1. devinple

    devinple New Member

    Joined:
    May 6, 2009
    Messages:
    3
    Likes Received:
    0
    Location:
    Toronto, Canada

    Plots From Dreams

    Discussion in 'Plot Development' started by devinple, May 6, 2009.

    I get a few of my ideas from my dreams. I have a tendency to have very vivid dreams and I remember them well. Does anyone else get story plots from thier dreams? If so whats the strangest dream you've ever drawn from? or just your favourite?
     
  2. daydreamer

    daydreamer New Member

    Joined:
    Mar 19, 2009
    Messages:
    709
    Likes Received:
    4
    Location:
    London
    I have written poetry about my dreams, which are often very vivid and scary. I have used bits in stories and I do find it helps me to write them down. Don't think I have a favourite at all. They are all strange, lots of car crashes, animals attacking, I have even been a knight with a sword chopping off people's limbs.
     
  3. rainshadow

    rainshadow New Member

    Joined:
    May 6, 2009
    Messages:
    19
    Likes Received:
    0
    Location:
    SW Kansas
    Depends. Usually my dreams are fragmented enough that I don't get a clear picture or anything usable. Once in a great while I get some inspiration from a dream those occurrences are few and far between.
     
  4. Sphi

    Sphi New Member

    Joined:
    Apr 27, 2009
    Messages:
    83
    Likes Received:
    0
    I have a lot of really vivid dreams, too, and they do inspire me. Some of them are really confusing and seem to have bits missing (dreams always seem to make perfect sense when you're having them), but some dreams have turned into nice little stories. =] Most of my dreams are enjoyable... I've has some REALLY fun adventure dreams, where there's some overall goal and all these things I have to overcome, and it's pretty awesome. I've also had a lot of horseback riding dreams, since that's the most important thing in my life. XD

    Sometimes, in the very early morning, I have anxiety dreams, which aren't really scary, but more frustrating. One time, I had been studying for a huge math test, and in the morning my whole dream was that I was doing math problems. I actually saw the problems and was trying to solve them. One half of my brain was solving them and the other half was saying, it's just a dream, it doesn't matter if you get the wrong answer. >.>
     
  5. Lavarian

    Lavarian Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Mar 23, 2009
    Messages:
    4,562
    Likes Received:
    93
    My dreams are vivid and, often terrifying as well.
    I've started the habit of keeping a pen and pad next to my bed in case I get any wild ideas in the middle of the night.

    The problem is, often times I'll look at what I wrote the next morning and think- "What the hell am I talking about?"
     
  6. lilix morgan

    lilix morgan Member

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2009
    Messages:
    536
    Likes Received:
    9
    Location:
    Wonderland
    Whether anyone will believe me or just think I'm following Stephenie Meyer's footsteps, I actually dreamt of the opening of my book, Ethereal. Where Juliet and Lillian are in the small, white-walled room alone, both dressed elegantly, is what I dreamt of one day while home from school. And yes, I still have extremely vivid dreams, and use them in stories all the time. But my weirdest might pass the PG-13 level here, so I shall keep them to myself.
     
  7. mammamaia

    mammamaia nit-picker-in-chief Contributor

    Joined:
    Nov 21, 2006
    Messages:
    19,150
    Likes Received:
    1,034
    Location:
    Coquille, Oregon
    there are quite a few threads asking the same question here...

    i dreamed my first screenplay... woke up in the middle, jotted down the main stuff, went back to sleep, putting myself back in the dream and woke with the rest of the story ready to be added to my scribbles... i turned 'em into a 120 page script in only 10 days, never having written a screenplay before...
     
  8. samessex

    samessex New Member

    Joined:
    Mar 2, 2009
    Messages:
    71
    Likes Received:
    0
    Location:
    UK
    Hey! Im so glad I found your post as above. Im pretty new to writing, and lastnight I had a dream, which when I woke up this morning I remembered the majority of it! It was really bizarre, but something I feel I could draw on for a fantasy story of some sort. When I woke up this morning, I just thought, WOW I need to use that! NOW! So out came the pad and pen! :rolleyes:
     
  9. Tall and Weird

    Tall and Weird New Member

    Joined:
    Feb 19, 2009
    Messages:
    0
    Likes Received:
    7
    Location:
    Australia
    I once had a dream about squashing bees with my head... I don't think that would've made any kind of story that I could've written well.

    I also had a dream that I was sure belonged to someone else; it was so far removed from any previous dream that I worried about it for a long time.

    Dreams are just another tool in the writers' toolbox. You look for inspiration everywhere and sometimes find it in the most unexpected places.
     
  10. *Sticks*

    *Sticks* New Member

    Joined:
    Jun 24, 2008
    Messages:
    18
    Likes Received:
    0
    I don't get ideas from dreams, as such, but I think of my best ideas in the middle of the night.
    I think this is because I write horror, and my imagination is rather overactive and macabre, so if I wake up in the middle of the night, my first thoughts are "what if" ones"
    "What if I went to turn off the hall light and......"
    "What if I opened the bathroom door and..."
    These "what ifs" are usually a bit more original and genuine than plots I'd deliberatly think up during the day.
     
