Following a conversation I had with a writer friend of mine (he's started the practice of writing down all his dreams and keeping a log), I've started having very vivid filmic dreams - has anyone used dreams as a source for their fiction? Never really explored it, but I think it could potentially be a huge mine of creativity. One thing that stops me, is that the whole point of dreaming is to process information subconsciously and by recalling dreams surely you're interfering with that process (which is potentially harmful to your mental well-being?). Views, please.

I wouldn't worry about it being harmful, traveller. I think there would be an awful lot of psychoanalysts out of a job it if were. But you'd have to be quick in getting them down when you wake up, because most are rapidly forgotten.
Personally I'll stick to daydreaming - far more interesting than my night-time dreams, and I can type at the same time.


- NaomiM

I've done this a few times, when I've had particularly weird or lurid dreams & one of these was published as a short story in a US-based online publication, but mostly my dreams kind of evaporate by the time I'm awake enough to write them down. That said, good ideas sometimes come to me while lying awake in the early hours.

I do think when you're in that state between sleeping and waking, it's much easier to tap into the unconscious - which is where the good ideas are - than it is when you're fully alert and awake. So that's a good argument for spending a lot of time in bed.

I advise eating plenty of stilton late at night and keeping pen and paper handy.

Yup, I find cheese works for me too, and mushrooms.
Last night I dreamt I was unblocking a whole row of overflowing toilets....not sure there's anywhere I'd want to add that in my wip.

Yes, the only way of doing it properly is to have a pen and paper by the bed...it's interesting how the mind works because after posting this, I've stopped having filmic dreams, which is ok, really. That's interesting RJH though that you had a short story published as a result of a dream.

Last night I dreamed my daughter wrote a novel called The Pizza Delivery Man. She gave it to me to read and every page was printed out, cut in a circle and stuck on a pizza with pretty little red and green paper ribbons stuck all round the edge along with salami, tomato etc. I got cross and said it made too thick a book but my husband got very cross with me and said I was stifling her creativity and should shut up!

Then I dreamed my agent invited me to a party but when I got there they kept talking to me about deisel being better for the planet that petrol with all sorts of statistics and in the end I just gave up and went home.

Oh dear - I do seem to have a very overactive imagination while sleeping. But I don't think my dreams would contribute much to a book. Unless it's one you want to eat!

Sarah

Last night I dreamt I was rearranging tables in a college postgrad room, but every time I cleared a desk for myself someone would come along and pinch it - the lecturers were the worst. By the end there were about a dozen tables - all in use - and two spare ones filled with out of date computer equipment and several wardrobes full of mens suits. Can't remember what the course was about, though.

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I think the dream had something to do with not being able to write my final chapter, despite all the other chapters being more or less complete (the full tables), the last one (or two) is still a cluttered useless mess of defunct plot devices.