Dream On

Have you ever wondered what a strange, odd or just plain silly dream meant? I’ve had a few weird recurring dreams. Some I can only recall random pieces of, others flow through my brain like a mental movie (complete with rolling credits!)

I woke up feeling both exhilarated and sexually frustrated after having phone sex with Wonder Woman. The face of a rotary dial phone literally appeared on my genitals. She lovingly put her finger in each number’s designated hole and slowly turned.

Perhaps your dreams have been boring lately. If so, choose to expose yourself to new experiences throughout the day. Dreaming allows our subconscious to process the day’s events. I work in a call center and watch superhero movies. New stimuli will make your dreams become exciting once again.

Regurgitating one’s subconscious on paper may seem tedious or even ridiculous, but many a midsummer night’s dream or winter’s tale have given birth to narration. Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote Kubla Khan immediately on waking from a dream. This poem is considered one of the most famous examples of Romanticism in English poetry. A copy of its manuscript is a permanent exhibit at the British Museum in London. Dreams can inspire spectacular writing.

C. S. Lewis said that the famous Narnia story, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, came to him from a single picture he received in a dream of a faun carrying an umbrella and parcels through a snowy wood. Mr. Tumnus is that faun. Whether writing for pleasure or profit, your dream log could be a gateway to published imagination.

Dreams can be recorded in a paper diary (as text, drawings, paintings, etc.) or via an audio recording device (as narrative, music or imitations of auditory experiences from the dream). Many websites offer the ability to create a digital dream diary.

Oscar Wilde said, "They've promised that dreams can come true, but forgot to mention that nightmares are dreams too." Even those dreams that wake us up with our heart pounding and beads of sweat on our forehead can be used as a tool. If you’re like me, those shimmering images won’t linger long in the light of day. However, there are exceptions. As a young boy, L. Frank Baum had nightmares about being chased by a scarecrow. It would almost catch him and then collapse in a heap. By the time Baum wrote "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," he was 44.

Stephen King is driven to tell stories as a way of allaying his many fears. He has addressed several over the years, including clowns, in It. In an interview with UK reporter Stan Nicholls, King said: “Like the ideas for some of my other novels, that [the inspiration for Misery] came to me in a dream.”