I know that dreams have been mentioned before in other threads, and dreams happen to be kind of key to my stories. This is a topic wherein you can post how dreams are part of your story, i.e. in the story, the basis of a story, etc.

I used to get a lot of story ideas from my dreams. Some of them I am still using.
In light of the other aspect I've come up with, dreams tend to be important in my stories. For example, my main character, Forest, starts having a dream every so often where she is in this other world, and when she awakens, something from that world has come back with her (she also happens to die whenever she has this dream).

In my current Nano this year, my twins are connected by dreams, during times with lots of stress. For example, they are separated and sold to different people, but every night they're able to dream about the other person's life.

Like all my fantasy stories are inspired by dreams. The First Arrow, Glory's Fire, Dragon, Manda (unnamed) and a whole bunch more.

I used to have really scary dreams...

I STILL have terrible nightmares. That's why most of my stories are scary as well.

Aren't they awful? I had them every night till I was eleven or twelve.

I...don't think they're AWFUL. They're just disturbing. Usually I'm in some world apocolypse or massive power outage and I have to protect my family from some kind of evil.

Really? Mine were always petrifying and ominious; I'd be falling into a bottomless pit from which there was no return. Every night.

wow.

I guess most of mine aren't that bad. I'm either fighting demons or like I said trying to save the world from it's end.

When I was really little, I had one where I was being chased by a T-Rex. Lol.

Now THAT I can relate to. Jurassic park scared me SILLY when I was six.

You watched it when you were SIX?!? I didn't watch it till I was thirteen. I just had an over-active imagination...VERY over-active.

Yes, I saw it when I was six and I had a hard time sleeping for months afterwards.

(I could totally imagine a velociraptor standing over my bed.)

Your nuts! I would never be allowed...or want...to watch Jurrasic Park at that age.

It was with my uncle who was twelve at the time and didn't fully appreciate my overactive imagination.

That's weird, I had one like that too, when I was about, oh, six or so. There was a T-rex in our hallway (don't ask me how it fit, I'm still not sure), and I was separated from my family, and it was coming towards me. That was one that I actually had twice, which doesn't happen to me very often.

I used to have dreams. Now, though, dreams are a rare and wonderful occurrence. It's either nightmares or nothing. Oh well, at least now I have a chance to come up with some villains.

Mindy, you saw JP when you were six? I was like you, Liagiba, and didn't see it (completely) until I was thirteen. I caught a glimpse of it when I was...three? Five? Young. Very young. We were at the drive in, and I had fallen asleep for the second movie, which was JP, and I woke up at the scene where the T-rex is chasing the jeep (or so I'm told), and apparently I said, "That's a big dinosaur." and went right back to sleep. To quote my sister, "It's weird."

Actually, I was with my family and we were hidden under a stairwell and we could see its shadow on the wall...
Lol about Jurrasic Park. That's funny, me too. I don't have nigthmares any more, only great blissful dreams that are perfect for my stories.

I moved the discussion about Mindy's uncle into her introduction thread. Carry on!

Sorry for getting off topic.. I assure you, it was all Mindy's fault. Just kidding.

*BLUSH* Sorry. I tend to get really...sidetracked.

lol, elestar! Big dinorsaur is quite the understatement. I think books tend to give me nightmares more than movies though. Books let your imagination take over. But movies think it up for you and it's not usually nearly as scary.

No problem!

I have the same...um, reaction to certain books. Usually the classics that I read for school. Like, when I read The Orestia, I dreamed that I murdered an old Greek man (my dad said that if I was lucky, it was the guy who wrote The Orestia.

ROFL! Your dad can be hilarious! But it's amazing how disturbing a lot of classics can be. Jaws, Return of the King, and Jane Eyre all gave me nightmares. (Although admittedly, I was fairly young when I read them.)

Dreams do fit into my story somewhat. In order to maintain suspense, and drop clues for attentive readers, I have my MC experience an occasional nightmare. Try to put yourself in his place for a moment.

You awake to find yourself standing on an invisible surface. You a surrounded by a light gray color. At first you think it is a mist, but gradually realize that it is the sky, except that the sky isn't normally a full globe surrounding you.

Suddenly, there stand before you, a figure. A man, dressed in tight fitting purple robes. A black haze seems to emanate from his right hand. His features are unclear, but still strikingly devoid of expression or life. His mouth opens jerkily, and a choppy, horribly distorted sound comes out. "Join us, or die."

