Monday, August 08, 2011

I dream in sentences

I don't understand this, and I don't know for certain when it changed. I used to dream in moving pictures, just like everyone else seems to, but now I dream in sentences. Rather than seeing events unfold while I dream, I see words on a page describing the events unfolding. And I don't hear dialog; I see it written on a page with quotation marks and dialog tags. I suppose this is a good thing as a writer--sometimes when I rise I'm able to transcribe parts of my dreams directly from memory because the writing's already been done--but I don't understand why I now dream like this.

3 comments:

sandra seamans said...

If I'm thinking about a story when I go to sleep, I'll dream my way through the story. I don't see the sentences on a page, but I can hear them in my head while I'm dreaming. No pictures though, so it's rather like an audio book.

Kevin R. Tipple said...

Back when I was in cardiac rehab when my congestive heart failure was diagnosed back in 98, there was a guy in there who wrote magazine stories. We got to talk about books and writing a few times. He mentioned that his writing had changed because now he was dreaming in sentences after his heart attack and open heart surgery.

Michael Bracken said...

We writers are a strange bunch, ain't we?