Productive dream: a character, a setting, a story

On occasion I'll have a productive dream where I'll solve a problem that has eluded any daytime solutions. I'll wake in the middle of the night with a fully formed plan of action and then have trouble getting back to sleep because I'm too excited because I know that this dreamt up solution will work.

Something similar just happened. Only, my problem was actually a vague story idea that popped into my head an hour before bedtime and my dream solution was an early pivotal scene in my main character's development.

Now that I had this dream, I'm fully awake (perhaps also partly due to my hacking cough) and ready to fill in the blanks - what I just learned, what I still need to figure out.

Some of what I knew about this world and character before going to bed:
- There's not a lot of sunlight. When it's cloudy, it may as well be nighttime.
- It's cold, whether it's winter or summer. Winter is still the coldest and people dream of the relief brought by warm -10C days.
- Main character is a teenage girl.

What I now know thanks to my dream:
- Most people live in rural areas because they are more safe. The only ones who choose to live in cities are ones that need to - to be near hospitals or other resources.
- My main character is young, female and a runaway who's come to the city.
- My main character is dying.
- She thinks she knows what she's doing (her motives are based on the limited knowledge she has) only she doesn't really understand the world she's living in and is in fact putting herself in more danger needlessly.

Mini dream - a theft

It was quick. I dreamt that I left my purse in my car and when I went back to get it, all the cards in my wallet had been stolen. A neighbour was doing yard work in front of his house. I asked him who had been in/near my car and he refused to tell me anything.

Eek!

Almost a month since my last post. I’m so incredibly sorry. I’m going through a severe dream drought and have barely dreamt anything. Everything is short, disconnected and hardly worth the virtual ink.

Tidbits of recent dreams:

- I was on a bus. I got off and started to run away.

- A live goose sitting on a kitchen counter, next to a microwave.

- A two sentence conversation with my Dad.

- A problem with my cable and internet bill.

- A dream about making a choice, but there weren’t any options

See? Pathetic.

I’m hoping that this weekend will bring about extra rest thereby permitting better dream quality and storyline. Or maybe I should just eat some extra turkey.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Dream 045 – family, injuries, over-reacting

This one was short, but it had some resemblance to plot.

*start of dream*

I am outdoors with many family members, young and old. Everyone is running around having a nice time, but we’re also falling down a lot. There are many scrapes and bruises that need minor first aid.

I fall and skin a large section of skin off my left shin. The scraped section was bright red, but not bleeding. Still, it’s sore and I apply a large bandage to protect it.

While I’m taking care of my leg, I see that one of my younger nephews takes a huge fall. He must have hurt himself, but he shrugs it off. Then my sister goes over to him and starts yelling at him about something he said earlier. My sister is in tears because her feelings were hurt and my nephew just stands there and listens to her tirade. Another family member comes to stand next to me as we watch and we start commenting to each other about how this little kid can so easily brush off a terrible fall, but a grown adult can’t shrug off something said by a young child.

*end of dream*

Dream 044 (mini-dream) – a vacation, a website, cake

I think I need to re-evaluate my caffeine strategy. Over the past couple of months, I found that upping my caffeine during the day made my dreams more vivid. Now, I think it’s having the opposite effect. I’ve been back from vacation for about a week and my dreams are sub-standard. I’m having mini-dreams at best, which breaks my little dreaming heart.

*start of dream*

I’m standing in a bedroom with a friend. Her belongings are scattered across a bed. She’s packing for a vacation of some sort. She hadn’t told me that she was going away and I try to hide my disappointment because I was hoping to invite her to something (can’t remember what). I know she needs this get-away, so I tell her that I hope she gets a lot of rest while she’s gone.

I then turn my attention to helping someone build a website. He’s picked a strange format of leading with text and putting pictures at the end. I tell him that’s like baking a cake and once it has been eaten, you announce “Hey! I have icing too!”

*end of dream*

Dream 043 (mini-dream) - Impostor!

I’m back! I was away on vacation. Yes I had some dreams. No, I didn’t write them down. Sorry, but it was a vacation from everything.

So now I’m back and all I have to show for it is a strange mini-dream.

*start of dream*

I’m standing in the kitchen in my mom’s house. My mom’s putting things away in the cupboard. Then my mom walks into the kitchen. (Huh?) Okay, it’s my mom again or is it a copy of my mom? I know one is real and one is an impostor. My gut tells me which one is my real mom. I wasn’t able to decide what to do about the impostor before I woke up.

*end of dream*

Dream 042 – a dream within a dream – numbers, a friend, water plants

This one was interesting to say the least.

*start of dream*

I’m sitting with a friend who I see fairly often. He’s telling me that on Wednesday he’ll be paid $20. He keeps on repeating the numbers 4, 5 and 20.

I wake up (within the dream) and realize that I was dreaming. I was sleeping on a bed in my Mom’s house. A friend who I haven’t seen in a couple of years is sitting at the foot of the bed. She tells me that she was downstairs visiting with some other friends and decided to come up and see me. She gives me a hug.

Then I notice that people are arriving to the house. I go halfway down the stairs to watch the front door. My Dad walks in, followed by one of my nephews. My Dad looks straight at me and smiles widely before walking on through to the kitchen and out of sight.

I go back up the stairs to the bathroom, where my Mom is running water in the sink. I tell her that either I am dreaming or that something has happened. (This is because I know my Dad can’t really be there.) My Mom tells me that this is not a dream. I open the medicine cabinet and pull out one of many pill bottles. I try to read the label, but it’s in gibberish. I tell my Mom that this must be a dream because I can’t read the bottle. She responds that it’s in Italian.

As I start to wake up, I see a patch on green water plants floating on the surface of some water. It’s raining.

*end of dream*