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Dreams- should they be used?

TheokinsJ

Troubadour
In my current WIP I was thinking of the main character having a dream that perhaps foreshadows future events, sort of like a vision of the future, except in a really distorted way so that it doesn't seem totally obvious of the plot twist that will follow. I've read a couple of books where dreams are used excessively and it really is horrible to read them, but I was just thinking this would be a one-off in my story. Do you think dreams are a good idea? Can they be used well?
 

brokethepoint

Troubadour
Yes dreams can be used well. I would only use dreams for some specific reasons.

1. It is part of the plot.
2. They are used to guide <- this one I feel has to be done correctly or it just ends up bad
3. Used as a means of rebelling. The character goes and does the opposite of what they are supposed to.

I would never just throw a dream in for no reason.

This is what I can think of for right now :)
 

CupofJoe

Myth Weaver
I think they can... but it's a fine needle to thread.
If you show the dream directly, then you have to make it cryptic but not to cryptic, obvious but not too obvious, surreal but not too surreal [etc]... and all within the POV of a character and their understanding...
I have an MC that is a seer and gets visions as dreams.
I gave up any attempt as showing/describing the dreams directly after I had to spend an hour carefully explaining the imagery when a friend read 5-600 words of one and didn't get it - any of it. Now I'm planning on having the MC interpret the dreams herself and try to tell others what she has seen / worked out and by showing how the dreams disturb her mentally and physically.
 

Creed

Sage
Of course they can be done well, but the trick is in getting it right. Two series off the top of my head that use dreams (or in this case nightmares) well (for foreshadowing and otherwise) are The Twilight Reign and The Nightrunner Series.
For a long time I had a characters who existed entirely in dreams, but I wasn't sure how to write it. For me the issue wasn't clarity so much as direction; what do these dreams mean in correlation to one another, how does it fit together, where is she going, and how do I make it seem like she's moving towards a purpose?
For one dream you won't be faced with questions like this, but as above you need to find the balance between clarity and ambiguity, the place where dream-nonsense and plot meet.
 
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Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
There's a long list of things to which I feel the answer is:

"No .... I mean, maybe if you do it well - but really, no."

Dreams are absolutely on that list. You can point to story after story which uses dreams really well. But the fact that dreams have been done well so often is why so many more people do them poorly. That difference isn't always easy to see in your own writing.
 
Anything can be used if done well.

Dreams are profoundly important to humans so why shouldn't they be used in storytelling? The trick is to do it in a way that has never been done before. A slowly unfolding dream sequence is integral to my book which goes to press next week and will (I hope) be on the shelves in September. Yes I was a little nervous writing a dream sequence, but:

- I kept each passage short
- I didn't overdo the purple dreamy prose (it was quite matter of fact)
- it was clearly relevant to the unfolding plot and characterisation
- it was instrumental in the twists and revelations at the end, and
- no-one (as far as I know) has ever done a dream sequence like this before.

Indeed, I came up with the idea when I woke one morning (still straddling the dream world and the waking world) and suddenly realised I have a dream suburbia just slightly different from the real suburbia in which I lived the first 30 years of my life. I also realised that all of my dreams happen against the backdrop of this dream suburbia which, in my dreams, I know as well as the real suburbia. The practical impact is that sometimes I have memories which I truly cannot tell if they are real or dream.

This has obvious implications for a character in a novel, and one of the very first things the main character tells you is: I never dream.

But he does.
 

Chilari

Staff
Moderator
I'm having a go with a story in which much of the events take place in dreams. The antagonist is a dream mage, manipulating the sleep and dreams of the defenders of a city, and the protagonist is a lucid dreamer - an untrained, weaker dream mage. I'm not sure if it will go anywhere or how successful it'll be, but I'm trying. I am making the dreams very like my own dreams, in that things change dramatically - the character enters a building and finds herself outside the city instead - without the character finding this unusual. As the story progresses the dream world and real world will seem to be more like one another - the dream mage will make dreams that seem like reality, and through sleep deprivation make the defenders think they're dreaming when they're not, that sort of thing.

I have no expectations on this as yet, I'm just seeing how things go for now because I know dreams can be a troublesome topic to write about.
 

Helen

Inkling
In my current WIP I was thinking of the main character having a dream that perhaps foreshadows future events, sort of like a vision of the future, except in a really distorted way so that it doesn't seem totally obvious of the plot twist that will follow. I've read a couple of books where dreams are used excessively and it really is horrible to read them, but I was just thinking this would be a one-off in my story. Do you think dreams are a good idea? Can they be used well?

It was used in Lincoln.

Nothing wrong with it. Yes it can be used well.
 

Mythopoet

Auror
I honestly believe there is no such thing as "should" or "should not" in fiction. Every story has its own needs, every author has their own voice. That being said, I can't right now think of a dream sequence in a book that I enjoyed. Except The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath, but that's different because the entire thing is technically a dream but it never reads like a dream.
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
I agree with the general sentiment, above. You can use anything, so long as you do it well. Dream sequences usually aren't done that well, and consequently I often skip over them or skim ahead to where the author decides to get back to the story.
 

