Weird dreams and using them for creative writing.

Dreams and their meanings

Have you ever wondered what weird, odd, or just plain funny dreams meant? I have had a few weird ones lately myself and may use them for inspiration for a story! After all some writers do find inspiration from their dreams and may add it into a story they are writing. Sometimes inspiration for a poem or song can also come by way of a dream, and I've often had this happen as well. It pays to keep a notebook near your bed so you are able to write down an inspiring thought, or a silly dream you had, just to see what your brain is coughing up as you sleep!

Many books have been written on the subject of dream interpretation, but a lot of them are so generalized that it can be frustrating to even find anything like the dream or thought you had during the night. (On a side note: If you do know of a really, really good dream interpretation book, please list the title and author of it in your comment to me, thanks!).

Example of weird dreams and their way of inspring creativity in writing

I will give you a couple examples of weird dreams I've personally had recently to show you what I mean about finding creative ideas and meanings in dreams:

1. The dream was that I was turned into a werewolf by a mad scientist who had given me too much of a certain chemical in an injection in my arm. One other person was there and he/she also turned into a werewolf from the overdose of the chemical injection. He/she told me to escape with the cartoon baby tigers in ramen cups (that the doctor was using for his next experiment). So I escaped and found my husband (who I am married to in real life) at a dinner with some friends and he recognized me even though I was still a werewolf (I had my own voice still). And right then a bunch of mobsters from New York burst through the front door of the hotel/restaurant and suddenly I was myself again and we had escaped the mobsters.

2. The second dream I had was all in an anime style, but with real people acting in it. I was not in this dream myself though... A young teenage boy with light blond hair was apprenticed to a dark magician (think Fantasia but darker and somewhat evil) and after a short time of being with his master, the young man realized the older mage planned on eating some non magical children and teens (he was evil after all, remember?). The young apprentice was shocked and disgusted by his master and followed the older mage as he went eat some (muggle?) children and teens. The apprentice saw the old man put on his bear fur pelt (with the head still attached) and go out to where he (the older magician) had strung up a few kids/teens by their hands to a wooden frame (think of the kind of frame used for a hanging, but with people hanging by the hands, not necks). The young blond haired apprentice was really angry and burst out of his hiding place and killed his master with a stab to the chest. He then sucked the magic out of his master with a special spell and it came out of the dead man's feet in two bright blue glowing orbs. After that the young man set the children and teens free, and they gladly ran away. Then suddenly the dream flashed to a meeting of other dark magicians have a meeting and their leader stands up and says that the force of evil has been disturbed somewhere. This is where the dream ended for me though, unfortunately!

The first dream I talked about (werewolf dream) is an example of something I call "subconscious regurgitation", which is basically just your unconscious mind barfing bits of information you've collected recently (over the past few days usually). It is a bit easier to find the meanings in these dreams also, as they will usually contain pieces of things that you thought about or things that happened to you recently.

On the other hand, the second dream (young mage apprentice) might make a very good story because it seems to be something that has been created as a mental "movie" , so instead of just random pieces of story you have a complete and flowing dream that is both fun to have and may make a good short story!

Well, let me know what your input on the subject of using dreams for creative writing purposes!

Do you think that only continual "movie-like" dreams make good short stories or do you think any dream could be used as inspiration for a story? Also, what do you think of dream interpretation books and other such things? What about scary dreams/nightmares, do they have a purpose in story writing?