How to Build the Habit of Writing: Dream Journal
In the dream I had one night this week, I was inside my fourth year high school classroom. It had a low ceiling, and chairs were placed one seat apart from each other, and the floor was brick red. Something was spilled on the ground—whether it was milk, glue, or anything, I can’t recall—and that triggered the signal for everyone to go home. I rushed to fix my things when I saw one of my friends get his bag and walk out the door, because I didn’t want to leave school alone.
In a dream I had this year, I traveled back in time to go to a restaurant where past me and a past version of a friend were spending time at. After that part of the dream, I was off flying using a steampunk engine of some sorts through a city grid with towers climbing up the sky, and people were chasing me.
In a dream I had years ago, I saw stars spin in the sky, and the light reflected in the deep blue bay with the silhouettes of mountains in the horizon.
If you experience dreaming while you sleep, it’s a good writing exercise to jot down what happened as soon as your wake up (or perhaps after freshening up and saying thanks for the new day). Not to mention it helps you strengthen your memory and mental faculties.
Should you find yourself in a writing rut, dreams are brimming wells of bizarre and nonsensical material (some are sensible though and connected to reality) and inspiration for a story.
And you as a writer can make sense of it all when you connect pieces together to fashion a tale from them!
I keep a notebook and pen near my bed, but most of the time, I type as fast as I can remember from my dream.
Here are a few screenshots of steam-of-thought texts of dreams I had in my phone’s notes. Please excuse the errors and interchanging between English and Filipino! Dreams and memories are fleeting!
When you’re writing down on your dream journal, it doesn't have to be beautifully put, doesn’t have to follow grammar, or doesn’t have to make sense immediately—you just have to put down the sequence and words/situations/feelings that can trigger a clear image in your mind’s eye (or pinpoint a certain feeling), so when you want to gather some elements for a story, you will easily remember what happened.
I had a dream once where I had strong feelings that I was able to come up with something like this excerpt from a writing piece below!
Dreams can be both merciful and cruel at the same time—
merciful
because it gives one hope
and cruel
because it’s the kind that’s false.
A novel came to me in a dream. Everything from the start to the middle to the finish was there. I hope I can write it someday. I wrote it when I woke up at around 3 in the morning, and I think I ended up sleeping at around 4. I wrote an entire outline and flow in the wee hours of the morning.
Pay attention to your dreams, because they are telling you something.
A story can come from them too.
And sometimes, they give you hope when you think there’s none.