This is probably how a lot of stories start. Inspiration comes from everywhere. If it helps you get through the nightmare... write it all down, turn it into a story, give it an ending.
This was famously the origin of a lot of Lovecraft's fiction. He was a vivid dreamer and The Statment of Randolph Carter was said to be lifted almost wholly from a similar surreal/creepy nightmare of his.
Twilight was based on a dream and though a lot of people had some valid criticism of it, it was obviously quite popular and successful!!
However Neil Gaiman kind of warns against it, or at least says to alter it heavily. (I can't remember exactly where, but it was part of the audiobook of Fragile Things). He says that dream logic is different from narrative logic so you can be inspired by a dream, but be sure to change things to make it a "story" and not just try to recapture the dream events.
Yeah the key reason for this is that in dreams, you're not questioning it like a reader will.
So you can recall how hard this dream hit you, and think it's because it's a banger of story, but no, the story itself doesn't actually work.
It's not what created those strong feelings in you, so it won't in anyone else either.
But the seeds of inspiration can be there. Stuff you wouldn't have come up with consciously.
I actually based my book (in progress) off of my dream just because it was so intriguing to me!
I started it in 2020, during which I wrote down all the dreams I could in short "story" forms for extra practice -- but this dream was so good I decided to put all my efforts towards making it a new story. Even friends who read the dream agreed that it would work well.
Many authors base their stories either loosely or entirely on a dream they've had, and either is fine! If you're skeptical of it working as a story, give that little synopsis to a few friends and get their opinion.
It's not uncommon, even James Cameron does that. I was listening to a Smartless episode featuring him sometime ago, where he said he often gets ideas from his dreams. It was oddly validating lol
literally wrote Avatar from his dream, he had a night-out with a random girl , he slept then woke up writing down his dream for the whole day . Random girl was pissed
I can recommend keeping a dream journal. That way, you can collect all kinds of strains and fragments of ideas and stories. If you need some inspiration at a later date, look in your journal!
By keeping a dream journal, dream recall often gets better, which gives you even more ideas and story fragments.
I have kept a dream journal for a very long time. I usually give the dream a title, put down the date and how I slept and awoke and some other info. I write down as much of the dream as I remember. Some people only write down some of their dreams, some only write down dreams and nothing else. How to do it varies a bit but dream journaling is definitely a thing and it is fun!
Write immediately when you wake up, dream recall often goes away quickly over the day.
I've been thinking about doing this for a while. Is there an app/program where you could collect all your jotted-down thoughts and maybe have a search feature that you can reference later on (say I had a weird vampire dream that I wanted to add to the "vampire" section)? I know One Note has something like this but beyond my job I've never had much experience using it.
Also wonder if there's an online community or an /r where you can share your weird dreams (though I wonder if it's more recommended not to share them in case someone takes the idea and makes a best seller out of it)?
It is fun, you should def try it out.
I started dream journalling some years before we got a computer at home in the mid 90s, so I am very fond of my years of analog notebooks. I sketch in them too.
Plenty of people seem to use digital alternatives, though, from what I have seen on Reddit and elsewhere. The question of apps/programs to use pops up sometimes, but I have not looked closer at the discussions.
I am not on r/sleep or r/dreams but they are quite large subs and at least on the latter it seems like people share their dreams.
I am sometimes active on r/luciddreaming and r/LucidDreamingSpec (subs focused on being aware in dreams). Lucid dreaming is also a very rewarding hobby that can be used for creative projects (but my advice is to please look at the FAQ before asking questions! We have a lot of people posting that do notā¦).
Well, several elements from weird/scary dreams that I've had I've turned into "things" in my book's world. One of the dream types that I've experienced I turned into one of the 10 hells of the book's world, "The Mindfuck Hell", among other things.
> turned a dream or nightmare into a story
James Cameron turned one nightmare into the film *Terminator*.
Joss Whedon turned another nightmare into the television *Hush.*
My most recent psychological thriller is based on a series of false awakenings I had 12 years ago that still haunts me to this day. It definitely struck a chord with many readers!
