What have you been dreaming about lately?

[Menolly]

I'm jealous. I want to have a Watch dream

Oh, Frith! In a little under 2 months, I'll be having a Watch reality!

You are going to have so much fun. I so wish I could be there!

[stonemaybe]

I've got Xar's 'North Star' top of my to-read pile, with only a couple of chapters of 'The Scar' left to read, it's getting imminent.

Last night I dreamt I'd read it and really loved it, but the dream-version has gone now

Hopefully, the actual book will live up to the dream version.....

[Menolly]

e-book or hard copy of North Star, Stone?

[Sorus]

I'm jealous. I want to have a Watch dream

Oh, Frith! In a little under 2 months, I'll be having a Watch reality!

You are going to have so much fun. I so wish I could be there!

That's true! Wish I could make it to Denver.

[stonemaybe]

e-book or hard copy of North Star, Stone?

Hard

[Menolly]

e-book or hard copy of North Star, Stone?

Hard

...still waiting for mine...

If you get details on how to get it signed, I want them.

[Brasidas]

To help my wife's colleagues out I recently did a sleep study, where they put all kinds of electrodes on your chest and head, and have a series of cameras trained on your eyelids to measure rem (rapid eye movement) which indicates that you're dreaming. I had five distinct dream episodes, which is apparently the norm. This confirmed my wife's thinking, as I often mumble and move around when I'm in a deep sleep, obviously in the middle of a dream. But I've never remembered a single dream in my entire life. Not one lousy second. I'm being cheated out of my dreams!

[Auleliel]

I'm being cheated out of my dreams!

Oh, how sad! I live for my dreams, and I cannot imagine life without them.

[balon!]

I'm being cheated out of my dreams!

I know how you feel. Rarely do I remember the details of my dreams, and I've NEVER lucid dreamed. Ever.

Weak.

[CovenantJr]

I've been having burglary dreams recently. I don't like those dreams. Hadn't had any burglary dreams for a while, but now they're back. I am somewhat prone to them.

Last night, however, I dreamed I was a grifter. Specifically, that I worked long cons with Mickey Bricks from Hustle. It was actually quite fun, though he wasn't impressed with me.

I'm being cheated out of my dreams!

Oh, how sad! I live for my dreams, and I cannot imagine life without them.

Most of my dreams are fairly unpleasant, but I do find it hard to imagine living without them. On the rare occasions I get through a night without either waking up or having memorable dreams, I feel disconcerted, like time has just disappeared. I'm used to experiencing my nights, so just sleeping blankly right through feels very unnatural.

Also, I think dreaming a lot makes me a better writer. I see a lot of surreal and unsettling things in dreams, which effectively gives me a wealth of experience that I could never possibly get in reality.

[Auleliel]

Also, I think dreaming a lot makes me a better writer. I see a lot of surreal and unsettling things in dreams, which effectively gives me a wealth of experience that I could never possibly get in reality.

Dreaming is definitely my biggest source of ideas for my writing. If I didn't dream, I wouldn't have anything to work with.

[Menolly]

...no wonder why I have no creativity of my own...

[Auleliel]

...no wonder why I have no creativity of my own...

Everyone has creativity. Sometimes it is just hard to recognize and harness the creativity when you want it to manifest itself more. And sometimes reason and logic trample over creativity, making it difficult to identify it for what it is.

[aliantha]

Well said, Auleliel.

One night last week, my body forced me into a marathon sleep session. I sat down on the couch at about 8:30pm, fell asleep, woke up just enough around 10pm to drag my butt to the bedroom and fall into bed, and slept (more or less) until the alarm. We had a massive thunderstorm that night; at one point I woke up and thought, "I need to get up and close the window," but fell back to sleep; when I woke up again later and actually stumbled out of bed to the window, there was a huge puddle on the sill.

But then after *that*, I dreamed that I'd gotten up and gone to the kitchen for some reason, I forget why. I realized that I was so tired that I was leaning over with my head and arms on the counter, so I decided to go back to bed -- but I couldn't pick my arms up off the counter. That's when I realized I was dreaming, and woke up. And promptly went back to sleep again.

I wish I knew what *that* was all about...

[Auleliel]

I wish I knew what *that* was all about...

It sounds to me like you just are very much in need of sleep.

[magickmaker17]

But I've never remembered a single dream in my entire life. Not one lousy second. I'm being cheated out of my dreams!

I was told once, that before you go to bed, if you repeat to yourself (10 or so times), "I will remember my dreams," you can sort of train yourself to remember them. I've tried it once or twice, and had some success with it.

When you do so, you might want to keep a notebook beside your bed. I recall that I woke up in the middle of the night at one point, after I'd dreamed. I wrote the dream down, which was a good thing, because I hardly remembered it when I woke up the next morning, and probably would have remembered even less if I hadn't taken the time to write it down, and just gone right back to sleep.

[Auleliel]

But I've never remembered a single dream in my entire life. Not one lousy second. I'm being cheated out of my dreams!

I was told once, that before you go to bed, if you repeat to yourself (10 or so times), "I will remember my dreams," you can sort of train yourself to remember them. I've tried it once or twice, and had some success with it.

When you do so, you might want to keep a notebook beside your bed. I recall that I woke up in the middle of the night at one point, after I'd dreamed. I wrote the dream down, which was a good thing, because I hardly remembered it when I woke up the next morning, and probably would have remembered even less if I hadn't taken the time to write it down, and just gone right back to sleep.

I used to do that. I kept a "dream journal" and wrote down everything I remembered first thing after waking up. Now I don't have any difficulty remembering the dreams I want to remember, so I usually don't write them down any more unless they are exceptional dreams. It's fun to page through the dream journal every once in a while to relive the dreams.

[CovenantJr]

Also, I think dreaming a lot makes me a better writer. I see a lot of surreal and unsettling things in dreams, which effectively gives me a wealth of experience that I could never possibly get in reality.

Dreaming is definitely my biggest source of ideas for my writing. If I didn't dream, I wouldn't have anything to work with.

With two or three exceptions (one of which was a fully-formed science fiction narrative) I don't take ideas from dreams, but I do take mood and a sense of atmosphere.

...no wonder why I have no creativity of my own...

Creativity can appear in utterly unexpected ways and for unexpected reasons. It welled up in me from the mind-bending boredom of a job where I had literally nothing to do at all, but was expected to sit silently at my computer and look busy in case one of the senior managers came round. That was my trigger. You may not have met your trigger yet.

[Wyldewode]

Last night I dreamed that I went to visit my best friend, and when I picked up my six-month-old goddaughter she started talking to me in complete sentences and was very articulate.

Regarding dreams, I once had an amazing dream that could be a short story, if not a novel. When I awoke I wrote the entire dream out in my moleskin journal, and should I ever choose to, I have a ready-made story.

[aliantha]

I dreamed last night that I was renovating this really cool old house. I planned to strip the ugly wallpaper in the kitchen and paint, make a tiny bedroom into a home office, etc. At one point I went down this long, lovely gallery and found, at the end of it, a beautifully furnished room that had a built-in light show, and a collection of pictures of mothers and daughters on one wall. I decided to keep that room just the way it was.