  11. Atma

    Atma New Member

    Joined:
    May 22, 2009
    Messages:
    30
    Likes Received:
    0
    Location:
    Reading, Berkshire, UK
    I have one novel derived from a dream (or several dreams about the same story and characters). It changed a lot, and only the MC and elements of the plot are still intact from the dream, but hey, it's where it came from, so yes :)
     
  12. Anir

    Anir New Member

    Joined:
    May 21, 2009
    Messages:
    197
    Likes Received:
    0
    Location:
    In a place where the forces of space and time have
    I have definitely pulled inspiration from a dream, but usually I don't remember enough of the dream to use it in a story, or its just too bizarre to use. For example, one time I dreamed that I, along with this guy I liked and most of the people I knew were in this amusement park when most of the people there turned into like these vampire-zombie things and started to try to attack us. On top of that, the whole thing inexplicably started to flood and there were sharks swimming around and all this crazy stuff. I think we eventually took refuge in the tunnel of love, but I don't remember how it turned out.
     
  13. Irish87

    Irish87 New Member

    Joined:
    Jun 1, 2009
    Messages:
    228
    Likes Received:
    11
    Location:
    California
    I once dreamed of a girl running out from a rather large cave... this is sounding kind of creepy, isn't it? Anyhow, she was running out of a cave and the ground began to move violently and lift up, slowly inching further and further into the sky. My vision pulls back and I see a jagged hand so big she was nothing more than a speck. Whatever it is begins to close his hand, for whatever reason, and as it all darkens and she is about to die horribly. And then, in the perfect movie ending, some sort of overgrown crow grabs her and slips through the fingers.

    I ended up writing a thirty thousand word story about it. Sure, I changed a whole lot and ended up creating a whole new world, but it all came from that one beautiful dream. Now, have I had any from that point forward? Nope, but I don't mind. I like to think of it as a story my brain really wanted me to write but didn't quite feel up to just telling me when I was awake.

    Sleep is beautiful, isn't it?
     
  14. Green Faery

    Green Faery New Member

    Joined:
    Jun 6, 2009
    Messages:
    11
    Likes Received:
    0
    Yes, when I have dreams I like to at least make short stories of them. My weirdest one was probably when I dreampt of two 10 year old girls stuck on a rooftop in victorian London, and they jumped down a chimney... one landed ok and the other shattered like porcelain, except her bones all flooded out. Yuck. Somehow I managed to make a short story out of that xD
     
  15. Anir

    Anir New Member

    Joined:
    May 21, 2009
    Messages:
    197
    Likes Received:
    0
    Location:
    In a place where the forces of space and time have
    I recently had a dream where these two people set a bomb to kill off some thieves, only it was a nuclear bomb and their flesh burned off, which I saw in great detail. The people who set the bomb, I mean. Then they turned into terminators and these people who inhaled some sort of drug beat them up.



    Yeek.
     
  16. Green Faery

    Green Faery New Member

    Joined:
    Jun 6, 2009
    Messages:
    11
    Likes Received:
    0
    Yeek is right, it was too creepy to not write down though.
     
  17. Leah Woods

    Leah Woods Active Member

    Joined:
    May 25, 2008
    Messages:
    107
    Likes Received:
    7
    Location:
    Bosnia and Herzegovina
    Though I have very vivid dreams, they absolutely make no sense when I wake up. I don't think that driving old Russian submarine, or washing dishes because I was late for class, would qualify for a story. Most of the time my dreams are way confusing, so I guess the anwser to your question would be no :D

    (Have no idea whether my answer made any sense)
     
  18. Kirvee

    Kirvee New Member

    Joined:
    Jun 8, 2009
    Messages:
    232
    Likes Received:
    4
    Location:
    Michigan
    Hm, you could technically say I get a lot of my plot ideas from my dreams, but really what tends to happen is that I'm awake and a thought, a picture, or an idea crosses my mind and I immediately think "Hey, that'd make a pretty good story!" and go from there. The first few things I knew for sure about what will be my first novel all came out of no where into my head: I knew I'd have two main characters (a guy and a girl) that remained equal as far as main characters went to give a male-female balance to it, I knew their names (first and last) without having to think or search for any, I knew several things I wanted to happen to them both individually and together, I knew my villain, and I knew some other misc. things about the plot BEFORE I started to deeply think on all of it and develop it to where it currently is.

    I dunno if it'd count or not, but imho, any ideas that come "out of nowhere" like that be they in dreams or in waking were probably sent to your subconcious by someone (God or your imagination, whoever works for ya).
     

Share This Page

  1. This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
    By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
    Dismiss Notice