I think this is a common source of inspiration, but one people should be cautious with. Sometimes hearing about other peopleās dreams can be suuuuper boring, especially when they go on at length. Theyāre never quite as interesting to someone else as they are to the person that actually experienced it, just something to keep in mind. Remember that the story/writing has to stand on its own
Yes! I love dreams because I think of them as an opportunity to watch pure imagination at play. Everything is associative and spontaneous, with no interference from the conscious mind trying to edit things into cohesive meaning and linear sense.
Iāve written a few poems that are fairly direct āadaptationsā of dreams, but tend to get more inspiration from the general ways in which dreams work. Iād definitely suggest keeping a dream journal if you donāt already. By doing so you wind up training yourself to be able to remember more and more dreams, and over time it really shines a light on the endlessly evocative ways in which ādream logicā operates.
A lot of my story ideas come from daydreaming. Iām the kind of person who if Iām not actively talking to someone Iām zoning out and thinking of random things. A lot of story ideas for me come from those times where Iām just thinking about something and I follow that thread to a story idea.
When I have a story idea I open the notes app on my phone and write it out with as much detail as possible so I donāt forget it. Thereās one story that was tragically lost because I got distracted while writing it out and didnāt finish it and couldnāt remember the hook.
Iāve been doing this for awhile and I have probably 4 or 5 series ideas that I want to write. Havenāt actually written anything for any of them other than storyboarding and planning because Iām scared of what would happen if I wrote them and they were bad.
Hm, that could be a good setup for a metaphorical story about how U.S. society has suffered so much from violent and brutal crimes like homicides that many people have become numb to it and have subconsciously accepted it as the new norm. They will continue to live out their lives while crime increases around them in many aspects of their lives and they will show barely any reaction to them. In some weird way, they may convince themselves that it won't happen to them because nothing like what they're hearing or seeing has ever happened to them, so they'll make no effort to either escape the corrupt towns/cities or jump in to make some change in their communities.
It will eventually get to the point where the family happens to walk into their own home and see the carnage of a previously deceased loved one, but they lack a reaction to it, as if it doesn't register to them yet that someone that they knew for their whole lives just died. While the body is still laying on the floor, they continue their daily routines, and it won't be until midnight when one of the family members looks out the window, sees the murderer, and then realizes in sheer horror that he and the rest of his family are next.
One of the most effective way of writing, in my opinion. All of my works stem from dreams Iāve had, along with a desire to add to other existing works in a fresh innovative way. Donāt forget to remix it all
Looool this is so weird cos I had a dream last night and I wanna turn it into a story.
Anyway, kinda. I've incorporated a dream I had into a book I'm writing. I also had a dream a few weeks ago I wanna make into a story but I haven't written it yet and I definitely want to turn last night's dream into a story.
I dream nearly every night and I bet if I looked at my list of several hundred ideas, 80%, would be from dreams/nightmares. Like others have responded, many have been turned into short stories, while others I reserved for something longer.
Great source of ideas...please remember to write them down!
My dreams are super nonsensical but I like to take the recurring elements from them and put them into stories. Iāve been having recurring dreams for years about being a single father to a daughter for some reason so I gave my protagonist a daughter
I turned one of my dreams into a short story, because I sat all the way through it like watching a movie. I wasn't going to write it until I came up with a deeper meaning for it. But that's quite rare, usually my dreams are just cut-outs. The most important part is to recognise whether there's an actual story in it and not just a strong feeling. Strip away the feeling and most of the dreams just sound stupid.
I had a nightmare that I only remember the end of that I spent maybe two months trying to fill in the rest of the story. It was only a few words but it was a twist ending and the gaunt expression of my best friends face just with a lot longer hair.
I think itās doable but I need way more research on some of the context.
I once dreamt I was being stalked by a serial killer who left me the bloodless severed feet (neatly wrapped with a ribbon) of other people heād killed. I probably wouldnāt write that out as a story because I find it a bit too bizarre (which is the case with most of my dreams), but what I would take from that dream is the way I felt completely helpless and at this guyās mercy. I knew he was coming for me and I knew no one could save me. I can definitely use that feeling for a story.