The horrible apparition changes shapes, forming another man, but one whose feature are clear. He wears a long red robe, his bald head reflection some invisible light source. He has no eyebrows, nor any facial hair, except for his short black eyelashes. He to speaks, but his voice is rich, noble, wise as the ages, and as commanding as the thunder storm.

"Leave this new life of miserable servitude. Come, join me. I have a purpose for you, a plan for the whole world, and even you must play a noble part."

But something in you screams that this man is evil. You see in his eyes not your own reflection, but a dark sky and burning flames. You turn and run. You can see before you nothing but that gray sky, and yet you feel visually aware of what takes place around you on all sides. You can see-feel, even-the red robed figure. His lifts his right hand, and stretches a long fingered toward some point beyond you.

You can see before you a gap in the gray. A black emptiness where there was nothing but gray before. You know that this blackness is emptiness itself. You try to stop running, but you only travel faster and faster, you own feet carrying you toward a black eternity.

As you fall into the blackness, you can hear the red figure speaking softly, as if in your ear. "Choose your new friends carefully. A dagger in the dark. A candle starting fires. And a white ring turning black. Ice is what I have for you, daggers of ice and bolts of fire."

Sound like any dreams you've had before?

I can't say that it does. Most of my dreams aren't that vivid, although a couple nightmares have come close. It was really good, though. I got shivers down my back while reading it.

Yes, it sounds like ONE that I've had actually. Although, I have to say it wasn't NEARLY THAT disturbing.

My dreams always tend to be kind of weird and un-inspirational! A little while ago I dreamed I was in a combination of one of my brother's video games and a tv show my six year old sister watches. It was REALLY strange.

When I was little, Nancy Drew always gave me nightmares. And once we watched a show about the Aztecs and I could barely sleep because I was so afraid I was going to get my head chopped off!

So... yeah. My story ideas don't usually come from dreams.

LOL! Nancy Drew gave you nightmares???

Just one or two of them when I was like eight!

OH! LOL! ok, that makes sense then. it's a good thing you weren't reading Agatha Kristie at that point.

LOL yeah.

Ah, many times I've wished that I could dream a story idea or a solution to my current writer's block! Never happened, though. Once I think I had a dream that I wanted to write into a story, but (as a result of not writing down everything as soon as I woke up) I forgot it.

This may be a little off-topic (although it is on the topic of dreams), but I am curious about something. For quite a few years now - maybe more and I just realized it now - I have been having... dejavu dreams? Sure, that's what I'll call them. It's just a regular dream (not too clear, more like a feeling of what's going on) and I forget it pretty quick. Not many dreams stick in my head. But then later, sometimes months... who knows how later, something will happen and I will get dejavu. For a split second I am positive that what just happened happened in my dreams earlier. Then, as quickly as the feeling was there, it's gone, and I'm left thinking that was just absurd that I dreamed what just happened.

It's normally very, very small things - standing at the top of stairs at camp, watching everyone file down to flagpole - sitting working on something and hearing a conversation to the side about buying purses - stuff like that. But the thing is only God can see into the future, right? So wouldn't it follow that he would be the one giving me these dreams? But it doesn't make much sense, because... these dreams don't do anything. It's just... dejavu.

?? So, much confused on this. Just wondering if anyone else has gotten dejavu where you know you've dreamed it? Anything remotely similar? Just curious. And what's your take on my dejavu dreams?

http://www.howstuffworks.com/deja-vu.htm

Here's a link on it. I don't get it often, but every once in a while I will. I don't think it's a sign from God. Just a little brain quirk.

I almost died laughing at that! And know I finally know why I can't ever seem to run fast when I'm dreaming!!!

I have had lots of strange dreams, but none have given me real inspiration.

Has anyone else here had the same dream more than once? It happens to me often.

There is one dream that I used to have about once a month; anybody ever seen the Veggie Tales video about the Rumor Weed? Well, in my dream, the rumor weed would grow through our back porch without its roots being attached to anything. It would just kind of hang there with its "head" staring in at the kitchen. Hey, it was creepy when I was seven.

Another dream that I have had multiple times is this dream where I discover a fourth floor to our church. This is where all the top secret stuff goes on, where the pastors plot their schemes, etc. I remember that I would discover it and then our senior pastor would see me and get really mad at me. (Funny, 'cause he's a really nice man.)

