On her website, Stephenie Meyer talks openly about the dream she had back in 2003 which led to her writing the first words of her blockbusting Twilight vampire series.  It was a vivid, fantastic dream, and so captivating that the writer stayed in bed a while longer, so as to capture the scene fully before rising and setting off on the regular school run.

There’s much debate over the purpose of our dreams, and it’s a subject that has fascinated philosophers for thousands of years.  At times, they are endowed with an intense sense of emotion and if clear enough, we carry the memory of them around with us for days, weeks, even a lifetime.  Most people can describe at least one dream they remember distinctly, because it was so bizarre or frightening or wonderful.

I keep notebooks all over the place.  I have one in my bag, one in my dashboard, one in the kitchen drawer, one by my bed.  My bedside jotter is used for anything from noting down domestic reminders such as, ‘remember school trip on Friday’ to brink-of-sleep thoughts about my current project, eg ‘need to develop Tina’s physical appearance’.  It’s also the site of some of my early morning scribblings, in which I try to capture the essence of those dreams which feel important at the point of waking.  Many of them are, frankly, just odd.  But from time to time, there’s something there, something that works its way into my writing, whether it’s just an expression or a sentence, or even the inspiration for a complete scene.

I’m currently working on my second novel, which is partly set in a comprehensive girls’ school in 1980s England.  Naturally, it has led me to think deeply about my own school days, and sure enough, the story started to work its way into my dreams.  Early on in the writing of this novel, I woke one morning and jotted down a particular dream sequence.  It was tiny and obscure, and yet it appeared to me to be important.  In the course of my writing that week, I suddenly understood that the dream was the dream that my character, Sarah would have had.  It was Sarah’s dream, not my own, and I wrote it into her story as that was where it seemed to belong:

“Lately, Sarah’s dreams have been vivid, nightmarish.  Last night she dreamed that she was back at school, where Kate and Tina were trying to make her look at something inside one of the lift-up desks in Class 5C.  But Sarah didn’t want to look at it.  “It won’t bite!” Kate laughed.  Then they held her, one on either side, pushing her closer and closer to the desk, forcing her head down to look inside.  When she woke, her throat closed up and she tried to cry out but nothing would come.  Perhaps it’s a sign, warning her to stay away from the school reunion.  Or telling her to go.”

I felt elated, not just because my dream had presented me with this small gift, but because it also represented an important turning point in the writing of this particular story; the point at which my character had slipped deep beneath my skin, both in waking and in sleeping.

So, capture your dreams, laugh at them, puzzle over them, close the front cover on them.  But store them away, and watch them creep into your writing when you least expect it.  And remember, nothing is ever wasted . . .

Some men see things as they are and ask, ‘Why?’  I dream of things that never were, and say, ‘Why not?’ – George Bernard Shaw