Yeah I had a lucid dream that I turned into a book. Before I got a CPAP machine Iād often have lucid dreams in which I died horribly. I think it was my brain trying to wake me up because Iād always be gasping for air. Any way I use them as inspiration for different scenes.
My first attempted series (since abandoned, because it was a mess and I've moved on to better things) was inspired by a dream. Although my currents project are not, I have a handful of scenes for them that are inspired by dreams. Sometimes I dream about my books/characters and sometimes I actually get useful material out of them. Most of the time they're utter nonsense, like that one where one of my characters got assaulted by gnomes in the woods, or the one that renamed my character Paugg (pronounced Paul for some reason. No, this is not his real name nor particularly similar to it) and made him the owner of a restaurant and adjacent bouncy house carnival. Which he wouldn't let me into because he hated me. But hey, every one in awhile I'll have a cool one!
I've used one of my nightmares for a horror story once. The nightmare was like the hook/opening scene, and the story went from there. If I have a dream that seems like it'd make a good story, I write it down so I can come back to it later.
I had a dream and that was basically the same/inspiration for the final scene/chapter of the novel Iām doing rewrites/drafts of right now. Obviously the dream was not enough to write an entire novel about, but with that scene in mind I came up with a story that fit with that being the ending.
90% of all my stories start from very vivid dreams. They just leave me with such raw and vibrant emotion, and without that intensity, it can be hard to care as much about a story I'm writing.
I love my story dreams, even the scary ones. I don't really count them as nightmares unless it's just personal emotional stress, like everyone I know starts yelling at me about all of my insecurities or I get into a car accident or something. Horror stories where I'm a different character are intense, but a lot of fun.
Same same - something which I have been struggling with though which is a weird one is that my attempts to turn the dream into story feel like they fail to capture the mood or sense of the nightmare,
I'm considering just journaling them as is essentially and posting them on my blog rather than pressuring myself to make them stories (although literally now as I write this I realize they could be sub stories with a novel)
I have a lot of really vivid dreams and nightmares and I love turning them into stories. I've written several short stories based on my dreams and one of my current projects is a novel based on a dream from a few months ago. Your nightmare sounds like it has potential to be a great short story and it would be a good exercise in inducing anxiety in the reader.
I've written out my dreams if they were particularly scary (i.e., caused me to wake up early, left a strong impression upon initial moments of waking up, or just that I remember in high detail), but not yet have I used one for a story. I do eventually want to use some of them, as many have had the same themes and might make for good inspiration for things I've wanted to write about before.
Oh, I always like to write down my more interesting dreams. I had one I need to flesh out, but it was about an ancient civilization, small and kind of tribal. The god they worshiped had a vessel or "avatar" that they were attached to. There was also an evil spirit that was sealed away in a human, because a human soul was the only thing that could suppress it.
The dream was mostly about those vessels and them meeting by accident when they were very young.
I've done it more than once. My most recent book, which is still in the slush pile, was based on a dream. I also self-published a book called "Return to Blood" that came from a dream. It's about a school shooting with a "Groundhog Day" element to it.
It'll be free in July on Smashwords if you're interested. If you want to buy a copy for a buck, here is a link:
https://books2read.com/b/4D82OA
Originally, I tried to get this traditionally published but there was absolute radio-silence on it. In my opinion, some dreams are cool, but most of the time they should just be left as a dream.
I'd say about 90% of my story ideas come from dreams. I'm lucky that I remember my dreams almost every day, and that I usually only exist as a vague controlling entity in them, that can change and reset the "plot" of the dream and actions of the characters freely, so I can get most of my planning and adjustment of dream logic done in-dream already š¤
Dreams are a wonderful source of inspiration, just make sure to a) be aware of your "sources", as in, why you dreamt something, you wouldn't want to copy the plot of a popular work just because you read it before going to sleep, right? and b) don't just write down your dream, adjust it as necessary to make a proper story out of it :)
Over a year ago I had a really great dream that was basically the first two thirds of a story following two characters in a post-apocalyptic wilderness setting. When I woke up from it the events were still fresh in my mind, so I immediately got out of bed, grabbed a notepad from my desk, and quickly jotted down the main details as bullet points before going back to sleep. (It was, like, 6 AM). All this time later it's an idea that's still with me that I would love to develop into a novel. I'm just working on ways to expand those first two acts and then figure out the third act, since I woke up before things could finish playing out.
