Did you hear the one about the best-selling author whose story idea came to them in a dream?
I’ve long heard these anecdotes. Wished it would happen to me.
As I research dreams and their meanings, I’m now exploring how they can make us more creative. I wonder if we can be more intentional about capturing ideas we get from our dreams. Instead of just waiting for one to drop into our laps. Or our minds, as it were.
I don’t have any answers but I’m ready to learn and experiment.
Science says that one way dreams enhance our creativity is by improving the ability of our brains to connect the dots between things we know or remember and things we learn. Or between two ideas that don’t seem to go together.
Like a sparkly vampire.
Stephanie Myers, author of the Twilight books (a little series of best-selling books that took the world by storm some years back), had one of those dreams. She actually dreamed of a sparkly young male vampire talking to a human girl he has fallen in love with. She did have to do a great deal of writing and put in effort to change this one scene into a complete novel.
The thing about creative ideas is they rarely come fully formed. With the complete plot. Or the whole image. At least, not in my experience.
But they do come that way for some people. Others see complete paintings, whole stories, entire songs.
I remember waking one night with the perfect story plot. In the dream I was convinced it would be a bestseller. I even awoke and wrote down the plot idea. I was ecstatic as I snuggled back to sleep.
In the morning, the words were just words. They didn’t even go together. They made no sense at all.
But if it has happened to others, I believe it can happen to me, too. So, I’m open.
Here are the things I’m doing to be ready for that awesome idea:
- Write down my dreams.
- Set an intention. This could be asking for an answer to a question. I’m still working on this. I wonder if instead of saying, “I’d like to dream a bestselling plot idea,” if there’s a different way to ask the question.
- Spend waking hours mulling over what I want to create/am creating. Stephanie was already thinking of writing, taking a course, had a writing teacher. Her brain was already in the creative mode, juices flowing. That has to help with receptivity.
- Minimize distractions, especially before going to bed. Dreaming about the movie I watched the previous evening isn’t helping my dream time or my creativity. Nor is social media scrolling. So I’m still working on this, too.
Do you dream up creative ideas in your sleep? Paintings, stories, email newsletters, business ideas? I’d love to hear about it.
Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay