Can Dreams Help Writers?

To sleep, to dream...

Can dreams be an inspiration for writers? I know they can as probably the best poem I ever wrote was inspired by a dream. The dream was so vivid that when I woke up, I could still see the people, the setting, hear the noise and more. Two lines kept popping into my head, so I headed straight to my laptop and typed them. passengers on a train, gypsies going nowhere. I used no caps, just wrote the words. They seemed to flow from my subconscious. Later. I left the poem with no caps as it seemed to work.

I typed a third line and a fourth and kept going until I had quite a lengthy poem that turned out to be about aging. I know why I started writing immediately upon waking. Only a week or so earlier I had been to a writer's conference where one of the presenters was a poet from New York. She tossed out so many ideas that it was hard to absorb all of them, but one thing stayed with me. She said that, if you dream something that is still with you in the morning, something you want to write about, do it immediately. Wait until you showered, had breakfast, drank your coffee and the best parts will have floated back into dreamland never to be seen again. 

Many writers keep pad and pencil on their bedside table so that, if they wake in the night after a dream that seems meaningful, they can write down the basics to use the next day. It's possible that writers have more vivid dreams than non-writers. How that would be proven is a mystery. I would venture to say that I believe writers are creative and so are their dreams.

We all have projects that we're working on that give us trouble spots. Can you put it aside and later dream the answer? I think it's possible, but it's not a given. 

I know people who say they never remember their dreams. I remember mine when I wake up and even think about them occasionally later in the day. I think our dreams tell us something, but it's up to us to figure out the key. We don't necessarily dream of our exact situation but something that could be interpreted as what our situation is, or perhaps compared to.

The answers to your trouble spots aren't always going to be answered in a dream, but it can happen. It's why we need to pay attention to the content of our dreams. If you have an urge to write after having a dream, follow it. Don't wave it aside.

As for my poem, it has been published more than once and was the basis for an abstract art painting. The large painting was exhibited along with many others of this particular artist. Each painting had been done with inspiration from a group of poems she selected. I did tweak it a bit after that initial writing but only a little.

I had one other experience that led to a personal essay prompted by a dream. I had a wonderful teacher in the 5th and 6th grades. I dreamed of him one night, and the urge to write woke me up. I got up in the middle of the night and wrote the first draft of that later-published essay.

Writing from a dream may only happen to you a handful of times, or perhaps never. Still, it is something to ponder. Put that pad and pencil on your bedside table just in case.