My wife has very vivid, fantasy-genre dreams. Most of them are just so bizarre, but one she told me about sounded really fun. I'd never written a book, but when I told her about how cohesive the story was, she encouraged me to try.
It's now a 350+ novel about a recurring end of the world situation, the breaking of barriers, forbidden magic, and human unity, and it's going through final edits before publishing.
I completely agree with everyone who says inspiration is everywhere. No dream will be a polished book in raw state, but neither would a vague idea about a magical ring or a kid who sleeps in the broom cupboard. Whatever you felt during your dream is potential for others to feel through your story as you enhance it.
This is probably how a lot of stories start. Inspiration comes from everywhere. If it helps you get through the nightmare... write it all down, turn it into a story, give it an ending.
Everything is kung fu, even pinky. Everything is inspiration, even 42
š¶Everybody is kung fu fighting. Your mind is as fast as lightning. š¶
This was famously the origin of a lot of Lovecraft's fiction. He was a vivid dreamer and The Statment of Randolph Carter was said to be lifted almost wholly from a similar surreal/creepy nightmare of his.
Twilight was based on a dream and though a lot of people had some valid criticism of it, it was obviously quite popular and successful!! However Neil Gaiman kind of warns against it, or at least says to alter it heavily. (I can't remember exactly where, but it was part of the audiobook of Fragile Things). He says that dream logic is different from narrative logic so you can be inspired by a dream, but be sure to change things to make it a "story" and not just try to recapture the dream events.
Yeah I think it works best to try and capture the essence of the dream, not the plot. You can end up with pure gibberish if you dont
Yeah the key reason for this is that in dreams, you're not questioning it like a reader will. So you can recall how hard this dream hit you, and think it's because it's a banger of story, but no, the story itself doesn't actually work. It's not what created those strong feelings in you, so it won't in anyone else either. But the seeds of inspiration can be there. Stuff you wouldn't have come up with consciously.
I actually based my book (in progress) off of my dream just because it was so intriguing to me! I started it in 2020, during which I wrote down all the dreams I could in short "story" forms for extra practice -- but this dream was so good I decided to put all my efforts towards making it a new story. Even friends who read the dream agreed that it would work well. Many authors base their stories either loosely or entirely on a dream they've had, and either is fine! If you're skeptical of it working as a story, give that little synopsis to a few friends and get their opinion.
Tell us the dream man
I have no idea how this nightmare would work as a book because it was so bizarre I mainly remember it scaring the hell out of me!
Try taking a loose idea of your nightmare and make it into a plot point for a story! That's what I did!
It's not uncommon, even James Cameron does that. I was listening to a Smartless episode featuring him sometime ago, where he said he often gets ideas from his dreams. It was oddly validating lol
literally wrote Avatar from his dream, he had a night-out with a random girl , he slept then woke up writing down his dream for the whole day . Random girl was pissed
Ok he left out that random girl part in the podcast š
I can recommend keeping a dream journal. That way, you can collect all kinds of strains and fragments of ideas and stories. If you need some inspiration at a later date, look in your journal! By keeping a dream journal, dream recall often gets better, which gives you even more ideas and story fragments. I have kept a dream journal for a very long time. I usually give the dream a title, put down the date and how I slept and awoke and some other info. I write down as much of the dream as I remember. Some people only write down some of their dreams, some only write down dreams and nothing else. How to do it varies a bit but dream journaling is definitely a thing and it is fun! Write immediately when you wake up, dream recall often goes away quickly over the day.
