seen whole plot in a dream?

My first published story was from a dream, and my next WIP, if I decide to do it, was also from a dream. I've had several more dream-based ideas, but most of them never make it off the pillow.

I once had a "whole movie" in a dream. It was pretty good. Unfortunately it faded quickly and was never captured.

But two scenes in my Epic came to me in dreams, and are now on paper pretty much unchanged.

ETA: Last night I had another Movie Dream! I'm fairly sure this is Your Fault. Unfortunately I woke up before the end, and disremember most of it, and it wasn't all that good. But I recognised one of the "actresses" in it... if only I could remember from what...

I have extremely detailed, vivid dreams. Key scenes in two of my novels came directly from dreams I had. My third novel is entirely based upon a dream, so yes, it's possible. And quite a lot of fun, too! I love dreaming entire plots.

The key to remembering them is to wake up immediately following the dream. And then replay the dream over and over in your mind, to help cement it in your memory. Writing it down helps tremendously. Too often, I thought, "This dream was too awesome, I'll never forget it!" And gee, guess what happened? Yup, I didn't write it down and now it's lost forever.

Very rarely, I'll dream up complex stories with characters. When that happens, I'm often semi-lucid in the dream. I'll think about how I have to remember all the details so I can write the story when I wake up.

Unfortunately, when I do wake up, I almost inevitably realize that the stories are ridiculous. For one thing, the characters are usually celebrities. And the plots are usually bizarre. I had one dream about Audrey Hepburn visiting a drug rehab facility in the old west (like, 19th century old west) and trying to find gold hidden under the floorboards. While I was asleep, I thought this would make the best book ever.

DancingMaenid said:

I had one dream about Audrey Hepburn visiting a drug rehab facility in the old west (like, 19th century old west) and trying to find gold hidden under the floorboards. While I was asleep, I thought this would make the best book ever.

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Sounds good to me. I don't think it's been done before.

DancingMaenid said:

And the plots are usually bizarre. I had one dream about Audrey Hepburn visiting a drug rehab facility in the old west (like, 19th century old west) and trying to find gold hidden under the floorboards. While I was asleep, I thought this would make the best book ever.

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This sounds like the right kind of bizarre to me -- something fresh!

And there were facilities where you could go to get off opium, tho not sure there were any in the Old West. Well, yours could be the first!

Last night, I dreamed I time-traveled to the 1940s, during WWII. Only I accidentally brought my modern digital camera, so when I was taking pictures to document my time-traveling, I had to be careful not to let anyone see my camera. (It's purple, for one thing, with an LCD screen on the back. Would've seemed suspicious!) There was an air raid, so we all had to go into the local military's bomb shelter, which was actually an experimental nuclear shelter. We sat down in these rows of seats, then the whole building descended several stories underground. While they closed the airlock doors, we all had to clear our ears, otherwise our eardrums would burst. It was rather interesting, I thought!

Orianna2000 said:

Last night, I dreamed I time-traveled to the 1940s, during WWII.

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<voice type="ominous"> It wasn't a dream! </voice>

You know, the other day I woke up with the weird notion that dreams are actually telepathic broadcasts from other realities---parallel universes where things are bizarre, yet normal. It's like we're accessing some kind of quantum field in our sleep, tapping into realities where "might have been" is real. I figure it's like tuning a radio--only snippets bleed through, unless you find the right station, and then it comes through loud and clear.

It makes sense in a weird sort of way, doesn't it?

Actually, it would make one heck of a novel. . . .

I'd been struggling as how to finish novel, not to end but to finish last 10 or so scenes. Dreamt them in order, fast forward with each scene lasting less than a second.

Orianna2000 said:

You know, the other day I woke up with the weird notion that dreams are actually telepathic broadcasts from other realities---parallel universes where things are bizarre, yet normal. It's like we're accessing some kind of quantum field in our sleep, tapping into realities where "might have been" is real. I figure it's like tuning a radio--only snippets bleed through, unless you find the right station, and then it comes through loud and clear.

It makes sense in a weird sort of way, doesn't it?

Actually, it would make one heck of a novel. . . .

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Oh yeah. I have long thought of my dream world as my other life.

For many years I regularly had what I termed "alternate reality dreams" (regularly as in for 3 or 4 nights every 3 months). There were a couple different "worlds". The effect was as if I replaced the mind of an existing resident, since I'd be baffled by changes that happened between dreams; if the interval was long, changes might be greater.

