Dreams Make the Best Stories?

Part two of  Dream Series for writers.

Dreams make the best stories. From snapshot moments to the fantastical.

Bring them to life...The topic, dreams. The situation, to transfer those dreams into story form.

"It's the fragments that drives us to brilliance."
~Raven King. Aug. 18, 2009

Most people tend to think they don't dream, and that if they do they certainly can't remember them most times.  What they do remember, they take to looking up answers to meanings, grabbing the clues and holding them up to a dream analyst, in the hopes of better understanding what may or may not be a symbol to the inner sanctions of their minds and souls. 

Some of us keep dream journals tucked away in our bedside tables.  Some of us keep up, some of us don't.  Either way, there is a certain romanticism to this idea of edifying our dreams, making them into something coherent, something "organized". 

Keeping up with a dream journal is a very good thing.  It has more benefits than you can imagine, especially for a writer.  Why? Because the whole process of remembering and writing what is there and what may or may not make sense is one of the best brain exercise there is for a writer. 

1. You are using something original, that came literally from your mind.
2. You are coaxing your subconscious to interact with your conscious.
3. You are melding right and left brained thought.
4. By using a "story" "scene" "remembered object" already held in your hand, you are easing the process of coming up with something and are able instead to concentrate on piecing things together, ordering, organizing, forming. 
5. Moments that would otherwise be stunted by writers block can be utilized to work on ones craft, not twirling ones thumbs.
6. The etherial is embraced and brought to life.

 Another benefit is that if done correctly, nothing is hidden, honesty and truth pour out.  And there is no need to try to hide anything because, well, it's just a dream, right?  So you can report what is there.  Every bit you can scrape.  Every thought, feeling, emotion, word, anything and everything can be reported.  You have everything provided for you.  The first step is done.  The inspiration is there.  There need be no holding back.  The bizarre, the craziness, the mundane, the supernatural, the oddities, are all there for you to bring to the physical world.

Dreams are so relate able to many. And why? Because there's something about the goings on in dreams that touches the core of all our beings, despite the fact that in "real life" they may not always make sense. There's something about dreams that cling to the dreamers as well as the people they are shared with, especially when put in story form.

So, when you jot down your dreams, just go straight into them.  Don't explain that it's a dream. And by all means, recant nothing!  With a tiny bit of expansion by the waking you or even possibly training yourself to remember some extra details, your recollection could be quite the short story or a section in a novel.

The goal is to ultimately see your dreams as though you were writing a memoir or a piece of fiction. When you dream, the bizarre are not so bizarre. In dream context, oddities makes sense and are, for the most part, real. Let your dreams speak in this way. Let their secrets out. Tell them not in an after the fact state of mind, but in an experiential, dream state of mind.

You'll be pleasantly surprised... promise.