup and form something else entirely. Oh, what do I know. Maybe, maybe not. We must take comfort where we can.
Jill, I totally agree - but when I've arrived intuitively at the right answer, I then have to go back and 'justify' it logically. It really does help though, to know the destination!
Just write it all down quick.
I like the Toy Story analogy, Alan. There's a lot of interesting play of associations in any dream, and sometimes connections are made that sane, sensible groanurps just wouldn't think of.
I kept a dream diary for a while, but my dreams got more boring when I wrote them down. However, there is ALWAYS a notebook and pen beside my bed, just in case the dream steam starts hissing.
On the more general subconscious level, Whisks, I think I do tap into my subconscious quite a lot because of the way I 'method act' my writing. I have to become my characters, and one Jungian psychotherapist I met suggested that Amy, my intuitive, unselfconscious character in The Blackbird Effect could be something like the feminine 'shadow side' of my personality.
Yes John, I play all characters in my writing too! Wonder if us girlies have a feminine 'shadow side'? Dunnit get complicated?
Do you write the whole story (how?) in your dream notebook, or just keywords? I have trouble translating dreams into words in the first place.
I am typing with on hand since the other is trying to force a USB connector into my left ear. Iphone set to record .... et voila!
I remember having a fantastic dream as a teenager, waking up and realising it was the most brilliant idea for a novel. I jotted down a few key words and went back to sleep. The following morning I'd forgotten the dream but that didn't matter because I'd made notes. Hooray! And then I looked at them. 'Orange. Spaghetti.'
Spangles - you've dreamt a whole novel too? Whoop! As for your short story (I hope you don't mind me repeating it here: Orange. Spaghetti.'). I can see the makings of an award winner there. If you don't get it sent off soon, I may have to pinch it. Deep man, deep.
Jill, you need to try harder for nice dreams, that's all I can say :)
Kate, I agree, dozing is ace for good ideas. But how do you note them down quickly enough before they fade into nonsense? I've solved plot problems while asleep, and worked out how to advance a stuck story, but only once got an whole story written entirely from a dream. And that's so personal, I wouldn't show anybody!
Oh, and I remember the emotion too, more than anything else.
Squidge, if you're remembering at least until breakfast, that's some feat - well done! More so if you can relate them to an audience!
Jill, that sounds sad; oh dear. Not sure what to say on a public blog, so I'll leave it there. Hugs. xxx
http://writing-community.writersworkshop.co.uk/magazine/read/the-dream-machine_4978.html
We all dream, and I have the distinct feeling that all of us are in essence geniuses: who hasn't in their life had at least one profound dream, the shape of which leads the waking brain into thinking, 'wow... now if only I could put those pieces together into a cohesive whole...'?
For many of us though, the dream can often seem so flimsy after a while and all too often disappears, gossamer-like into thin air. Sometimes though, something happens in a dream that, if attended to immediately, can propel us into orbit. I was very lucky to have had one such dream, back in 1995 that on the surface was so strange that I didn't know what to do with it. The dream itself was based on Dali's melting clocks landscape. I was lost in a landscape that stretched out across Time itself, and the attendant emotions were so powerful that I had no choice but to try and capture it in a song. VERY unusually for me, a song with both music and lyric was born within a couple of hours of waking and grabbing pencil, paper and a guitar. The emotions I felt were of the expanse of infinity (and that, unfortunately is impossible to describe with words), but coupled with that was also a deep sense of yearning for someone I had actually never met except in other dreams from childhood. Whether that is a strange figment of my imagination or not, I don't know, but it served to give birth to song that has a comfort, poignancy and sense of direction to me.
When I read stories and poems here, I am filled with a sense of awe for the genius that is within each consciousness. Everyone has such expression of soul, intent, genuineness and even under the grit of human experience, love for their own journey, even through turmoil and pain, that I am left with wonder at the miracle of individual expression. I can only express as a friend once implored to me, I say to each of us, keep on keeping on!
Jill, hope your house dreams are pleasant! Mine tend to be interesting (to me) as I remember rooms I used to know but haven't used in a while. I interpret this as parts of myself that I haven't been using to full advantage.
