Perchance to Dream
by
Ron Vitale
Ever wake up from a nightmare and have those few moments of disorientation in not knowing if you’re still dreaming or awake? After you clear your mind, lean over to your night table and grab your dream journal. Write down everything that you can remember about your dream and soon you’ll be on your way to generating ideas for your next story. Sound odd? I’ve jotted down my dreams for years now and recently purchased a notepad and made it my official dream journal.
In fact, my story “Ghost Trails” (published on Ultraverse.us) started out as a dream several years ago. I wrote down bits of a nightmare on a slip of paper, filed it away, and then wrote my story months later. Although my story wasn’t published until several years later, I’m glad I was able to capture my dream on paper. Most likely “Ghost Trails” would not have been written without my writing down my dream on paper.
Think of your dream journal as a story generator. Even if you only remember your dreams rarely, keeping a notepad and pen by your bed will help you save your ideas. I find that writing down whatever I can remember of my dream to be highly effective. Later, when I’m fully awake and clear of mind, I re-read the piece I wrote and am constantly surprised at how many plot holes exist in the dream. Yet my purpose is to collect imagery and ideas, rather than worrying about how realistic the dream was. The point of a dream journal is to capture, in words, the emotion you were feeling during the dream. Did you feel oppressed, joyous, or angry? What caused you to feel this way in the dream? Who or what did you see the dream?
Not every story idea will come to you through a dream, but you can use your dreams as a source of inspiration to help you jumpstart a writing project. Imaginatively, your mind is at work for you while you sleep. When you are dreaming, imagine that your mind is projecting images to you like a movie. If you can write about your experiences in the dream state, then you’re helping yourself become a better writer. How? I believe that the exercise of writing on demand will strengthen your descriptive skills and force you to find a way to jot down as much of your dream as you can remember. But remember, time is a factor. If you fool yourself into thinking that you’ll write the idea when you get home from work or after you drop the kids off to school, you’re fooling yourself. The most detailed parts of your dream will likely fade from memory rather quickly as you become wrapped up in your daily routine. Your dream journal helps you capture not only your dreams but also your emotional state during the dream. To help you organize your journal, here are some suggested guidelines:• First write down as much of the dream as you can remember. Try to capture in chronological order the beginning, middle, and ending of a dream. In rare circumstances, I have dreamed of an event and then later relived the dream the same night, starting at the beginning again, but parts have changed. For strange chronological jumps in the timeline or recurring dreams with edits, try to capture as much of the feel as your dream as possible—even if it’s not sensible. Often dreams shift from one situation to the next with no logical break. In writing your dreams down, do not concern yourself with such illogical situations. Just try to capture as much of the dreams as possible. • Visualize everything that you see in your dream. Were there any colors that stood out in the dream? What did you see and experience? Go through your entire dream and try to write down as many of the images you can recall. Remain calm and relaxed, working quickly. Do not stop to get out of bed to change your surroundings. Simply write as much as you can while you can remember it. Often, a change in scenery causes me to forget parts of a dream. • Who or what was in your dream? Were you in your dream? What were you doing? What did you look like? Or were you watching your dream in the third person as though you were taking in a movie? How did the people (or things) in your dream react toward you? Understanding the motivation of people or things in a dream is essential. For example, not only is it important to know WHAT was chasing you in your nightmare, but WHY is also extremely important? • Make a list of your five senses in your dream journal and write down all the experiences you remember from the dream. Wring your dream dry of every bit of detail! Later, when you go back to re-read what you wrote, you’ll be amazed at how descriptive you were in remembering the dream. If you are prepared and have a notepad and pen by your bed, do not lose hope if you don’t have a dream that you remember right away. I’ve discovered that the most lasting and detailed dreams come to me when I least expect them. Make sure to pack your dream journal for your business trip and when you go on vacation. Be prepared and consistently place the dream journal by your bed no matter where you sleep. Although you might find my suggestion to be excessive, I think you’ll agree that having the journal on hand is preferable to losing the dream (and a potential story) or having to jump out of bed in the middle of the night searching for a pen and paper!