The one vaguely mimicked the western U.S., but the state boundaries and features were radically different. (Frex, Nevada didn't exist at all; the southwest was mostly taken up by California, which was largely uninhabited, and Colorado, which was the center of growth). In this one "I" was some sort of long-haul mail transport person. The last few times I was "there", I was quite shocked by all the changes to where "I" had lived in the past (especially to a small lake I'd spent much time hiking around -- now it's all houses! ) Haven't "been there" in some years now.

The other took place mostly in wilderness, tho there were cities here and there. One of this world's odd features was that long-distance travel was by way of a contraption that looked like an immensely elongated playground slide -- you sat on it and whoosh! off you went just like a slide, albeit providing some of the motive effort yourself (especially uphill). "I" was one of a group of four rebels on the run from the 'Inspector' who seems to have been the major bad guy on behalf of an oppressive government. In the very last dream (about 30 years ago), we were cornered and apparently died -- I woke abruptly with a vivid recollection of the last hour or so of events, and I've not been back there since.

So, are these other worlds? Maybe. I can't entirely disbelieve it.

I certainly hope dreams aren't other worlds, or other me's are having a real hard time. Last night I had one dream that my little sister died in my arms and we had no idea why, she was fine and then started getting slow, and ten minutes later she was gone. I was the one who had to tell her husband. I then promptly fell into another dream-verse where I was being attacked by demons, a not-uncommon problem, and I couldn't remember the ward-runes to draw to protect myself. I also had to carry around a demon cat for most of that dream so that it wouldn't tell the rest of the demons where I was. In the end, it didn't matter. I woke up just as the demon army found me. There was probably a story in this one, but dream-me wasn't going to live long enough to see it.

Last night was less "interesting, story fodder" dreams and more "let's see how much residual discomfort we can cause" dreams.

harmonyisarine said:

Last night was less "interesting, story fodder" dreams and more "let's see how much residual discomfort we can cause" dreams.

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I hate it when brains do this... mine pulled this kind of thing about a week ago. Had a dream where my sister had had a minor traffic accident with a high-ranking member of a cultlike church, and somehow that meant she was going to get the death penalty. Everyone was upset, and I was trying to find a way to stop it because it was such a gross miscarriage of justice, but somehow this cult had ties in very high places and could basically get away with murder. I woke while talking to the cult leader, one of those condescending-smile guys in a suit; he based his decision to kill my sister on his cult's scripture, which was naturally immune to outside input or logic, though it was clear he got off on the power trip. The frustration followed me for days.

If I ever write a story out of that, I'll have to change the ending.

harmonyisarine said:

I certainly hope dreams aren't other worlds, or other me's are having a real hard time.

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Ha. My current dreams almost uniformly take place in variants of the DOOM universe, I look like the Doomguy (I wish) and I kill a lot of hellspawn. Somehow in my dreams they never kill me back (not always the case in Real Life; today I died about 50 times in a tough map before I got through it).

vintage said:

have you guys have dreams that you wake up from and realize you basically saw the whole "movie" inside your head?
it happens to me once in a while, more often i just see a scene that starts\fits a story. but one or two dreams i had that were just complete stories, nothing really to add, no visible plot holes or something( i know if written down it would need editing anyway, but that's not the point, hehe).
it i just so interesting, how time goes inside a dream, and how amazing some dreams can be...

I'm not sure if it fits this forum, and if it is a clear question, it is not exactly related to writing process...
just was curious to discuss that.
thanks and sleep well ^_^

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I did! In high school I kept a dream journal, and awoke believing I had the best novel ever in the making. After a shower and diet pepsi, my journal, revisited, read "A turtle has an epic journey."


Wish I could remember the niceties of the dream!

I think I made my characters and suddenly started dreaming about them. Having dreams about my plots/where the plot could go is almost a regular thing for me now, which is both helpful and spooky.

But it's usually fragments of the plot that shows up in a dream--rarely the entire thing.

Jamesaritchie said:

Yes, it has happened. I even have continuing, reoccurring dreams about the same place, the same story, the same people. My dreams all tend to be sequential, logical, and easily writable, but this one is like real life.

The weird thing about this dream is that it's about a place I've never been, and I see it from inside me, rather than from outside, as most dreams are. I don't see myself doing something, I'm there, inside the dream character, doing it, just like in real life.

In this dream, there's a town I've never been to in real life, but the detail of the dream is incredible. I know every building in town, I know where one has a streak of dirt along a wall, where paint is peeled, what color everything is, where there dust, etc.

I have these dreams once a month or so. I never know for sure, but when I have the first, I always have several more.

I keep waiting for the ending.

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One of my stories centered around reincarnation, so I had to do a lot of research on it and this sounds exactly like the kind of stuff reincarnated people said. It's rather fascinating, if nothing else.