Tony, ah, of course - there it is. I had a memory of one, but couldn't place it. Thanks.
Steve, I like the idea that we're all geniuses (geniii?). I'm sure you're right. So you dream in emotion too? That's interesting. Fab that youi got a whole song out of a dream. I wonder if the person you're yearning for, is someone you knew in a previous life? Have you ever tried regression, to find out?
A friend who had it done at the same time as me, said the same thing. We were both shaken by the events that came up and I remember them vividly to this day. Must have been about fifteen years ago? Longer? One of the experiences, I fictionalised and wrote up as a section of my first tome.
Started with putting a fire out with my slippers and melting their plastic soles...then I was trying to get breakfast in a hotel; was directed to the red kitchen, but ended up in all sorts of other kitchenettes before finding the right one, at which point there were only red apples and red grapes left because someone had just walked off with the chunk of watermelon I really wanted. Then I'm sitting in a lounge, next to Paul Merton, who is wearing nothing but dark framed glasses and a pair of Y-fronts. He got upset when I started laughing, and put on a psychedelically coloured dressing gown. After that, I'm in a wedding gown and posh frock store with my sister, waiting to be served and watching another lady try on a backless chocolate brown dress. This lady started to complain about the bar in her back - she'd had a piercing through the skin on her spine. From the shop, I found myself back in Wolverhampton and buying stuff I needed before going to an introductory lecture for the Masters course I was taking.
Some of it I can 'see' why I dreamed it...I love red fruit over all others; I did my degree at Wolves Poly...I have an aversion to piercings(even the ones in ears!)...we have an open fire where the wood spat rather badly at Mr Squidge the other day...but goodness only knows where Paul Merton comes into it!
Do you think there's a novel in that lot somewhere?!!!
Squidge - you made me laugh in the nicest possible way! You also took me back to childhood, as I was born in Wolverhampton. Lordy know what a hotch-potch my dreams are going to be tonight, what with talk of our first married home also!
Dreams are such rich territory. I have never dared to try past life regression because I've never found anyone who I would trust enough to do it, so well done to Whisks and Jill for going on that adventure.
But it's so real that I can wake up and for a while it seems like a proper memory of a real place I once lived in.
Squidge - there's a definite red theme there, isn't there? The fire, red fruit and chocolate dress - a remnant of Valentines? Defo food for a novel, I'd say.
Steve & Jill, I get a little twitchy about claiming my regression experiences as evidence of past lives. Maybe, maybe not. At the time I did, but that was many years ago. They don't actually prove anything; they could just as easily have been the product of my deep sub-conscious, which was illustrating my life-themes for me in a visual way, like dreams. In one sense, it doesn't matter whether they were 'real' memories or not; the fact remains that they gave me enormous insight into a few baffling behaviours, and for that alone, they're valuable as I understand my own issues better than I did. So yes, Steve - certainly therapeutic.
Spangles, Alan and Spi, woohoo! More House Dream aficionados! According to the course I did, you can delve further: if the exterior of the dream house is pristine / untidy / uncared for / exuberant, this represents how you see your outer self and how others see you. So Spangles, I'd definitely say that the joyous exterior shows your warmth and creativity. And the halls with mirrors - are also semi-public places and they seemed gorgeous. It also seemed very earthy in the astrological sense.
If you dream of the kitchen, well this is the room in which you nourish yourself, so the state of that tells of your own state of soul nourishment: if there's plenty of food, that sounds all right, but if the cupboards are bare or the food's rotten, this sounds worrying for your own internal nourishment. If it's clean and tidy, that's good (although too clean - perhaps not?) - and so on. The question is, does that dream kitchen feed you well? And if not, what's wrong?
The lounge is the room where you receive visitors - people invited in, friends, family. Again, the state of that room chimes with the state of that area of your life. Spotless & clinical? Messy? Is it welcoming? Open? Do people feel free (too free?) to make themselves at home?
