Problem describing dreams,

[LWFlouisa]

I often have the issue where I think more visually than verbally. I could describe all the weird dreams I had last night by drawing it, and yet would almost seem like a foreign language despite being in English, do to the nature of what I dream about.

Has anyone else had this issue?

Like I vaguely remember something akin to Haunted House, that was more like dark and stormy tower. The haunted house spoke to me asking me to come closer, and I kept walking away into a town by the sea.

I often experience also retellings of events in my life, in a way that I interpret as the way a family member really meant something. Or they do something they wish they could in real life, but somehow I had gotten what they meant.

Going to be looking inside my dream dictionary.

 

[Steerpike]

Why not draw it first, if that works best for you, then use the drawing as a basis for the written description?

 

[LWFlouisa]

Why not draw it first, if that works best for you, then use the drawing as a basis for the written description?

Definitely worth trying!

I can write, I just can't describe dreams real well.XD

 

[Sheilawisz]

Hello Flouisa!

Well it's true that most dream journals are about written narrative of dreams, but drawing dream places and concepts is not unheard of. I'll tell you about a super famous Spanish artist called Salvador Dalí. This most admired person was a Surrealist painter, you know those magical paintings of impossible places and so on?

Salvador Dalí would sometimes take special naps, and he invented a trick that allowed him to suddenly wake up from deep sleep with the vivid images of dreams still fresh in his mind. Then, Dalí would start to paint what he had seen and that's why he often described his works as Photographs of Dreams painted by Hand.

Dreams are great for all forms of art and artists, so if you want to draw or paint your dreams it's a most excellent idea!

I can say this to you because, after all, some great scenes in my stories have been inspired by a dream. I know that drawing what I have seen in my dreams would be wonderful, but my drawing skills are quite limited. If you can draw well, go for it! You would be joining the great Dalí and other artists that have done that before.

 

[CupofJoe]

I'd read some HP Lovecraft. I find a lot of his writing almost dream-like. His characters are often open in saying the don't understand or know what happened just what it looked and felt like to them. The shortcomings of the descriptions are part of the descriptions...

 

[Dark Squiggle]

If you can actually draw them, you're ahead of me. I find mine fall apart halfway through every drawing I try to make. This goes not just for sleeping dreams, but any really good idea I seem to get. I get about half a drawing or a few paragraphs down, and then the rest I have to improvise and BS my way through to try and get something half decent. If you could post some of those pictures, it would be cool, and I'd try to reciprocate, if that counts as something to convince you. A picture is half a story; famous Authors, such as Phillip Pullman and JRRT, have written characters, stories and entire books just by listening to stories the pictures tell them. Here are two paintings that I am sure inspired The Golden Compass/Northern Lights:

 

[LWFlouisa]

If you can actually draw them, you're ahead of me. I find mine fall apart halfway through every drawing I try to make. This goes not just for sleeping dreams, but any really good idea I seem to get. I get about half a drawing or a few paragraphs down, and then the rest I have to improvise and BS my way through to try and get something half decent. If you could post some of those pictures, it would be cool, and I'd try to reciprocate, if that counts as something to convince you. A picture is half a story; famous Authors, such as Phillip Pullman and JRRT, have written characters, stories and entire books just by listening to stories the pictures tell them. Here are two paintings that I am sure inspired The Golden Compass/Northern Lights:

It might be easier than I might think. My dreams aren't explicitly but a particular subtle form of the oxymoron Magic Realism. It might be just like my real life, just with my house having extra rooms.

Or more blatantly, roller skating in my wheel less tennis shoes.

I approach science fiction in the same way, as in my painting of a Sky fortress that becomes clouds, and space pods that fall like drops of rain.