Dreaming with an Open Mind

Posted by CFmom Lisa in Lisa's Laundry List | 4 comments

Do you dream in color or black and white? Do you remember your dreams? Do you only dream in fragmented bits and pieces, or do you dream full blown fully developed scenarios, worlds, and characters? Do you write things down from your dream to revisit later?

Lots of questions, I know. But here, I’ll answer them first:

For me personally, my dreams are in color, very vivid, and very detailed. I’ve had poems in their entirety spring from my dreaming mind. I’ve had fully developed characters take the opportunity of my REM sleep to make their selves known to me. Sometimes I only receive bits and pieces of a character, or a story, or a conversation – almost like a teaser dream. The character just giving me a taste of who they are, but they’re not quite ready for me to be fully aware of who they are. It almost feels like they’re like taking me for a test drive, trying to see if I’m open to learning about them.  There have been amazing characters that have fallen to the wayside because I didn’t take them seriously. My most recent example would be Killara. She is a female warrior - the only female warrior- in an army of men. She’s tall, strong, and lethal whether its with a leather whip from a distance, or a titanium dagger up close and personal. All of the other warriors don’t even bother with her full name, resorting to calling her Kill because she’s just that deadly. Try to kiss her and you’re probably going to lose your lips along with other protruding body parts. Frankly, Killara scares the crap out of me, but I understand that she’s supposed to do that. The pinch of it is though – that because I woke up scared of her and didn’t write her down I’ve lost the rest of what she was trying to let me see. I only remember the little bit I described above. That and her ice green stare. That’s it. That’s all I’ve got, and when I try to remember what else there was all I get is the echo of her extremely bitter laugh. Okay, fine. Lesson learned.

Reading this back, it makes me sound a bit like a crazy person, but I’m okay with that. My bedside light, notebook, and pen get good use in the early morning hours because anytime I wake from a dream, I now immediately jot down whatever’s there. If I wait, I lose it – just like Killara. It’s like the character has turned their back on me for not showing them the respect they feel they deserve. See? I can still recognize that I sound like a crazy person when I talk like this. But I can’t really help it. My dreams have brought me amazing tales, heartbreaking poems, and even hilarious conversations between characters that I don’t really know yet. I love my dreams. And now that I make sure to write down what comes to me in the middle of the night, I am discovering my brain is filled with strange and fascinating people. It’s also filled with a bunch of useless trivia knowledge, but I digress…

As a writing tool, it’s common practice to take a notepad everywhere you go in order to jot down ideas as they come to you. It would stand to reason that a bedside notebook for those middle of the night epiphanies would be standard issue if you want to be a writer. But what if you don’t want to be a writer?  Do you journal your dreams anyway? Do you jot down little things on napkins, receipts, your hand? Or do you just appreciate it for the momentary distraction it provided? I really want to know because for me its become something I do automatically. As I stated before, my dreams are very detailed – there’s no foggy dreamlike state for me when I’m dreaming. I’m there completely immersed in that world, and for the most part I remember everything when I wake up. I hear the accent of the characters in my dreams, I can see the scenery and settings, I can often even smell the flowers or perfumes – which is truly bizarre as I’m seriously allergic to those things in my awake state of mind. In my dreams the smells don’t bother me. The mind is an amazing thing, that’s for sure.

So what about you? Do you dream in black and white, or do you dream in color? If you’re a writer, do your dreams bring you your storylines and characters? If you’re not a writer, then what do you think of your dreams? Are they just another source of entertainment for your mind – like your very own reality show – while your body’s resting? Do you remember your dreams?

 Until next time,

~Lisa