Writing About Dreams

[lovegood27]

I'm sure you've all written (or read) about a certain character having a dream at some point. But because the human brain is amazing and weird, our dreams are usually about the most messed up and random things. So what I was wondering was if you have any certain methods or tips on making dreams believable and realistic?

 

If it's too normal, it's not very much like a dream. But if it is too random and totally unrelated...well, it seems bit too far-fetched.

 

Ooh, and another question. If you've written about people having dreams, do they serve a particular purpose? I read a lot about dreams being a sign of something e.g. dreaming about a certain boy/girl is a sign the character likes that person. I was just curious

 

Let me know what you think below!

[Margaret]

The dreams I've written about tend to be reasonably coherent but with weird changes or physical impossibilities. For example, I had a werewolf character dream about walking through the corridors of Hogwarts and then reaching our her arm to somebody to find it was a wolf's paw. I've also, in original fiction, had a character dreaming about a scene in a book they just read where a major character died, but in their dream, the character who died turned into the dreamer's mother.

 

When I've used dreams, it has usually been to show something the character is fixating on or something that is troubling them. In the first example, the character was terrified that she could hurt somebody, either when in wolf form or by accidentally scratching them. In the second, the character was dealing with her mother's death and while she didn't consciously make the connection, was at some level, triggered by reading of an older female authority figure dying in a book.

[hedwig1751]

Well, during BTS, Leta dreamt about Newt committing suicide (NOOOOO MY CINNAMON ROLL) which emphasised her mental uncertainty about the actions she had just done, and she feared that her dream would mirror the result of her actions. This creates the feeling of remorse (which our dear voldy was not able to feel) and therefore made Leta a better person through that. Moreover, the fact that Leta is only a first year at this point, and is dreaming about suicide (hmm ) conveys what an unhappy and abusive childhood she had.

 

And when you wrote Newt's dream about Leta and Robert and Lyla and Leta sitting on a massive floating treacle tart ( ) well... I'm sure you already know that it, again, echoes his instabilities and uncertainties of the young Newt which were influenced by his physical surroundings and previous actions (nooooo bad Leta).

 

So that's what I think

[nott theodore]

Dreams are such an interesting device in stories!

I don't tend to write a lot of them in my longer stories, mainly because they don't fit with the style of the narrative, but they're something I really enjoy exploring with shorter stories or one-shots.  I like Margaret's idea of narrating something coherent with one weird change - I think that would work really well, especially in longer stories or ones where dreams have more symbolism.

The dreams I tend to write are usually quite immersive.  I think the writing style reflects that - I tend to use shorter sentences when things are changing quickly or when the character's scared of what's happening (which is actually most of the dreams I write, oops) and in a more fragmented style.  I think that seems to portray the weird, vivid nature of dreams quite well?

I think there's lots of ways that you can go about writing dreams, though - one thing that's so fun about them is that they're always unique to an individual, so really there's no right or wrong way to include them!