Dreaming Up Dreams in Your Writing? Be Wary

Because all people experience dreaming, it is tempting for authors to include a "dream sequence" in works of fiction. Some reasons for fictional dreams include illuminating a character's suppressed anxieties or desires, creating a foreshadowing or mood, or inserting an explanatory flashback. In general, writing critics discourage the urge to insert dreams because botched efforts are so common. You've no doubt encountered fictional dream descriptions that bore and impede rather than propel the story, that annoy as obviously hokey manipulations, or that confuse by their ambiguous truthfulness and significance. Most writers can't match great literature's dream usage. For example, Homer's epic Iliad uses a false dream sent by Zeus to Agamemnon to spur the attack on Troy. Many of William Shakespeare's plays include vivid dreams, such as Macbeth, Richard III, The Tempest and, of course, A Midsummer Night's Dream. In Emily Bronte's gothic Wuthering Heights, characters are guided by their dreams. Russian greats Leo Tolstoy in War and Peace and Fyodor Dostoyevsky in Crime and Punishment rely on dream motifs, too. Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland uses a dream setting to play with logic and satire. James Joyce's Ulysses has dream sequences that inspire Freudian and Jungian analysis. Note how assumptions about dreams have changed in the West, from the ancient belief that dreams come from outside supernatural sources, to Romantic personal inspiration and revelation, and finally to the modern focus on science and psychological insight. No matter what theory of dreaming is used, writers must make sure a believable dream sequence is relevant to character and integral to the plot. Here are some dream facts to consider: https://www.verywell.com/facts-about-dreams-2795938

Why Does 'The Alchemist' Stay a Best Seller?

I must admit that I had not read The Alchemist, an allegorical novel by Brazilian-born Paulo Coelho, until this year. First published in the U.S. in 1993, the novel is celebrating over 20 years of international popularity. It has been translated into at least 56 languages and is in its 339th week on The New York Times paperback best seller list as of today. So why the cult status? It is the story of a young Andalusian shepherd boy who travels to the Egyptian pyramids after a recurring dream of finding treasure there, with encouragement from a Gypsy fortune-teller and a strange old man claiming to be a king. Along the way, he is robbed and earns money in business with a crystal merchant, joins a caravan across the desert and meets a bookish Englishman on his own quest, falls in love with a beautiful Arab girl in an oasis, survives desert tribal warfare, and is guided by omens and a mystical Alchemist to the treasure of his dream, or "Personal Legend." That plot synopsis and the book's short length and stylistic simplicity are deceptive; this novel is densely packed with complex spiritual and psychological questions. Basically, it is an allegory of the obstacles we face to finding and fulfilling our dreams, or Personal Legends per the novel. What obstacles? First come the prejudice, anxiety and guilt that, beginning in childhood, society employs to cause us to abandon dreams as impossibilities and ignore our hearts. Next is the love we have for others, because we fear to lose or hurt loved ones if we focus on realizing a personal calling. Third, we fear suffering from the inevitable defeats and failures. Last comes our fear of actually realizing a dream, of disappointment and guilt in success. But if all fears are overcome and you do things that truly fill you with enthusiasm for your life, then you gain the joy and peace that come from being in tune with the "Soul of the World" and the chosen path for you. After finally reading the book, I realized that, contrary to my assumption, The Alchemist has not achieved cult status because it offers a specific way to happiness. Rather, it reminds us, mired in day-to-day tedium and anxiety, that if we are willing to disinter deferred dreams, trust in the nurturing power of love, and accept the inevitable scars, we can live more fully. That's a best-selling lesson. To buy the novel, go to http://www.amazon.com/The-Alchemist-Paulo-Coelho/dp/0061122416

Taking Time Out to Visit the Dream Theater

I try to post every week, but last week, coming back from an exhausting out-of-town wedding, I fell sick and ran a high fever. I spent a lot of time dozing in bed, too weak to spend long at the computer. But there was one interesting result from the experience: The high fever, coupled with a side effect of prescribed antibiotics, generated a spate of vivid dreams of hallucinatory, technicolor beauty. All of the dreams focused on getting from one place to another despite obstacles that ranged from the mundane (a missed train) to the frustrating (a confusing foreign hotel) to the daunting (a vast primeval forest). I realized that each dream offered, again and again, a diagnosis and solution to a problem of transition--an issue I had been wrestling in a current writing project! Thank you to my dreaming self. As Carl Jung once noted, "the dream is the theater where the dreamer is at once scene, actor, prompter, stage manager, author, audience, and critic." It made me wonder about more significant creative results from dreams. Among writers, Stephen King says dream scenes inspired a number of his books, including Misery; Mary Shelley created Frankenstein based on a nightmare; and Robert Louis Stevenson conceived The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde from a dream. Clearly dreams are better inspirations for horror and fantasy than light romance! Consider these other examples of creative dreaming: Supposedly, Paul McCartney first heard the tune to "Yesterday" in a dream. Scientists Otto Loewi, Friedrich Kekulé von Stradonitz, and Srinivasa Ramanujan all claim to have discovered in dreams, respectively, the chemical transmission of nerve impulses, the structure of Benzene, and mathematical formulae including the infinite series of pi. And a dream even helped Elias Howe invent the sewing machine. When the eyes are shut and the unconscious mind is open, the dream theater can put on some inspirational shows! For more, see http://brilliantdreams.com/product/famous-dreams.htm