I had a peculiar dream last night that took place in a dark and gritty world where people dealt in magic items and demons and demigods grant favors to those who show them proper deference.

One of the characters in this story was a washed-up rockstar type who appeared at first to take nothing seriously and spent his time drinking or huffing whatever he could get his hands on. By the end of the dream, I’d learned that he was, in reality, an adventurer of sorts who used to deal in these sorts of magical relics but had made a bad deal somewhere along the way with one of the magic entities. The deal made him immortal but didn’t protect him from the pain and anguish he experienced on an everyday business.

Because of that, he continued to dig himself deeper and deeper into the seedier side of this world, trying to find a solution to his original deal. And having to make more bad deals along the way, along with self-medicating with drugs and alcohol to stave off the chronic pain and trauma of everything he’s been through. I also learned through interactions with this character that he was loyal to a fault and willing to sacrifice himself wholly to help people he thinks are his friends (something often abused by the other characters in the dream).

This concept fascinated me, but there were issues, not least of which being that the narrative intertwined with my usual stress dreams, creating a bizarre mix of my childhood home and Blade Runner-esque locales.

This got me thinking about the role of dreams in my creative process and the inherent pros and cons.

Dreams are like tailor-made stories, engaging and cool in the moment. Yet, what thrills during sleep often fall flat in reality. Plot holes, unnoticed in the dream, become glaring issues in storytelling.

One advantage is that dreams spark unique ideas for scenes and interactions. However, being a lucid dreamer complicates matters. Despite the common notion that lucid dreaming means control, my experience differs. Attempts to influence the dream often result in the opposite or unexpected outcomes.

I read a convincing post on Reddit recently that echoed my lucid dreaming struggles. They suggested that the brain might resist lucid dreaming like maybe lucid dreaming affects the quality of rest you get. They described a scenario of seeing themselves waking up and beginning to go about their day every time they begin to lucid dream. They theorized that this might be their brain trying to trick them back into a normal dream state.

This is the exact scenario I have experienced.

This resistance seems to influence the tone of my dreams as well, as they’ll often go from very fantastical and to suddenly turning toward the mundane and boring.

So I have a collection of story ideas that stemmed from dreams, and they’re all just waiting for me in my notes and documents. But it’s unlikely I’ll ever get a chance to truly flesh them out. And for the times that I don’t immediately write it out, dream details fade fast. Before long, none of it makes any sense anymore.

At the same time, a lot of these ideas that I write down are for only a scene or two, without any real context or larger storyline behind them. With the example above, I have no idea where I would go with the scenes I do have, nor do I have any ideas for fleshing out that universe more. It’s pretty far outside of the style I usually write.

So, while dreams offer a wellspring of creative potential, their fleeting nature and the challenge of translating dream logic into coherent narratives make them both a blessing and a source of frustration. Many of these dream-born stories might forever remain in the shadows of my notes, a testament to the complex relationship between dreams and creativity.