Dreams and Memories

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Spy_on_the_Inside

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I already know starting a book off with the main character having a dream is a bad way to start a book (almost as bad as the character looking at themselves in the mirror. But what I'm wondering is how do people feel about cut aways to dreams and memories in other parts of the book.

Is there any way for this to be done well? Can it be a good stratagy, or does it usually end up falling on its face?
 

Chris P

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As with anything, it depends on how it's done and what purpose it serves.

But there are several things I would avoid: dreams as humorous (or erotic, or dramatic, or horrific) asides that don't move the plot, dreams that are there only to show something about the charcter's personality, dreams that provide the solution to the MC's conflict, and dreams where it's not obvious the character is dreaming until the end.
 

katci13

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I think it's fine. I use dream sequences sometimes for repressed memories and the like. Once I had another character invading the MC's dream as a way to manipulate her and drive her crazy.

As with most things: do what you want, but have a point and do it well. And it should be obvious that it's a dream. I can't stand when I'm reading something for a page and think it's real and then they wake up on the next page and I have to go back and reread it as a dream. Dreams and reality get interpreted differently in our heads.
 

Al Stevens

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I have an elderly character who is troubled about WWII combat dreams. Those are part of his makeup, those memories relate to his current conflict, and they help to show some of his background without relying on backstory.

There are only two such dreams, they're about a paragraph each, and, I like them.
 

ex_machina

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Unless said dreams add to the plot later, or unless they grapple with the MC's emotional state, I could really care less about them and usually skip over them while reading. But that's just me. Tons of people I know love reading dreams.

Writing dreams is possibly one of the most difficult things to nail the essence of with words.
 

Buffysquirrel

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You can start with a dream. You just have to do it so well that you get past the jaded response. That's so hard that, generally, starting that way is not recommended.

Dreams can definitely work in narrative, provided they are relevant and interesting. Think of it like any other part of a story: it has to serve some combination of furthering the plot, revealing character, establishing setting, etc etc. There's a powerful scene in Tess of the d'Urbervilles where Hardy reveals a character's deepest emotions through a dream/sleepwalking sequence.
 

FlyBird

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I am thinking about using a dream scene too, and wondering if it is a good idea. I would use the dream to reveal something about a MC’s past, but not completely like when the MC is thinking or talking about it while awake. So it would be this exaggerated, fuzzy image of something happening. I am thinking this will keep the reader interested to find out what it is, and of course later the real world details will be revealed.
 

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I like dreams that hint about the past of a character. They shouldn't go on long, of course, and I do like to know it's a dream.

The ones I think are so hard to pull off are the foreshadowing or pseudo-prophetic ones. It works fine in some genres and is an easy way out in others.

I don't think I'd ever have a dream be the only way to figure out what might be to come. The character's waking life should support the dream's foreshadowing. If a prophetic dream is literally important to the plot (like magic, if you will), then that's different, obviously :)
 

ex_machina

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The problem I have with dreams in works of fiction, now that I've thought about it, is that in real life they are so inaccurate. They have talking toast and people falling through walls and crazy, crazy things. Even if they aren't so crazy they're always a little off. So to ask the reader to accept them as 'showing a character's past accurately' is ridiculous, as dreams are rarely totally realistic and correct. If you want character past, make it in a flashback/memory so we aren't questioning whether what you're telling us about the character is fact. Much more realistic and believable.

Just my two cents.
 

job

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There's nothing wrong with adding a dream sequence.
However ...

The action of the story -- what the character does and says and decides that brings about the resolution at the end of the book -- can't take place in a dream. A dream is a digression from the the line of ongoing, productive action.

In terms of plot structure, a dream sequence shares all the problems of flashback and subplot:

-- There's a dead stop in the pacing as you drag the reader away from the action and then back again.
-- The dream is a no-progress scene. None of the actions and decisions occur in the fictive world. It's 'filler writing' that does not advance the story. And 'filler writing' has to be handled carefully lest it slow the pacing.
-- There's the chance that the dream action may be more interesting than the main story. It may hold the reader's mind long after you want her to move on with what you're really writing about. You have distracted her.
-- The reader, for at least an instant, notices the writer at work. Notices the, 'Hey. This is a dream'. This breaks the fictive haze.
 

Anninyn

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OK, have you ever been in a social situation when someone starts going on about the dream they had last night? A lot of people find that boring. Most dreams are ridiculous as well - "So, I was in this swimming pool, only it was full of beetroot juice, and then my first teacher came in and told me I was a crow..."

As with all things, unless it does something important for the story, don't do it. And remember that real world dream imagery is stupid, and it's very hard to do right in fiction.
 
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