Dreams and Writing

I've started writing short stories based upon dreams that I've had. "Started" being the operative word. Dreams often give interesting propositions but not much substance beyond giving disturbing degrees of insight into my psychological state. For instance, the two dreams I had below are dreams I probably shouldn't be sharing with anyone but the internet gives you free reign to act anonymously, even though everyone knows this is my blog. Just a quick heads up I do not take these dreams to mean anything in terms of a desire to have children:

I had a dream about a woman who had a miscarriage, and was carrying the baby to a stream to place into the water. Once she was upon the bridge, she looked down and saw a dead man floating in the current. That's an interesting coincidence and I don't know what that means, which is why I started writing the story.

Another dream I had was about two men, A and B, having coffee in a train station. A asks B to do him a favor. If A's wife, who is pregnant, has a difficult delivery, B must go into the room and invite the children in and write about it. The next part of the dream was man B sitting in the delivery room, realizing any moment now the woman is going to pass away, but she won't do it until he calls the children in. So his dilemma is how much can he write in order to postpone this woman's death, essentially.

I saw a French film once that quoted dreams as interesting only to the dreamer herself (I think the film put it more harshly than that: calling dreams 'boring' and people who narrate them dull, or something similar). I only half agree. On a practical level I enjoy dreams. I find my friends interesting as well as their dreams, and enjoy their narrations of them. (I think the French dude would argue that maybe my enjoyment comes more from the payoff of being able to recite my own dreams. Whatever, either way, I enjoy it). Enjoyment on that level comes from the most literal and basic understanding of dreams: that they occur when you are asleep, you wake up, and recall them into the present via narration.

But dreams are often discussed and understood in far more metaphorical and metaphysical terms, especially in relation to their literature. Many writers talk about how writing is an unfolding of a dream; that successful writing will flow seamlessly and cohesively like a dream, adhering to its own unique logic and yet being cogent to the dreamer and audience nonetheless. Luis Borges wrote a _____* article on dreams, that I won't go into right now since I have ten minutes left before getting ready for work. But it's Borges, you should read it, and then see Waking Life, and get back to me.

In closing before I return later this evening to tidy this up: studying and understanding dreams is an interesting way to study and understand the creative process. It's also an adept introduction to thought on the function of memory and imagination in comprising a person's identity. I'll be back later!


*Brilliant, perfect, whatever adjective you want to put in there to describe Borges.