Dream Journaling for Writing Inspiration
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“What dreams do is raise the emotional level of what I’m doing at the moment. They add color or counterpoint to the arc acting as an almost symphonic accompaniment to what I’m doing.
–Maurice Sendak, Writers Dreaming
Whether you are a novice or seasoned writer, you have had periods—sometimes brief, sometimes long—when nothing comes to mind and you find yourself staring at the blank page. Or you have several ideas to write about, but you find yourself unable to focus on how to write it and find yourself facing the feared writer’s block. Wanting to work through it, you go to your usual methods. You take long walks, look through old photos and newspapers for inspiration, or sit at a café, eavesdropping on others’ conversations in the hopes that creative lightning will strike, unaware there is another alternative.
Has a plot or a character, fully developed, ever come to you in a dream? If you are anything like me, you woke up and thought or said aloud, “What a fabulous idea. I should write that down before I forget.” And then maybe you didn’t want to move from under the blankets, or maybe you couldn’t turn on the light without waking your partner, who would not be happy with you if you woke them up in the middle of the night and started going on about this great story idea. (Though, in my opinion, this should be a prerequisite when considering the characteristics of a good life partner.) Maybe you couldn’t find a pen/pencil or paper handy so you told yourself you would not forget the page-turner of a plot or irresistible protagonist your dreams gifted you with, then you turned over and went back to sleep—only to find when you woke in the morning after a nanosecond, the images had disappeared.
Writers should always have a dream journal by their bed.
What I discovered is that dream journaling is one of the best, most fail-safe methods to tune into your creativity as your subconscious does not typically possess the insecurities and doubts we tell ourselves during our waking hours. Scientists believe—well, they are pretty certain—those dreams help us process information, synthesizing it in a way that grows and empowers our creativity. A writer’s dreams can help with unique ways to solve a plot hole, or a character development problem, or stilted dialogue that is simply not working. Paying attention to dreams helps you become aware of new, not fully formed ideas that don’t necessarily make sense, but that you need to connect with to move past your block and get insight into what you are writing.
Dreams are an integral piece of our creative center or soul to help you evolve as a writer. It is in this other dimension that we are able to surrender control, lock out our critic, and allow anything to happen. It is where our characters are free to come talk with us and let us know the true path they should be on—too often, not the path on which we have taken them. It is the mist-filled world where what feel like impossible scenes to write our way out of can often find resolution. You, as a writer, are missing out on some serious creative mojo if you don’t keep a dream journal. Yes, I am going to keep stating this fact.
Writers are dreamers by nature. Learning to tap into the magical source of inspiration and creative energy dreams afford is beyond beneficial to the process of writing, whether you are creating a fiction or nonfiction piece of work. The link between dream imagery and what it symbolizes is what causes the creative sparks within you to fly when you sit down to work, hoping as you place your fingers on the keyboard or pick up that pencil that the muse deigns to appear and inspire your poem, short story, or novel.
Some examples of stories that were inspired by dreams:
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
Richard Bach said that after he heard “a disembodied voice” whisper the title in his ear, the story began to form—though it wasn’t until eight years later, after a dream that featured the famous seagull, that he was able to finish his hugely popular novella.
Frankenstein
While hanging out in the
Swiss Alps in the summer of 1816 with Lord Byron and Percy Shelley, Mary Goodwin (Mary Shelley) went to sleep one night after being unable to come up with a suitable tale to tell for that night’s ghost storytelling contest. She found herself dreaming of the immortal monster that would become Frankenstein, waking to realize she had found her ghost story.
Catch 22
One of the best novels about war came unbidden to Joseph Heller, who had served in World War II. He was lying in bed in his apartment on the West Side of New York when the lines came to him: “It was love at first sight. The first time he saw the chaplain, someone fell madly in love with him.” At this point, Heller did not have the name of this character. He wasn’t even sure he was an army chaplain or a prison chaplain, for that matter. Heller has said the minute the opening sentence formed in his dream state, the book began to evolve clearly in his mind.
How to take advantage of your dreams, you ask? Be aware. Be open to the magic of dreams and their power so you are able to learn to use them to your writing advantage. There are several actions you can take. Here are a couple I have used that have worked well.
Pay attention to your dreams. If they wake you up, write down some notes, even if it’s just general ideas of theme, plot, character, or setting that you have seen. The whirl of images tends to quickly fade. Dreams tend to be an excellent jumping-off point for the creative process.
Make a conscious effort before going to sleep to concentrate upon any story points you are struggling with or blocked about. Just before you feel yourself growing sleepy, focus on the problem. Your subconscious won’t forget and will often work hard to offer you a resolution upon waking. Setting a specific intention will activate your mind and the likelihood that your dreams will respond to that intention.
If you have difficulty remembering your dreams, there are ways to train yourself to retain them better. Here is one I particularly like: As you fall asleep, repeat a mantra that will direct your brain to remember your dreams. An example I often use, that I once read about in a book on dream recall, is “I will dream tonight, and I will remember my dreams when I wake.” If you want to learn more about dream recall, there are a wide variety of books and articles about this subject.
One of the many bonuses to keeping a dream journal is when you next find yourself staring at the blank page without a clue what to write next, you can pull out your dream journal and expand on any of the ideas or characters your entries bring up. Even if you find just a few details scrawled on the pages about the images or the colors of the dreams, they will likely be helpful—if not for your current work, then it will most definitely be an excellent resource for future projects.
Dreams are mysterious. Dreams are magical. Anything and everything can happen in our dreamworlds as they represent the far reaches of our imaginations. If we are lucky, they might read like a road map to where you need to go. Dream journals offer the capacity to turn their images into poems. Their often-scrawled words can be the catalyst for transforming your nightmare monsters into the needed creepy or evil villain for your short story or novel. Dream journals can act as an idea warehouse that you can access at any time for any type of writing project.
So my best advice is to never forget that dreams are tricky, and to outsmart your dreams by writing them down immediately upon waking to keep them fresh. Write down everything you are able to remember, from colors to sounds to smells to what the people in your dreamscape look like. In the end, it’s all about writing it down. Your creativity will flow. Your muse will thank you!
To finish, I leave you with a favorite quote of mine:
“The brain is so strange and wondrous in its mystery. I think it creates a number of things for itself—it creates launching pads and resting places—and it lets steam off and it reworks itself.”
—Maya Angelou, Writers Dreaming
Happy writing!