Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Disturbing Dreams...or Story Ideas?

You know the instant you wake up that what your dreaming mind just created disturbed you.  You can't stop shaking, you can't get it out of your head, and you feel totally creeped out.  And then the creative part of you wonders if perhaps this might not make a good story. 

If you're like me, you leap from your bed (okay, maybe leap is too strong a word - stumble, perhaps) to write it all down.  I might get some of it out, but I never seem to get all of it.  And sometimes when I go back to read through it, I wonder why I ever thought it might make a good story.  :shrug:

This morning, I woke up from a very disturbing dream that would make a good story.  But I can't remember the key points.  All my brain keeps focusing on is the maggots.  (I hate maggots.)

Let me back up a bit...

Something horrible had happened - that much I remember - and it seems like mankind was infected (or infested) with some kind of thing that turned killed them and then went on to infect/infest everyone around them.  And while they were dying, they became cannibalistic (I think... that part's unclear).  Anyway, in the dream, I had just joined a group of survivors and I knew them.  Several of us were sitting around discussing the situation when this guy - the one I loved, who looked like a young Mel Gibson (Mad Max young but with Thunderdome longish hair) - gets up to walk away and the kid sitting next to him screams.  Where he was sitting has maggots and he has maggots all over the back of him.  And everyone wants to kill him before he goes insane and kills everyone.  But I'm trying to figure out if the maggots are coming from inside him or if he just sat in them (yeah, it was pretty gross), and also trying to stop everyone from attacking this man I love... who may or may not be about to eat me. 

And then I woke up.  I know I've got the potential for a post-apocalyptic story there but all I can remember in vivid detail are the maggots.  (Not fly maggots, per se, thinner and more translucent...  :shudder:  Did I mention how much I hate maggots?)

Anyway, I hope writing it down here will jog something and make it bloom when I'm ready to write a story like that again.  (And yeah, I'm saving it to my ideas file, too.)

Ever happen to you?  How much do you remember after you wake up?  How do you keep it from fading into nothingness?

4 comments:

  1. When I was in high school, I had an assignment where I had to write down my dreams (as soon as I woke up from one). When I went back to my writings a week later, I hadn't remembered the dream, but reading about it brought it all back as if I had just woken up. I found that pretty interesting!

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  2. Interesting premise you've got started there, B.E. - hopefully, your rendition here and your thinking about it today will bring back some of the details - or flesh out whole new twists and turns!!

    Dreams - they are amazing! And some days so very, very vivid - almost as if the writing gods are demanding you pay attention!!

    FYI - I hate maggots, too!

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  3. I can't even stand reading THAT "M" WORD. *gags and shudders* I just can't do it. I can deal with a lot of creepy crawlies, but that is NOT one of them.

    I tend to remember my dreams pretty well when I wake up. Or I'll be doing something during the day and it'll trigger a dream memory and I'm like, "Oh yeah, I forgot about that!"

    *shrugs*

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  4. You've done better than I manage at the quantity (and quality) of content. I tend to remember the vaguest bits and pieces of dreams. Sometimes, that's enough. ;-)

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