While dreams in real life may provide windows into our subconscious, they don’t always. Sometimes our dreams are more likely influenced by that late night snack we ate prior to “hitting the hay.” And other times, we might not even remember dreaming at all.
As writers, if we include dreams in our stories, we must approach them with caution. They are a delicate matter.
Fiction writers can never include dreams just for the sake of dreams. This would be a waste of space, similar to including scenes that do nothing for the overall story. We’d eventually leave these on the editing room floor because our readers are smart; they assume every element of a story matters, and if these assumed elements prove otherwise, we will frustrate them or potentially lose them as readers.
So when we write dreams, they need to somehow tie in with our characters on a subconscious level. It has to mean something. If handled incorrectly, this can feel heavy-handed to readers, so lots of writers will create incredibly abstract dreams that are incredibly difficult to analyze.
From an interview with The New York Times, one of my favorite writers, Haruki Murakami, describes a dream he had personally that reads like one of these examples:
In the dream, a shadowy, unknown figure is cooking him what he calls ‘weird food’: snake-meat tempura, caterpillar pie and (an instant classic of Japanese dream-cuisine) rice with tiny pandas in it. He doesn’t want to eat it, but in the dream world he feels compelled to. He wakes up just before he takes a bite.
I often say, “Write your heart out.” But in this case, when it comes to writing dreams, it’s probably better to avoid writing them altogether. What do you think?
Why or why not? Please leave me a comment below.
Thanks for reading!
Photo credit: logan.fulcher / Foter.com / CC BY
What sayest thou?