I don’t dream very often when I sleep. And, if I do, I never remember my dreams. But I dreamed this morning, just before I woke. And I remembered this one clearly.
I’ve always liked research. I find great pleasure in the discovery of fact, of information, that I had previously not known. Recently, I’ve been doing lots of research on writing. On editing. On revising and re-writing. On how to improve it, on how to make my own writing stronger.
I’ve been reading about narrative arcs, about the writer’s voice, about beats and tone and pacing. About making the characters believable. And maybe that’s the reason why my dream this morning got weird.
I was asleep. I was mid-dream. I was not awake at any point.
But, as the man in my dream started to dominate the woman in my dream, getting all aggressive, I somehow took a step backwards and starting analysing his character. I started questioning his goals, his motivation, his characterisation. I started wondering about her, realising that her secondary character status wasn’t adequate. That she needed to be more fully rounded – and I wasn’t thinking about her physical characteristics!
After this analysis, I returned to the dream. A couple of children entered the dream and the tableau I’d mentally been dissecting, was broken.
And then the dream finished, and I woke up. And realised what had happened.
It makes sense to me that the research I’ve been doing has had some impact on my dreaming. I just never expected to be able to analyse my dream’s characters, mid-dream. To me, that’s cool. Incredibly so.
I wonder if it will happen again?!!!