Scribble

Archmage
Dreams are an important aspect of life, I see no reason to exclude them. However, they have been used so horribly in fiction that you should take care when using them as a plot device. A gratuitous dream can feel as out of place as gratuitous sex or violence. The latter are typically forgiven because they can deliver a satisfaction to the reader, even if they do nothing to move the story, albeit a shallow satisfaction.

A dream that does nothing will feel to the reader like a useless interlude.

The dream must DO something. Reveal character, reveal emotion, move plot (careful of Deus Ex Machina).

Here's a dream from the novel Siddhartha.

Kamala owned a small, rare singing bird in a golden cage. Of this bird, he dreamt. He dreamt: this bird had become mute, who at other times always used to sing in the morning, and since this arose his attention, he stepped in front of the cage and looked inside; there the small bird was dead and lay stiff on the ground. He took it out, weighed it for a moment in his hand, and then threw it away, out in the street, and in the same moment, he felt terribly shocked, and his heart hurt, as if he had thrown away from himself all value and everything good by throwing out this dead bird.

Starting up from this dream, he felt encompassed by a deep sadness. Worthless, so it seemed to him, worthless and pointless was the way he had been going through life; nothing which was alive, nothing which was in some way delicious or worth keeping he had left in his hands. Alone he stood there and empty like a castaway on the shore.

His dream is the culmination of a growing self-loathing in the way he was living his life. he had come to despise himself, but it was the moment of the dream where it came home. The poetry of the dream gives a symbol, a visual of him casting away the most precious part of himself, after having neglected it and allowed it to die.

The motif of the bird comes again and again. He meditates on it.

Isn't it just as if I had turned slowly and on a long detour from a man into a child, from a thinker into a childlike person? And yet, this path has been very good; and yet, the bird in my chest has not died. But what a path has this been! I had to pass through so much stupidity, through so much vices, through so many errors, through so much disgust and disappointments and woe, just to become a child again and to be able to start over.

Now, this is a very philosophical book, not exactly what most people are writing in their fantasy. However, it gives a very good example of a metaphor of dream images that can reveal things to your character, about what troubles them, what they fear, what they desire. I have a character who often dreams of a tree. It represents his family, his connection to his homeland. At times it is cherished, at times it is a burden. In some dreams it is covered in blossoms, in others it is burning. I never come out and say "The tree is his family and homeland", I let it speak the inarticulate language of dreams, and leave it at that.
 

Filk

Troubadour
If you are using the dream simply as a catalyst to foreshadow later events, then I wouldn't recommend it. You can foreshadow subtly without dreams. Why would it be important to have it be in a dream form? Dreams are overused and a generally wan mechanic in writing.

Dreams are common in fantasy literature. They can be a useful mechanic for a character to learn something that they can't otherwise learn. In a sense, they can fill in where the wise old man/woman archetype is missing. Sometimes it is a bit hard to swallow that a character believes what they have "learned" from a dream. But then again, if a character doesn't gain some sort of impetus from a dream, then why did they have it? What purpose does it serve to the story?

I'm currently reading Crime and Punishment and there was a dream sequence in where the main character is a young boy and witnesses a horse brutalized to death by a drunken mob. I'm not exactly sure of what mechanic that it plays (besides foreshadowing further violence and perhaps the duality of the character i.e. propensity for good and evil), but I like it and it works in the story.

I'd say go for it; at least make an attempt. If you find it's extraneous as you edit then cut it out. I agree with some of the above sentiments that dreams are generally best left alone unless you have no other plot mechanic to further your story.
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
Yeah, I was going to mention Raskolnikov's dream from Crime and Punishment (the dream of the horse being beaten). That's a famous one. There are all kinds of interpretations of it, including that each aspect of the dream reflects some aspect of Raskolnikov's characters himself (Raskolnikov as the boy, as the peasant beating the horse, as the horse, and so on).
 

A. E. Lowan

Forum Mom
Leadership
In our WIP (the opening scene, in fact) we have a character who repeatedly dreams of his long dead wife. The dreams are very matter-of-fact, as the character is himself not prone to flights of fancy. He simply has conversations with her in the peasant house they shared when they were married 600 years ago, and he talks to her about his current troubles. She offers her advice, and he can remember her smell, the warmth of her touch and the worn feel of their table and the good taste of her home brewed beer - everything but her face. Later, this detail becomes very important, but 600 years later it is a source of great heartache for him that he cannot even remember his wife's face.
 

Filk

Troubadour
That puts an interesting spin on that dream sequence. Perhaps it is his subconscious mind trying to prevent him from doing evil. It could simply indicate his inner turmoil and wanting to revert from his evil path. I'll have to reread it with the different aspects of himself scattered throughout the dream in mind. I remember him saying something about how dreams like that even artists like Turgenev and Pushkin couldn't concoct and thought he was being rather pompous hehe.

Well, sorry to get sidetracked from the original post, but I guess that dream sequence would be a good example of when it works. Chapter 5 of Crime and Punishment if you're interested!
 
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