Dreaming up a Plot

My dreams are mostly forgettable, even the ones that involve my ending up forgetting to dress before I go out or unable to find a bathroom with proper sized doors. Even the one with the deformed budgie that terrified me so much at the age of three has lost its punch. The only dreams that seem to have any impact on me are the ones I have in the morning. Usually, they're fascinating dreams; more like stories than the background workings of my mind. And more often than not, the alarm jerks me out of them just as they're getting interesting.

One of the great regrets of life, is that no matter how detailed or how rich the dream, I've never mastered the knack of waking up and then going straight back to it. Even by accident. In my entire dreaming life, I've never had the same dream twice. I have dreams with similar concepts or feelings, but never the same dream with the same people and the same bizarre backdrop.

Half the time, I'm not even in the dream. Instead, I seem to linger on the sidelines, watching the action take place.

This morning, I was in the dream with a vengeance. Not as myself, but as two distinct characters. The first one seemed to be some sort of spin-off from Firefly. I don't know how I came to that conclusion, seeing as none of the characters were in it, but that's what the dream insisted. It was mostly forgettable, apart from the grief I felt at missing the ship and having to bid my identical twin sister goodbye for an indefinite amount of time.

The next dream was shorter, but it managed to give birth to a story nonetheless. I seemed to be a character called Calwyn, from the Chanters of Tremaris series by Kate Constable (well worth a read, if you're looking for a recommendation). And yet, even though I was Calwyn, I wasn't actually Calwyn. This made much more sense in my dream than it does right here and now.

In the dream, I had failed to complete a rigorous course of musical study and I was walking across a courtyard towards my old music class, feeling a mix of shame at my failure and delight at seeing my old friends again. My hair had grown in my time away from them and it fell across my line of sight in concealing strands. I thought I could hide my bitter disappointment behind my hair.

The dream must have lasted for about five minutes, but it made a lasting impression on my imagination. It begs to become a short story. A very short story, in fact.

But sometimes these short stories have minds of their own and decide to become something bigger.

I did once write a story based on a character in a dream. It ended up with the grand title Saving the World: When and How to do it and was commended in the first story competition I entered in 2002. But I haven't done it since. How many of you have written a story based on a dream? Was it a success or would you never do it again? I'm intrigued to hear if it's worked out for others, too.