Using Dreams as Inspiration for Short Stories

I haven't done it for long, but I realized very early on that I can remember my dreams more easily when writing them down. So there is definitely an improvement. It very much also depends on what I do before I go to bed. If I have a glass of wine or any drink I'm more likely to have dreams. I always make a little note at the end of what I've eaten and drank before going to bed and I see a pattern there.

 

Writers inspired by dreams is nothing new or unusual, so providing you can remember them keep using them. I haven't dreamt in years. Either that or I don't recall them next morning. I wish I could. I love dreams.

Having said that I used to suffer with sleep paralysis, which isn't nice. That's when part of your brain becomes conscious during REM, so you know you're 'awake' and are fully conscious of your surroundings, even your sleeping position, but because you're still in REM you can't move - not even your eyelids. It's a very unpleasant experience.

 

I never had sleep paralysis and I'm honestly glad I didn't. I've read about some people having really scary experiences with that and I'm glad I have been spared up until now. I sometimes do dream quite vividly though and when I go to write it down it also follows a certain logic, to an extent. It just usually takes the most unexpected turns, haha

 

What dreams I have remembered and have been bat-shit crazy.

 

How about dreams that are really scary. I won't go to far into detail but I could feel what it felt like to choke someone with my arm. I knew it wasn't me, it did not look like me but I could feel it. It was very unnerving have no idea of where the dream even came from.

 

Where they all come from: The Lathe of Heaven.

 

I can take the feeling and visual theme from a dream, but the story needs some kind of logic even if it's based on magic.

Often dream about seeing a mushroom cloud after a hydrogen bomb, but in a historical book it can become an orange sunrise over the Egyptian village.

Had a dream about seeing space stations large as the moon and new planets on the sky. A disorienting feeling of worlds colliding where moving and standing still is the same thing. Then wrote about ancient floating islands instead of space ships so that it speaks to our primal desire to be back with nature.