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Dreams and dream sequences

Beth Pavell

Beth Pavell

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How do we feel about them? Personally I rather like a good dream sequence - an excuse to get a bit trippy and symbolic. One of my favourites is the House of the Undying sequence in A Clash of Kings (Ok, ok, it's technically not a dream, but it has all the hallmarks of one). It's trippy alright, and cleverly symbolic enough to keep you guessing as to what the meaning is. Crucially, it doesn't follow real dreams faithfully in that there's a running logic to them while real dreams tend to be all over the place. It's also done well in The Wee Free Men, where some of the traits of dreams are explored, such as details about the dream-world being rather sketchy until you pay attention to them.

What does everyone else think? Are they good fun? Tiresome? And how would you feel about them in a pokémon fanfic
 
to sleep perchance to dream, aye, there's the rub

I actually had a discussion about this earlier with a friend.

Good dreams are awesome and serve the story wonderfully and prove for an even-more-interesting-way-than-usual to discuss your character's motivations--namely, you can discuss what he/she thinks on the rawest level, addressing his/her hopes and fears without having to bother with lenses and shielding that a conscious person would construct in both narration and conversation.

Ugh that was a ton of words, but basically I love how dreams are the most basic element of thinking, and you can get the core of your character off completely unhindered with a well-structured dream sequence.

On the other hand, as tempting as the idea is, I've never read a proper dream sequence that I've actually enjoyed (I have not, granted, read the examples you've mentioned). Most of the time, I think it's because people are trying to be too heavy-handed with the dream setting: everything has symbolism, or everything means absolutely nothing, and in the end it doesn't make sense. I guess I divide fictional dreams into a couple of categories, each of which have their own issues:

=the prophetic dream, which (to me) often reads as really, really shoddy foreshadowing. Fiction where people actually have prophetic dreams/magic is slightly better, but it feels a bit like "let me just throw in these random details so you can see how clever I am later!"
=the psych it-was-all-a-dream, which is typically unpopular. While the it-was-all-a-dream never appears in endings any more, I do get irritated when there's a really juicy action sequence mid/early-story... aaaand then the main character wakes up in a sweat.
=the super-duper-symbolism dream, which takes the "character on the most raw level" and takes it up to eleven. Still my favorite type, though.
=the random nightmare, which often interrupts with the above and shares its problems.
=the god-awful random space-filler, which only happens in bad fanfic so never mind? XD

Anyway, super-duper-symbolism is usually my favorite to read, but I'd treat dreams as any other type of literary device--not particularly bad on their own, but can be done horribly when executed horribly. More on this later, I think.
 
I actually attempted a story that was a long dream sequence--set in the frame of the real world. However, I made it clear from the get go what was the dream and what was the real world:

Normal text was the real world

Italics was the dream world

I'm in the process of rebooting that story, so a dream sequence/dream story can work if you know what you're doing.

Although I wonder--do Disney Acid Sequences (if you will) count as a dream sequence? (in my experience, these are induced by spicy food at bedtime or scary movies before bedtime)
 
I never made my characters in my fic to have any dreams related to future events. But I do make my characters seeing dreams of the past events in order to discuss the background history of some selective characters.

Such dreaming of the past events are found also quite often in many other animes and/or fictions. They are seen mostly by the characters having mental trauma, where his/her miserable past was never discuss to anybody else; or characters that always feel nostalgic about something in the past, hang onto the past and don't welcome the future. So dreaming of the past will become a device to discuss the background history of the character(s).

Though, by realistic psychological interpretation, the scenes of the dream will never be an exact replicate of the reality, so what one dreams about the past might differs slightly to significantly from what had actually happened. Such dream also don't seen frequently, so it is not encouraged to use it more than twice on the same character.

But still, it is a good device to be used to talk about past of the untalkative character(s). It will also be better if the dream can connected to the upcoming event(s). (I feel the dream about Saitou Ichi by Himura Kenshin in Rurounin Kenshin is quite well done, as it not only give history background of Kenshin, but also created a tense atmosphere for the upcoming event as well)
 
I think it all boils down to dreams being able to introduce a plot element that is not actually going to come up in the rest of the story for a while (if ever). I like the idea of it being more about one's past or mental state than some kind of prophecy, as that's more relatable and real. I'm considering doing a short dream sequence in the future to introduce a character who would otherwise be un-introduce-able unless through an info dump. I want readers to understand their importance before they show up in the story.
 
I like dream sequences because they can reveal a characters secrets and memories. Thinking too hard on a subject can cause us to forget the small details, but after thinking of this subject our dreams may continue to think on it and possibly cause some forgotten, seemingly insignificant detail to be remembered.

Dream sequences may also not prolong the story, but cause the reader/viewer to better understand the inner turmoil of the character in question. I sometimes have dreams of an old family dog still being alive that were so vivid I wake and wonder how he's doing before remembering he's dead.
 