The bedroom is your private space - only most intimate people allowed up there. It's where you undress or clothe yourself, where you're most vulnerable. What is the state of the bedroom? Clinical and bare? Cluttered? Luxurious?
If you dream of the bathroom, well that's where you cleanse yourself, so any strong feature of that dream room suggests a similar thing in your subconscious ablutions and how easy it is to get rid of bad things in your life. Is the room cold and dirty? Warm and light? Are the towels fluffy or threadbare? Does the lock on the door work? Interesting Alan, that you found your shower room difficult to get into.
Whichever room you dream of, shows areas of your real life that may need attention.
And undiscovered rooms, as Spi rightly says, remind you of parts of yourself you haven't used in a while, your locked-up potential.
This is all more fertile than I'd expected. Thanks!
Could be worse though, I have not been confronted by a semi-naked Paul Merton. Oh well, off to try again. maybe the cheese and absinthe will work this time? You know what they say; absinthe makes the tart grow blonder. Sorry. Really.
Ely? Robert P - can he manage words, then? Wow. Impressed over here :)
See what you've started, Squidge? Even Milly worries about dreams of a naked Mr Merton now.
Skylark, sorry that the dream I scheduled for you didn't turn up. I wonder where it went? Perhaps someone pinched it in the dream sorting office? I'll put out an all-ports alert and see if we can find it for you.
Your painting / agent dream - you feel you're being asked to do something that you have no confidence in doing, to lay on the alter of publication. If it didn't feel right or you didn't agree, you shouldn't do it. Hope you didn't!
Dreamt instead of my neighbour, carefully planting glow sticks to mark the path to my garden shed before she planted bulbs (the growing sort, not electric ones).
Maybe I will be illuminated soon (glow sticks) about the seeds of an idea (bulbs) which have been planted in my subconscious with all this dreamy discussion?
Tony, I'm knee-deep in dream houses, thanks, but looks like Skylark's in the market for one?
Jill? Off you go! Go create! OK, a dream garden will do. Not the Garden of Eden though, someone's bagged that one already.
Sky - still trying to locate your dream house. Any luck with Tony?
If anyone has seen any dream houses that they don't want, please send them this way.
There is so much to say on the topic of dreams but I'm afraid I must go back to work, otherwise I'll be having nightmares about all the stuff I've got to do. Pip pip for now, everyone.
Spangles, you're jolly welcome. You want more dream houses? Maybe Skylark's got rerouted to you? *steps out of picture*
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As for my necessary afternoon nap dream - it partly involved being told I had to be taken to hospital again, BUT, I was resisting and this time the dream was full of symbolism and humour. After working it all out on waking, I sussed it was a 'clearance' dream and not a predictive one. Prunella Scales, probably as Sybil Fawlty took the part of the GP in the bedroom!!!!
Geri, you're clearly very well-balanced and not in need of dream therapy. Excellent! The dream bank will always be there, waiting for you to draw on it when necessary :)
John, you're clearly thinking about parenting issues, aren't you? Nice of your mum to pop back and reassure you that you're doing OK.
That last one - was it more of a nightmare?
I also had a Cloud dream and I think that's a first. I dreamed about meeting up with John, Whisks, Spangles, Tony and Harry at the posh dinner at the York Festival. You were all lovely and it was a great evening :-D I expect it doesn't take much to figure out that I might just be looking forward to September.....?!
Noodles, strange indeed. Some discomfort with being in your own skin/life? Yet your skin/life tells you not to worry, there's a plan? May need further thought, that one.
Tony, Sky - I've had a similar dream. Funny, that. Can't believe it actually happened :)
I must confess a disturbing house dream a few nights ago. I was homeless and wandering the streets, looking for somewhere to feel safe. It was nighttime and raining. I was in a deserted bit of town, all buildings derelict and damp, brickwork crumbling, with rotting doors or no doors. I tried one after the other. Eventually found a falling-down house which was horrible but I was too tired to search further. Then a Cloudie who had been looking for me (in the dream) was knocking at the door, calling to me. I was too embarrassed by how I was living to see this person and to let them see the state of it, so I hid; didn't answer the door. Felt bad.
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