Picture taken by me in Ibiza in 2016, Modified using Deepdreamgenerator
We are the architects,
the dream weavers,
exhaling a story's breath
from subconscious' subtext.
Written by me @raj808, just now 😂
This week's prompt is a double whammy. Please feel free to respond with either poetry or fiction. It is also more of a creative exercise if I'm honest. A technique that some of you might have heard about before which can really help unleash your creativity.
As suggested in my verse above, I'm talking about harnessing the power of your subconscious by keeping a dream journal. This tried and tested method is something I discovered in 2003 in my first year of study at university, when we were tasked with keeping an extensive dream journal. As part of a module called observation and discovery, we were asked to write out our dreams in minute detail before attempting to analyse them in the context of what was happening in our lives. From these journals stories were born, kicking and screaming from our unconscious like a babe taking it's first tentative breath. We were then asked to workshop each other's stories providing critical feedback to improve and tighten the plots, structure etc.
I'm asking nothing so arduous of anyone here, although if you want to take it that far it can be both a powerful and enjoyable catalyst for self-discovery.
I have discovered over the past fifteen years that this technique can be used in many ways for a writer. Sure you can go whole hog recounting the circumstance of a dream with characters, locations and narrative. Often this can produce a short story from just one dream, or a surrealist poem, dependent on how well a person’s recall is and how visual their imaginative process.
But this does take a fair chunk of time.
Another less time consuming way of harnessing the subconscious themes playing out in your nightly REM cycle is to note brief bullet points from four or five nights of remembered dreams.
This can sometimes work just as well as detailed narratives of your nightly wanderings. With briefer bullet point note taking themes, plot ideas and characters evolve with each day's additional notes.
I generally do a mix of both as my dreams can be very vivid, and sometimes the note format just doesn't hack it (check out my dream journal below).
As you can see above, only Saturday's dream was recorded in brief bullet point format. Monday and Tuesday's dreams were very detailed and vivid so I made more extensive notes.
For those who never remember their dreams, I have your back!
Unfortunately you might not like the technique to remember some of your nightly adventures. It involves setting an alarm at different times during late night to early morning until you find that point where you are deeply in a rapid eye movement sleep cycle. The truth is that everyone dreams, but most people only remember the dreams that wake them. Or the last dream of the night when they wake up naturally.
Is this guy for real? He's asking us to set an alarm for 3am for a writing challenge? 😉
In all seriousness, no I'm not. Everyone has a life outside this crazy online world. I just thought I'd mention it as that technique does work, and having personally explored lucid dreaming there are a similar set of techniques that can induce lucid dreams. But I digress, and we're rapidly spiraling down the proverbial @raj808 rabbit hole.
Your challenge if you should choose to accept it!
- Keep a dream journal for at least 3-4 days.
- Record the details either in bullet points, or full narrative if you feel you have the time.
- Write a story or poem based upon what you record in your journal.
- Publish it to The Ink Well.
I will be actively reading all of the stories and poems, looking for the best to submit to @ocd
Daily Community Curation magazine.
This prompt challenge will last for a week until next Tuesday's prompt.
Thanks for reading.
I would like to invite any lovers of poetry and short stories to visit the new hive community I started with @stormlight24 called The Ink Well.
Click banner to visit our community page
Find us on twitter by clicking the banner above.