For me, the dreams of the old family dog are out of regret. I remember how he was as a puppy and how age gradually stole him away, but I have a great deal of regret for not being there when he died. My Grandfather took him outside and all he did was lay there. Grandpa takes him to the vet and they have to put him down. It's not just that I wasn't there for the dogs final moments when I should have been, but my Grandfather had to go through the process by himself and I know he was heartbroken.

In the dreams the dog is old, not a puppy, and whatever the situation is in the dream I don't want to leave the dogs side. When I wake it still seems that he is alive and that I should call Grandpa to ask how they're doing before reality hits me.
 
I myself aren't that used to dream sequences, but for one I enjoy writing dreams like the ones @kintsugi; mentioned that explored the psych of the character to a sense. In my fic I ended up making a dream sequence to sort of resolve one of the protagonist's issues in a sense, making him see his own mistakes and insecurities so that he can know what he has to improve on clearly and where he wants to go.

I'm not saying dream sequences are necessary, but they do give you a certain freedom with things you can't do otherwise, allowing you to get to know your character in a deeper better as well as allowing readers to see that character's mind. Rather than it being a prophecy or a nightmare or whatever it should be something that allows people to see the character in a different light than the one that's usually shown to them.
 
I'm not a huge fan of prophecy in dreams either. Prophecy in general brings up a lot of other questions, which if left unanswered tends to make the prophecy look cheap. For example, if true prophecies can be made in the story, can they be averted? If not, why? Do they therefore have any use at all? This is kind of why I like Frodo's prophetic dreams in the House of Tom Bombadil (Fellowship of the Ring). They're apparently just another feature of the oddness of the Old Forest so when you as the reader see them come true it doesn't look like a foregone conclusion.

to sleep perchance to dream, aye, there's the rub
Click to expand...

And that @kintsugi, is why we love you
 
I have yet to use dreams but I most likely will, especially since several of my characters have tragic back stories. Though I can't imagine using dreams in prophecy form unless the character is like psychic or some other reason. Dreams that tell the future when there is no special attribute that allows it are honestly just bad writing because its an unanswered plot point.

Dreams that are memories or something like that are nice, and definitely something I plan on using considering it gives a good insight on the characters psych. If a character normally acts happy and stuff, and you generally don't say how they feel on the inside, a simple dream sequence can tell a lot about them.

And of course symbolic dreams can be fun, though it depends on what is being represented in them. Not symbolizing what you're trying to do can really mess it up. But done right and I can see it turning out really well, and at the same time it could also be used to foreshadow something about the character. Like say the character is running from something in their past, and they dream about it often enough, that could be used to foreshadow that their past is coming back to bite them.

As for the it was all a dream thing, as long as it has a good preface, and you can understand how it became a dream, I think it could go over well. However if you were to start something off as fantasy and then it ends with being modern day and waking from a dream with no explanation to it, then yeah that just sucks.

Finally I don't think anyone mentioned this, but dreams not meaning anything. Just something random to toss in for fun and laughs. Like a happy dream where they are with their crush and about to kiss them then BAM alarm blaring or someone waking them up, thus crushing that part of the dream. Also a good way to start a story I would think, though probably a bit overdone. I just think it can be nice for some lightheartedness if the story is being too serious, or if you feel like picking on a character.
 
Dreams can show a character's motivations and glimpses of their true self, which you can't always see in conversations, as they'd try to adapt into fitting in. In my opinion, prophetic dreams are great if they aren't shoved in your face every time a character sleeps.

Also, extensive dream sequences bug me. Yes, I said that it can characterise, but all dream and no real life action can be pretty irritating.
 
I don't really write the prophetic type dream, as I find that a bit tough to pull off. I have tooled around with memory dreams, showing how a character got to a certain point, the regrets s/he may have, etc. It's usually done with one of the more stoic characters I've written; that particular kind of character will only let his or her guard down when sleeping so this is the only window into his or her past, if you will.
 
Prophetic dreams are like answering a question nobody asked. They've worked well to start off a story, but are nothing more than a means to loosely (very loosely) tie a loop hole if occurring mid-story. Well, unless their ghost stories. Boogums love noodling with a sleepy mind apparently.
 
I think the dream sequence can be a great tool if it's done well and isn't cliched.

I love how as an author you can kind of expand beyond the constraints of the reality of your work's in-story universe.
 
i think dream sequences are fun, and allow a lot of creative liberties. i particularly love surreal, nightmarish dreams that give me an excuse to introduce gory, weird, creepy shit into my story, lol. i also think theyre good for backstories and foreshadowing. however, i dont really like prophetic dreams. i just like dreams having some certain connection to the character; symbolism, i guess.
 
I've been writing fic for over a decade, and I'm not sure if I've ever actually written one, although I've mentioned them occasionally when the canon I'm working from did. Maybe it's personal - I don't dream that often, so the idea of going over things in dreams doesn't personally occur to me. But it's also that it seems to me that virtually any interesting idea I can incorporate into a dream I could just incorporate into the main story instead - why make it a dream when I could just make it happen? (Okay, some dreams might violate the laws of the fictional universe - though it's still often more interesting to tweak these laws - and it can be used as a form of character development. But I prefer to see my introspection when awake and my fascinating events as real.)
 
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