Many of my story ideas come from dreams. Usually two or three dreams that have been fleshed out, expanded upon, and changed where needed to make a coherent plot. Most often, the main element a dream will leave me with is a mood. How does this story feel? What emotions does it evoke? The more detailed dreams will provide me with several characters and maybe even some plot elements, but that mood is what I take the most time in analyzing and writing down.

But often, my dreams aren’t coherent enough, detailed enough, or removed enough from life to really use. What I call “story dreams” actually happen only once or twice a month, if that. Dreams where I wake up and say, “Man, that would make a great story!” and I rush to write it down. Such were the beginnings of Dragon Singer, Briar Rose, Dreamcatcher, Mask of Eldarmarch…the list goes on. Honestly, if they happened any more frequently, either I’d need to be a much faster writer, or my queue would be much, much longer (than it already is).

However, even the fuzzy, wacky dreams can yield ideas in the form of details. Details of life, of people, of feeling; stuff that sort of passes you by when you’re awake. Sometimes things like that are easier to notice in dreams because they occur bigger than normal, stranger than normal, or simply out of context.

For example, I’ve been having a lot of dreams lately relating to the nuclear problems they are having in Japan right now. Radioactive stuff and refugee type themes. Radiation frightens me. You can’t see it, hear it, smell it, or feel it, and you don’t sense anything off if it’s hitting you. Plus, nothing but distance can shield you it. And it kills in a rather painful, horrible way. That’s up there with velociraptors and tiny dark spaces on Nightphoenix’s DoNotWant list.

The latest in this dream series involved me taking care of a bunch of hairless rabbits who’d been exposed, and then trying and failing to stop some overlord from taking over a small imaginary country. (Yes, even in the dream, it was imaginary. And yet, its loss was terrible. Hard to explain.) I was traveling with the refugees, and this monarch of a neighboring friendly nation was giving the refugee children little bags full of tiny toys and candy. Specifically, red apple-spice candy. There was a moment where I was watching the line of sad refugees shuffle along past me, and all around was this miasma of sweet spicy apple-y scent on the air. For some reason, it was that smell and everything it represented that really made it sad for me. That’s what really stayed with me when I woke up.

That’s what good details do. They call attention to what’s really important in a scene in a subtle, in-world way. They meld all those abstract, powerful emotions into an object, a texture, a moment, something tangible the audience can take away with them. “That was a great love story” isn’t nearly as powerful as “I bawled my eyes out when he handed her that ring”. They might not remember anything else about the story, but they’ll remember the ring and the feelings associated with it. Think about the Phantom of the Opera’s rose with a black ribbon, or Joker’s joker playing card. Significant details often become symbols, reoccurring themes that crop up again and again in a story. (And any details mentioned when describing a room, or object, or person, ought to be significant: ie, if the protagonist always wears a blue headband, that should play some later role in the story…if only to identify or mark her).

So, today, I am reminded to mine my dreams for details missed in the waking world. Like hairless rabbits. And apple-spice candy.

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Well, apparently you get a very unfulfilled dream. I spent most of it trying to chase down this blue-eyed psychic I’d fallen for in New York City, who had to go away for school or something. It occurs to me now that this is the second time I’ve dreamed about NYC this week…interesting. (And you know you spend too much time on Facebook when you start dreaming about using it to find someone). I was frustrated for much of it, but there was also an overarching sense of regret for an opportunity missed somewhere. There were also schooners, my dad, and people flying around with helium balloons, which my subconscious decided to throw in for kicks, I guess.

I seem to have basically five types of dream. (These are the ones that I remember, mind). The first is the “re-hash the day” dream, which the above would probably fall under. I’ll usually have these after I’ve seen a powerful movie, finished a good book, or done something new and exciting that day. Last night’s blue-eyed psychic was some bizarre combination of Michael Scofield and Mordred, and would be a prime example of that. Occasionally I will be almost lucid in these; I’ll go back and rearrange elements of the dream, but it usually doesn’t occur to me that I’m asleep. These rarely help me in my writing unless they also happen to be:

Strong emotive dreams: Those dreams where the part I really remember upon waking is whatever emotion I was feeling. Like being separated from someone and knowing I’m never going to see them again (that was last night’s). Or feeling a very strong connection with someone. Or the rush that comes from using a magic power or kicking butt with martial arts or something. Rarely lucid, as I’m too wrapped up in what my dream self is experiencing. The plot of the dream isn’t as important as the emotion, and the emotion is something I can recall later when writing a scene. If I can recreate that feeling with words, then I have something. Writing is all about evoking an emotion in a reader.

Story dreams: The dreams where I wake up and think, “That would make a great story.” I always write these down; they are my primary source of inspiration. Practically every major novel idea I’m working on now started out as a dream. Sometimes it takes more than one to create a plot. Shades, for example, was born from two completely unrelated dreams. Such dreams vary in the amount of detail they provide. Some are little more than an opening premise (Mask of Eldarmarch), a vague direction for a story to go in (Briar Rose, Pandora), or a screen shot of a powerful scene. Some are nearly complete and take only minor tweaking to make them work (Dreamcatcher, 134340). Some give me a great, complex plot that I then have to populate with people (Eagle, Falcon, Owl and Crow). Sometimes I’ll only get a great cast of characters, names and everything. (Valkaria started as dream where I met all the mice and got a sense of their personalities).

Message dreams: Where my subconscious (or someone else) is trying to tell me something. Very cryptic and symbolic. These have more to do with my spiritual life than my writing life, and are powerful when they happen. They don’t happen very often (so when they do, I tend to pay attention). Only lucid in the sense that if I am called to make an important decision, I know it’s ME and not a dream-self making that choice.

Pure lucid: These tend to happen in the morning, after I’ve woken up once and fallen back asleep. If I can hit that perfect place between sleeping and waking, I can walk out of my head. I’ve gone around the apartment like this, and a few other places. I’ve seen some truly strange things while doing this, but it’s a hard state for me to maintain. I’ll typically either slide into a true dream or wakefulness after a few minutes.

It’s not as fixed as I’m making it sound. These dream types blend together a lot, or I’ll start with one type and have it morph into something else. I decided to post last night’s dream here because that sense of regret was so strong. I think I can recreate that in a story.

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