And the creepiest dream that I've had is this really vague dream. I'm in a place that is extremely familiar to me, but I can't remember what it is. Well, this place is flooded and I'm swimming around with two other people trying to do something - I can never remember what. We discover this box that opens to a control panel and we have to push buttons and pull levers to manipulate doors and gears and stuff. It's one of those dreams that are so real and yet, when you wake up, it all seems vague and fuzzy. It really annoys me how I can't remember who the people were, where we were or what we were trying to do.

Oh, and sometimes I'll be laying in my bed, drifting off to sleep and then I'll have this sickening falling sensation. And I used to dream that I was flying around the house but I couldn't come down, so I'd be stuck floating a few inches below the ceiling. I would also dream that you could really fly if you just put your arms out and jumped. I tried that in the living room - didn't work.

One of the most annoying and strange things about dreams is when you are living your life and then you feel like you've dreamed about the same thing or you ask people if they said something and then realize that it was in a dream.

Lol Aleathea! I don't know if I've ever had deja-vu from dreaming the same thing that happens in real life, but it sounds like fun.
One of my characters has recurring dreams about falling, because he is an ex-dragonrider, and someone shot his dragon out of the air and now he's afraid of heights/falling.

BTW, Tamarack Pines is beautiful.

I do have dreams over and over again. There is one where I know that something horrible is coming up the basement stairs, and I can't move! And I'm starting to fall asleep and my cat is begging me to stay awake so I can fight whatever is coming.

lol. Yes. I thoroughly believe that animals can talk. In their own little way.

Are you sure? Have you seen House? lol Or ... Or...

No. I haven't seen House yet. But I thought about things more, and I realized that I wasn't being COMPLETELY correct. Jaws, and The Village leave enough to the imagination to terrify you. And so did Alfred Hitchcock! But they don't show everything, and THAT'S what makes them scary. As opposed to say...Night of the Living Dead (a really cheesy, black-and-white horror movie) which shows EVERYTHING and ends up being hilarious!

I just had a dream the other night that was set in Carseld . . . (my country) It was in the middle of a battle, and it was like a movie, you know? Where it switches cameras and all that. Well, anyway, I saw Aaron on his red dragon, Blazeheart, blowing a war horn and holding his sword up in the air. Totally strange, but cool. I have no idea where the war horn came from, but it gave me a splendid story idea . . . *scribbles something in her notebook, then walks away muttering*

Odd...there's a place near my home know for Tamarack trees. I'll have to agree, their really great.

Strangely enough, I've had really lucid dreams lately. The pro is that I can actually think and control myself in these dreams, the con is that they seem to be born directly out of the wilder side of my imagination.

Has anyone else ever been able to actually force a dream to allow them to fly?

At current none of my stories are based off of my personal dreams (to my knowledge), but in my NaNo Faded, the MC has a few scenes were dreams are very pivotal. He had an allergic reaction to chemo drugs and passed out into a coma - and into another world. A couple of times, he dreams of Earth, and he actually is breaching reality between the two, wavering in his coma. It should be cool... I hope!

That would make for an intriguing read, Philly.

Thankfully I haven't had many bad dreams lately. I have had a lot of jumping really high dreams, they are awesome! I've been having them ever since I was little.

I haven't based any of my writing off a specific dream, but since I've had so many where I'm running for my life I am going to apply all the emotions and sensations to my sci-fi novel. Feelings like your heart thundering in your ears, tight lungs as though you haven't taken a breath all night, tension in your stomach, quivering muscles from hiding and holding still, a raw throat from rasping gasps and burning fatigued muscles from running. Any running for your life scenes I write will hopefully be very vivid!

Sounds like they will.

I've always enjoyed writing dreams, or narratives with a dream-like tone, that are a solid stream of images and feelings. Where one thing flows to the next with the bizarre logic that only dreams have, and the focus is on emotion and sensory description rather than concrete images. Such sequences are felt rather than read, and you grasp the essence even if you can't formulate clear images. Essence... that's it. It's all about essence.

I've always found sequences like that a delight to read, and if you hit them right, they can just flow from the mind very fluidly and boundlessly. The restrictions that confine you to formal narrative are lifted.

Maybe that didn't make any sense at all...

That made sense, though I think it's hard to write a good story that way, and I've rarely read any good stories that were written that way.

I second Jonathan's comment...

eru

I have a scene where my MC is dreaming in my current novel. I should post it somewhere so I can get some critiquing done on it, to see if it works or not.

Yep. You should.