A Dream: Orthodox Meeting in The Catacombs

Image by m2masterson via Flickr

Orthodox Meeting in The Catacombs

As a teenager I used to have the same dream over and over again. But – there would be several years between the times I dreamed it, and the dream would change slightly every time I dreamed it. That made the dream more important for me, I felt as if it had something very important to tell me.

I was running, running, running to see some friends in a church. It was a catholic church and there was a service going on. But I walked through all that people, as fast as I could, into the sacristy and down into the catacombs. There were many rooms, and I went through all of them with certainty till I got to the fifth room where the people I was looking for were.

It was a priest and a very little group of men and women, standing up in a circle gaving their own service going on. They were orthodox and had to hide their religion. I don’t know why they were hiding in the catacombs of a catholic church, the catholics knew abut them and gave them the opportunity to hide there. As soon as I met them I felt a piece inside.

Me and the orthodox group knew each other. And every time I went down there to join them we had a chat. I now remember that the reason why I was running to get there was because I was scared to miss them. To see them was important. Then one day… they were gone. After that time I stopped dreaming that dream.

Dreams and Writing

Dreams can be used in many ways within your creative writing. If you remember them. I you don’t, I suggest your start writing them down. If you´re not interested in using them now, maybe you´ll do it in the future. Who knows? It would be a huge lost not to remember them, and not having them written down then. Dreams can:

1. tell the characters in your story things about themselves and their lives they would not know in any other way. It can be this they don´t want to know or remember, or things that has something to do with magic, the unknown. Both unexpected information, pictures and feelings can turn up in a dream.
2. be a bridge to another world and let you mix different genres in a way that would be impossible otherwise. This is treat in kids or youths book. Just think about the kids that got into Narnia in C.S Lewis books. I cannot imagine that it would be anything else than possible to use the same techniques in a novel for adults.
3. be a problem solver – or a problem creator. I mostly use dreams in my writing to give my characters anxiety or other problems. They have to face things they can avoid when awake.
4. let you transform monsters, ideas and people into your stories. Because in dreams strange things can turn up that you never could imagine while awake.

Discussion: How do you use your dreams in your writing? Are they a great well of trigging imagination or just something you allow yourself to forget as soon as you left your bed? Do you write your dreams down at a continuous basis? How often are your stories characters dreaming? About what? Could life be a dream?

You can read more about dreams and writing at Writing Effective Dreams, by Robert A. Sloan. I also recommend you to read The New Diary, by Tristine Rainer. You´ll find a great piece about dreams and writing. You´ll also find some great tips about keeping a dream journal at World of Lucid Dreaming.