A year ago, I let go of my last administrative duties as a physician. For 25 years I've been a teacher, researcher, Department Chair of multiple hospitals, on state and national committees in my discipline, president of my group, etc. etc. and this occupied nearly all my scheduled work as well as my free time. Either I didn't dream or my dreams were about work.

Now I've stopped and returned to being a simple clinician--and I love (for the most part) no longer having my prior responsibilities.

And this past year I've started having dreams again, vivid and imaginative dreams. I had another last night, one with a rich landscape and characters with distinct personalities that would make a fine young adult fantasy. I typed the outline when I woke and dropped it into my "stories" folder for later development. The folder is getting rather full.

Nu? Is this normal? Does this happen to you as well? And have you translated any dreams into completed stories?

Respectfully,
Dr. Bob

[This message has been edited by History (edited March 05, 2011).]
 

Of course when I translated it into the printed word (on screen, at least), I found details that I don't remember from the dream, but can't say they weren't there in the first place.

Then again, sometimes it's just a jumping-off point. I had this one dream, where characters from a TV show walked across my point of view, and I was convinced one of them was an imposter. Only the "imposter" point survived into the story, everything else about the dream changed---especially the TV show part.

I had a dream the other night, involving striking gladiators, a picket line to cross, a two-headed woman, and an ogre who proceded to tear the two-headed woman in two. Maybe it'll make a story, or maybe it's some psychoanalitic clue to something that's bothering me. Don't know.
 

Some believe that the subconscious is our connection to "the collective unconscious" that Jung, and others interested in the archetypal journey theory, talk about, and stories that come from the subconscious have a greater tendency to resonate with others because of that.

That said, I used to keep a dream journal (wrote down what I could remember of whatever it was I was dreaming when I woke up), but I stopped because what I was writing down just got to be too weird.

I need to find that dream journal.
 

I woke up last night at 2 am, with latest flash and curled up before the wood stove. The idea came from my 4 year old zapping me with a wand, and turning me into a cat.

Then this morning we were driving to swim lessons. And the 7 year old was telling me that ice can be a mile thick in Antartica. Well, from there developed my latest story, tonights and tomorrows project.

So, I dont know, I guess I do both, night and day dreams.
 

(Unfortunately, it didn't hit JJ Adams' editor cookies...he [or perhaps a slush reader] form-rejected it at Lightspeed in exactly twenty-four hours. Upward and onward; it's at Clarkesworld now.)

I definitely hope I'll have more dreams that give rise to stories like this one.

[This message has been edited by Grayson Morris (edited March 05, 2011).]

[This message has been edited by Grayson Morris (edited March 05, 2011).]
 

Boy, does THAT ring true!!

Lis

And that Jung collective consciousness thing might explain some of my stranger dreams.
 

I did once have a dream that wound up as a scene in one of my books. I think it was less a proper dream than just happened to be when that scene churned forth in complete form -- in the middle of the night. (My scenes usually spring from my fevered brow in very nearly final draft.)

My MC thinks I'm a lunatic.
 

The first story I posted here on Hatrack for first 13 reviews came from a dream I had. Of course the dream I had was not as exciting, so I took the liberties of embellishing. Author's privilege and all.

Also, when I am working on a project, I sometimes have had vivid dreams about my project that have broken my writer's block.

I suppose the writer's brain never turns off.

 

And there's one sort of based in Star Wars. What passed for strom troopers were about to invade a city in space. The thing was a huge globe and was run by a royal family. The royal family were trapped in their apartments and a Hans Solo type of character had connected his ship to a window, so they could break the window and escape that way. No, no Chabacca(?) But there was a young teen boy who was for some reason had to make his way through the poor area of the city to get to the rescue ship. I think he was a friend of the owner. Anyway as he tuns down the dark deserted area someone steps out of the shadows. No, it wasn't Darth Vader even though it was close. Kinda short satire of him . I have no idea how he got into me serious dream. Anyway the boy and him talk and the boy convinces him, he's just a lost boy and goes on. End of dream.

Not sure if I ever will do either of these dreams but I would like to do the second some day. A full book, not just about that adventure.

I have had many other dreams I won't go into detail about but one other I was a scene out of an epic fantasy type of adventure. I will just say that it was small group running from a huge army made up of really bad guys. Actually, I never learned why they were running or why the army was chasing them.
 

Axe
 

The first part was kinda long but like most of my longer dreams I can't recall much about the first part. But I think it may have started with Captain Janeway of Star Trek Voyager(there's a reason, other than if I liked or disliked the show, I might be attracted to Voyager) or but probably was someone very much like her. She came back from being lost in space and ended up talking with someone important but as she did she discovered that something was different. The person had a child who was royalty or something close to royalty. The Captain spoke to someone else who had been with her and said something about the timeline being changed somehow and they had to fix it.

I woke up.
 

Whenever I write my dreams, I'm always sure to do one thing, and that's to write with a focus on the emotions and the details, without trying to explain those details. One of my favorite dreams was this one:

http://www.dreamjournal.net/journal/index.cfm?username=ashliebelle&dream_id=123185

It was incredibly emotional, albeit random. The house I grew up in had turned into a sewing mill. There was a girl, like a homeless workhouse girl from London. My father was a horrible taskmaster. All of these things are completely not true in real life, but they were true in the dream, so I TREAT them as true as I write the story of the dream.

I think that, when people recount or write down dreams, they need to take away every instance of "for some reason..." because reason has no place in a dream. No reason to attempt to explain it... just tell it.

In dreams, settings morph and people change into other people. You experience deep emotion over something illogical, but that's because it's not about the logic. The emotion is real, even if it's not justified. That's why I love dreams, the irrational and raw emotion.

-----
edit

ooooh, I love this dream, too
http://www.dreamjournal.net/journal/index.cfm?username=ashliebelle&dream_id=37790

Man, now I'm going to be up all night rereading dreams from 2 years ago lol!

[This message has been edited by akeenedesign (edited March 08, 2011).]
 

Actually, I was trying to work my way to "lucid dreaming," those dreams where you know you're in a dream and can manipulate the dream around you. Only managed it two or three times in my lifetime.

Gave up the diary after I entered the working world and had to be up...no time to write in it...