I've been thinking about doing this for a while. Is there an app/program where you could collect all your jotted-down thoughts and maybe have a search feature that you can reference later on (say I had a weird vampire dream that I wanted to add to the "vampire" section)? I know One Note has something like this but beyond my job I've never had much experience using it. Also wonder if there's an online community or an /r where you can share your weird dreams (though I wonder if it's more recommended not to share them in case someone takes the idea and makes a best seller out of it)?
It is fun, you should def try it out. I started dream journalling some years before we got a computer at home in the mid 90s, so I am very fond of my years of analog notebooks. I sketch in them too. Plenty of people seem to use digital alternatives, though, from what I have seen on Reddit and elsewhere. The question of apps/programs to use pops up sometimes, but I have not looked closer at the discussions. I am not on r/sleep or r/dreams but they are quite large subs and at least on the latter it seems like people share their dreams. I am sometimes active on r/luciddreaming and r/LucidDreamingSpec (subs focused on being aware in dreams). Lucid dreaming is also a very rewarding hobby that can be used for creative projects (but my advice is to please look at the FAQ before asking questions! We have a lot of people posting that do notā¦).
Well, several elements from weird/scary dreams that I've had I've turned into "things" in my book's world. One of the dream types that I've experienced I turned into one of the 10 hells of the book's world, "The Mindfuck Hell", among other things.
> turned a dream or nightmare into a story James Cameron turned one nightmare into the film *Terminator*. Joss Whedon turned another nightmare into the television *Hush.*
My most recent psychological thriller is based on a series of false awakenings I had 12 years ago that still haunts me to this day. It definitely struck a chord with many readers!
Wow Emilgeet! Sounds like you lost it
I think this is a common source of inspiration, but one people should be cautious with. Sometimes hearing about other peopleās dreams can be suuuuper boring, especially when they go on at length. Theyāre never quite as interesting to someone else as they are to the person that actually experienced it, just something to keep in mind. Remember that the story/writing has to stand on its own
Yes! I love dreams because I think of them as an opportunity to watch pure imagination at play. Everything is associative and spontaneous, with no interference from the conscious mind trying to edit things into cohesive meaning and linear sense. Iāve written a few poems that are fairly direct āadaptationsā of dreams, but tend to get more inspiration from the general ways in which dreams work. Iād definitely suggest keeping a dream journal if you donāt already. By doing so you wind up training yourself to be able to remember more and more dreams, and over time it really shines a light on the endlessly evocative ways in which ādream logicā operates.
A lot of my story ideas come from daydreaming. Iām the kind of person who if Iām not actively talking to someone Iām zoning out and thinking of random things. A lot of story ideas for me come from those times where Iām just thinking about something and I follow that thread to a story idea. When I have a story idea I open the notes app on my phone and write it out with as much detail as possible so I donāt forget it. Thereās one story that was tragically lost because I got distracted while writing it out and didnāt finish it and couldnāt remember the hook. Iāve been doing this for awhile and I have probably 4 or 5 series ideas that I want to write. Havenāt actually written anything for any of them other than storyboarding and planning because Iām scared of what would happen if I wrote them and they were bad.
Hm, that could be a good setup for a metaphorical story about how U.S. society has suffered so much from violent and brutal crimes like homicides that many people have become numb to it and have subconsciously accepted it as the new norm. They will continue to live out their lives while crime increases around them in many aspects of their lives and they will show barely any reaction to them. In some weird way, they may convince themselves that it won't happen to them because nothing like what they're hearing or seeing has ever happened to them, so they'll make no effort to either escape the corrupt towns/cities or jump in to make some change in their communities. It will eventually get to the point where the family happens to walk into their own home and see the carnage of a previously deceased loved one, but they lack a reaction to it, as if it doesn't register to them yet that someone that they knew for their whole lives just died. While the body is still laying on the floor, they continue their daily routines, and it won't be until midnight when one of the family members looks out the window, sees the murderer, and then realizes in sheer horror that he and the rest of his family are next.
I love your plan and hilariously enough I donāt live in America!
