Last night, I dreamt I was a tarantula, crawling out of a pit and readying myself to feast. At least, that’s the story I’m going to tell about the dream.
The actually dream featured a tarantula, to be certain, but it lacked, oh what’s the word? Coherence! It lacked coherence, especially since said tarantula was floating on a lake, turned into a hot air balloon and got caught in a tree. Not exactly prize winning stuff there.
Dreams are funny little things. They make so much sense when you’re in the middle of them. Wrapped up in the blankets and puttering about in the subconscious makes for interesting stories. When you hit the moment that you’re aware of the dream, you swear to yourself that you’ll jot this down when you wake up. After all, it’s the perfectly encapsulated story, isn’t it? It has a beginning, middle and end and the vivid imagery! You can’t forget the vivid imagery.
However, as the fog of sleep thins, the details start to disassemble. Point A no longer leads to Point B. The middle drops out and well, maybe there wasn’t ever a story to begin with.
Rather than using literal dictations of dreams, I like using dreams as inspiration for fiction. It doesn’t happen all the time, but every once in a while I’ll wake up with an image in my mind and that transforms into a full-fledged story at some point. The story may have nothing to do with the image itself, but it acts as the trigger to get the creative juices flowing. Like a prompt, only it came from my brain and not a blog or forum.
What’s a weird dream you’ve had lately? Ever write a story based on a dream? If so, how did it turn out?
I had a dream about 25 years ago where I was in a martial arts tournament in a campground. It turned into the book I’m writing today.
I like your conversational, happy writing style and love the image you used for this entry! Thnks for sharing!
That’s awesome that your dream became story inspiration. The subconscious is a funny little place always trying to tell us things. And thank you for reading!