#WIPJOY #22

Today's WIPJOY challenge asks me if I have ever dreamed about my current work in progress. Oh, I wish I have, but sadly I have not. However, read on.

H. P. Lovecraft and I share two characteristics in common:

1. An interest in the macabre
2. Rich dream lives

I dream in color with extensive plots and I revisit plots and settings continually, However, none of my stories are dreams revisited because dreams use symbols and archetypes that only have meaning to the reamer. Hearing about somebody else's dream as a straight fiction piece can never have an impact on the reader as much as it has had on the dreamer.

However, I have written profusely on dreams and how they affect my literary work. Here are some links fellow dreamers may find intriguing:

1. I Dream of a Cat at a Parisian Bistro
2. Of Lucid Dreamscapes and Cat Wives (Yeah, I do dream a lot about anthropomorphic cats. Weird, huh?)
3. The Writer and Nocturnal Wanderings of the Dreaming Mind
4. Alan Loewen vs. The Oak Fairy: A True Story (Actually a hallucination, but it still came from my subconscious.)
5. A Win-Win Situation (Not all dreams are worth reporting.)
6. A Dream That Would Shake the Foundations of the Literary World (Ever hear of keeping a dream diary? I tried it. Once.)
7. Conversation With A Dying Unicorn (Not my dream, but a dream/waking vision my co-writer, Ken Pick, had that had a profound impact on his life and was the instigation of my friendship with him.)

People ask me how to increase the number and intensity of their dreams. There is only one method I know of. Minutes before you go to bed, take a Vitamin B supplement that carries all the different types of Vitamin B. Other than the fact it will turn your urine a brilliant golden yellow in the morning (I write this only so you're not freaked out the next morning), a Vitamin B supplement is harmless. Nonetheless, check with your family doctor, especially if you have kidney or liver challenges).

Interesting factoid: "Kubla Khan; or, A Vision in a Dream: A Fragment" is a poem written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge while in an opium-induced dream. I do not recommend in any manner the use of illegal substances, but the poem remains an example of a historic literary piece inspired by a dream.