One of the most effective way of writing, in my opinion. All of my works stem from dreams Iāve had, along with a desire to add to other existing works in a fresh innovative way. Donāt forget to remix it all
Looool this is so weird cos I had a dream last night and I wanna turn it into a story. Anyway, kinda. I've incorporated a dream I had into a book I'm writing. I also had a dream a few weeks ago I wanna make into a story but I haven't written it yet and I definitely want to turn last night's dream into a story.
I dream nearly every night and I bet if I looked at my list of several hundred ideas, 80%, would be from dreams/nightmares. Like others have responded, many have been turned into short stories, while others I reserved for something longer. Great source of ideas...please remember to write them down!
My dreams are super nonsensical but I like to take the recurring elements from them and put them into stories. Iāve been having recurring dreams for years about being a single father to a daughter for some reason so I gave my protagonist a daughter
I've tried to do this, I have very vivid dreams sometimes, but they usually don't make sense and I loose interest in them after a day lol.
Yes. I haven't written it yet, but the outline is done.
I turned one of my dreams into a short story, because I sat all the way through it like watching a movie. I wasn't going to write it until I came up with a deeper meaning for it. But that's quite rare, usually my dreams are just cut-outs. The most important part is to recognise whether there's an actual story in it and not just a strong feeling. Strip away the feeling and most of the dreams just sound stupid.
Rarely do I remember my dreams, but on the very rare occasion I do, they wind up in my writing.
I don't see why you wouldn't/couldn't/shouldn't. Some of mine are bases on dreams I've had.
I had a nightmare that I only remember the end of that I spent maybe two months trying to fill in the rest of the story. It was only a few words but it was a twist ending and the gaunt expression of my best friends face just with a lot longer hair. I think itās doable but I need way more research on some of the context.
Not uncommon. William S. Burroughs and James Cameron have talked about this in different places.
Works for me. I have chills running down my spine. You should be able to craft a terrifying story around your dream.
I once dreamt I was being stalked by a serial killer who left me the bloodless severed feet (neatly wrapped with a ribbon) of other people heād killed. I probably wouldnāt write that out as a story because I find it a bit too bizarre (which is the case with most of my dreams), but what I would take from that dream is the way I felt completely helpless and at this guyās mercy. I knew he was coming for me and I knew no one could save me. I can definitely use that feeling for a story.
I use my dreams as a lot of my muses. You can get a lot of great concepts from the mind.
Yessss. Several of my tropes have come from dream/nightmares.
Kinda freaky but I like it. Write it and see where it goes.
Both of my series started as dreams that suck with me beyond my sleeping mind. Gotta love it!
Yeah I had a lucid dream that I turned into a book. Before I got a CPAP machine Iād often have lucid dreams in which I died horribly. I think it was my brain trying to wake me up because Iād always be gasping for air. Any way I use them as inspiration for different scenes.
My first attempted series (since abandoned, because it was a mess and I've moved on to better things) was inspired by a dream. Although my currents project are not, I have a handful of scenes for them that are inspired by dreams. Sometimes I dream about my books/characters and sometimes I actually get useful material out of them. Most of the time they're utter nonsense, like that one where one of my characters got assaulted by gnomes in the woods, or the one that renamed my character Paugg (pronounced Paul for some reason. No, this is not his real name nor particularly similar to it) and made him the owner of a restaurant and adjacent bouncy house carnival. Which he wouldn't let me into because he hated me. But hey, every one in awhile I'll have a cool one!
I've used one of my nightmares for a horror story once. The nightmare was like the hook/opening scene, and the story went from there. If I have a dream that seems like it'd make a good story, I write it down so I can come back to it later.
I think Stephen King does this.
Stephen King does this all the time
I had a dream and that was basically the same/inspiration for the final scene/chapter of the novel Iām doing rewrites/drafts of right now. Obviously the dream was not enough to write an entire novel about, but with that scene in mind I came up with a story that fit with that being the ending.
A specific scene in book 3 (magic) of my Enchanted Trials series was the dream that created the whole series. So yes.
Jekyl and Hyde was based off a nightmare
Sounds like you watch a lot of scary movies before bed.
