I think I have gotten almost all my ideas for short stories from lucid dreaming. For those who don't know what lucid dreaming is, Its when you know you are dreaming inside a dream. I'm sure almost all of you have had at least one of these in your life. You can do anything you want: fly, use elements, breathe underwater, et cetera. I have learned to do this over a few months by going to lucid dreaming forums. Back to the point. When I'm in a lucid dream, I ask random people on the street what a good idea for a book is. Most of them just mumble something about bananas, but every once in awhile they actually give me a good idea.

Has anyone ever heard of lucid dreaming/do it?
Have you ever gotten a good idea out of it?

Almost all of my dreams are lucid. It get's very boring. Once you've killed the people you most dislike in every conceivable way, it get's a little old...

I have very detailed dreams, most of which I get various ideas from.

Are you serious?! You are so lucky...

You can do anything you want besides just killing, go skydiving without a parachute or something. Seriously, ask people for ideas. It is usually really random, but extremely creative.

Edit: By the way I was talking to Banzai

Lucid... Ahh...

I was thinking Lewd.

I am going to back out of this discussion now.

I've had dreams that sometimes I wish I could back inside. A lot of them, however, are passive, meaning I watch from my prespective and don't actually control anything. :(

Perhaps not lucid dreams, but dreams in general, yes.

Never have dreams like that, and rarely have dreams at all (i know its a theory that you always have dreams, but none i remember i mean), and the ones i have had i didn't get any ideas from them.

my first screenplay was the written version of a dream... i woke at 4am with vivid scenes of a sci-fi epic that had to be scrawled down on the pad i kept on the bed, then put myself back into the dream to find out what happened next, woke again at 6 and wrote the rest...

i first outlined it as a novel but realized it was so visual it needed to be a movie... so i checked out some movie scripts from the library, got myself a final draft program [that had happily just gone on the market] and in 10 days had a 110 page screenplay on paper...

my first screenplay was the written version of a dream... i woke at 4am with vivid scenes of a sci-fi epic that had to be scrawled down on the pad i kept on the bed, then put myself back into the dream to find out what happened next, woke again at 6 and wrote the rest...

i first outlined it as a novel but realized it was so visual it needed to be a movie... so i checked out some movie scripts from the library, got myself a final draft program [that had happily just gone on the market] and in 10 days had a 110 page screenplay on paper...

Did it get made into a movie or something of the sort?

Dreams are good sources for me. :)

I've been on and off attempting to have a lucid dream, following forum guides from another site, but I've either just given up or haven't been able to perform, so to speak.

I have taken inspiration from dreams, and also have experienced lucid dreaming. Trouble was, the villains in my dream got angry when I wanted to quit the dream. They'd be like: this is against the rules!!! (no kidding :p)

It's wierd, I think I had my first lucid dream last night (no joke). I have heard of lucid dreams before, my sister told me that she used to do lucid dreaming, and my uncle as well. However, he said that he would lucid dream and then wake up and still be tired. In my dream last night I realized that it was a dream, I remember saying that to myself, and the dream went on but I don't remember what I did for the rest of the dream. A couple of nights previous I was questioning if the dream was real but decided in my dream that it was reality and that I was just trying to deny the death of a loved one who had died in the dream. I guess I finally broke through the other night, but didn't have the control to do things that I wanted. It might be cool to lucid dream but it seems like dreams are more fun when you think they're real. I haven't ever totally lucid dreamed therefore I have never got a cool idea from it. I know people like my uncle who used to lucid dream but have since stoped. I wonder how you can ignore the thought that the dream isn't real once you've experienced a lot of lucid dreaming, I guess if your not trying to lucid dream you just don't. Anyways It's kinda cool that I stumbled upon this thread after just recently having a lucid dream, kind of serendipitous.

I'm an extremely vivid dreamer. A LOT of inspiration for my stories have come from these dreams. I almost always remember them and I almost always dream. My dreams are so vivid that I usually do not know I'm dreaming. So much so that sometimes if I'm woken suddenly I'm disoriented because reality suddenly shifts.

This is GREAT, except in the case of a nightmare. Not knowing it's not real makes bad dreams REALLY bad. Infact, this is the only time my dreams have ever turned Lucid. I think it was a way for my mind to get through it to stop it. This isn't real and I need to wake up/change it/end it. So, it is interesting how Lucid dreaming can be a sort of protection.

I don't have bad dreams very often anymore. I used to frequently when I was younger, but since I've been married, I rarely have them. :0)

This is an interesting topic. Just yesterday another writer on this board and I wrote an entire backstory for our characters for an rpg that stemmed from a dream I had the night before. Timely. :)

~S

Sometimes I've based stories on dreams, but they never were any good. I rarely remember my dreams these days.

How bizarre! This is the second time today that I've seen a question regarding lucid dreaming on a forum. :/

Anyway, the closest thing that I have experienced to lucid dreaming was one rather weird episode I had on a tram. I was quite conscious, but everything that was happening around me had that very distinct dream-like quality to it. Not only that, but I knew everything that was going to happen, because I had dreamed it all before - all in separate dreams, and I could choose what happened next by choosing certain events from those different dreams... In the end, I was so freaked out I just sat on the seat, my head buried in my knees until it was time to get off.

Every one was looking at me funny. lol. And no, I was not inspired to write about it - though I occasionally glean ideas from 'normal' dreams.

:redface:

There was a point in my life where I was having semi-lucid dreams, that was also the point where I had my most vivid dreams. It was more like watching T.V., where I knew it wasn't real, but I wasn't thinking about anything outside the dream, or controlling the dream. The great thing is that it turns any nightmares into an adventure. I got a couple ideas out of that time that I still need to use. Another funny thing is that while I was falling asleep I would realize that I was falling asleep, and the thought wouldn't force me to wake up. It was like my brain was shutting down, and my concious thought was the last thing to go before I actually fell asleep.

I don't think my dreams would make a great story.
I am being chased by someone or something.
Or I am rescuing children.
I haul my husband out in our canoe and we paddle to where ever children are being hurt.
We can put 100 or more people in our canoe and we bring them to our home to be saved.
Now would you want to read a story about either of those.
I think I will stick with friendly dragons and bears.

Did it get made into a movie or something of the sort?

kk...
no, because it was with my agent when i dropped out of the material world and left all my old life's work behind. along with all the rest of that life/identity... he'd said he was close to a sale or an option, but after i 'vanished' wouldn't have been able to sell it...

I have trained myself not to dream in a sense... I never used to actually sleep as such. I would just dream. 90% of my dreams were either night terrors or lucid dreams. So i was waking up and was exhausted all the time, not matter how much sleep I actually got.

I have in the past used images from said dreams in my poetry. But I do not write about the dreams. I did once, for a poetry contest on the forum. It was about dreams. Quite a... strange one at that. But otherwise I try my best not to use them for writing.

I don't like to talk about my dreams because I feel that in doing so it is far too personal. I'd rather tell someone what underwear I was wearing than tell them about a dream I had, because a dream comes from the subconcious mind and they can be about things that are worrying us that we really don't want to talk about. So I am not going to write about it.

For me, my dreams are rarely personal anymore. They used to be. I've always had very vivid dreams, and often I haven't even been in them; they've been about other people/characters. I've had plans to write about them, but haven't gotten around to it yet. Sometimes I dream about characters I've read about, which is strange at times.

I lucid dream a LOT. The difference between bad stuff happening in a nightmare and in a lucid dream is that in a lucid dream, you have power to do whatever you have to to stop it. I usually just blast heads off until it's all good again.....and I'm often a superhero like person in these dreams, and wake up with a huge urge to kick some serious butt. It takes some getting used to.