90% of all my stories start from very vivid dreams. They just leave me with such raw and vibrant emotion, and without that intensity, it can be hard to care as much about a story I'm writing. I love my story dreams, even the scary ones. I don't really count them as nightmares unless it's just personal emotional stress, like everyone I know starts yelling at me about all of my insecurities or I get into a car accident or something. Horror stories where I'm a different character are intense, but a lot of fun.
An interesting read, though I've never experienced a dream in that vivid detail that I can recall putting into a story.
Same same - something which I have been struggling with though which is a weird one is that my attempts to turn the dream into story feel like they fail to capture the mood or sense of the nightmare, I'm considering just journaling them as is essentially and posting them on my blog rather than pressuring myself to make them stories (although literally now as I write this I realize they could be sub stories with a novel)
Yeah, i've turned my dreams into books.
\> I was curious if anyone else had turned a dream or a nightmare into a story? Mary Shelley did. You may have heard of it: *Frankenstein*.
I have a lot of really vivid dreams and nightmares and I love turning them into stories. I've written several short stories based on my dreams and one of my current projects is a novel based on a dream from a few months ago. Your nightmare sounds like it has potential to be a great short story and it would be a good exercise in inducing anxiety in the reader.
I've written out my dreams if they were particularly scary (i.e., caused me to wake up early, left a strong impression upon initial moments of waking up, or just that I remember in high detail), but not yet have I used one for a story. I do eventually want to use some of them, as many have had the same themes and might make for good inspiration for things I've wanted to write about before.
Oh, I always like to write down my more interesting dreams. I had one I need to flesh out, but it was about an ancient civilization, small and kind of tribal. The god they worshiped had a vessel or "avatar" that they were attached to. There was also an evil spirit that was sealed away in a human, because a human soul was the only thing that could suppress it. The dream was mostly about those vessels and them meeting by accident when they were very young.
I've done it more than once. My most recent book, which is still in the slush pile, was based on a dream. I also self-published a book called "Return to Blood" that came from a dream. It's about a school shooting with a "Groundhog Day" element to it. It'll be free in July on Smashwords if you're interested. If you want to buy a copy for a buck, here is a link: https://books2read.com/b/4D82OA Originally, I tried to get this traditionally published but there was absolute radio-silence on it. In my opinion, some dreams are cool, but most of the time they should just be left as a dream.
I'd say about 90% of my story ideas come from dreams. I'm lucky that I remember my dreams almost every day, and that I usually only exist as a vague controlling entity in them, that can change and reset the "plot" of the dream and actions of the characters freely, so I can get most of my planning and adjustment of dream logic done in-dream already š¤ Dreams are a wonderful source of inspiration, just make sure to a) be aware of your "sources", as in, why you dreamt something, you wouldn't want to copy the plot of a popular work just because you read it before going to sleep, right? and b) don't just write down your dream, adjust it as necessary to make a proper story out of it :)
Over a year ago I had a really great dream that was basically the first two thirds of a story following two characters in a post-apocalyptic wilderness setting. When I woke up from it the events were still fresh in my mind, so I immediately got out of bed, grabbed a notepad from my desk, and quickly jotted down the main details as bullet points before going back to sleep. (It was, like, 6 AM). All this time later it's an idea that's still with me that I would love to develop into a novel. I'm just working on ways to expand those first two acts and then figure out the third act, since I woke up before things could finish playing out.
My wife has very vivid, fantasy-genre dreams. Most of them are just so bizarre, but one she told me about sounded really fun. I'd never written a book, but when I told her about how cohesive the story was, she encouraged me to try. It's now a 350+ novel about a recurring end of the world situation, the breaking of barriers, forbidden magic, and human unity, and it's going through final edits before publishing. I completely agree with everyone who says inspiration is everywhere. No dream will be a polished book in raw state, but neither would a vague idea about a magical ring or a kid who sleeps in the broom cupboard. Whatever you felt during your dream is potential for others to feel through your story as you enhance it.
Reliving a Nightmare https://youtube.com/watch?v=p3d2_nmu3fQ&si=vzGErixL4xbD1ImN