Anna DeStefano's Blog

If Maddie Temple doesn’t take her dreams back in Dark Legacy, her world, her mother’s, her twin’s and possibly everyone else’s is going to end!

Yeah, I’ve kinda taken the warm and fuzzy idea of dreams to, shall we say, the next level. And I’m getting a lot of questions about why. So at least once a week–let’s talk dreams!

Why create a contemporary paranormal world where dreams control everyday life and can be manipulated to do the dreamer’s bidding? Well, because they do–for reals–and most of us rarely remember what our minds do the six or eight hours we sleep each night (okay writers, fess up, it’s more like two to four hours a night, but the same rule applies). Especially if we’re dreaming something uncomfortable or foreign to our everyday world. Or, as is the case for many of us, we’re not sure if we want to be that in touch with where our imagination goes when we give up our waking control.

The writer in me was thinking one day–what if when you give up that control, you’re giving someone else the chance to take the wheel and drive? What if the power of your dreams could be harnessed? Directed. Weaponaized??? Say by someone who has easier access to your sleeping world than you do–like maybe your psychotic twin… But I digress ;o) We’ll talk about Dark Legacy some other time…

It won’t suprise many of you learn that there are doucmented theories behind dreams. Dreams have struck pop culture gold for many an “intepreter” that you’ve probably heard on the radio or tv talk shows. Science (particularly psychology and parapsychology) has tracked dreams and tried to define them for hundreds of years. Native Americans and other ancient spiritual cultures continue to firmly embedded the symbols and stories and lessons of dreams into their every day lives. And artists…we live off our dreams. Both our waking and our unconscious fantasies.

Artists embrace what scares and confuses so many others. Heck, the things we create often scare and confuse us! But to an artist, the thought of turning those fantasies and alternate worlds off would be like ripping away a part of who she is, and somehow she just can’t do that. If she could, she’d run as far and and as fast as she could from the often difficult world of being a commercial artist.

Somewhere along the writer’s way, intuition and fantasy starts to infuse what the writer thinks and hopes and wants and fears into the stories that she tells. Until it can sometimes be hard to know the difference between what a writer’s characters are feeling and what she feels herself. A character’s dreams and desires and can become the writers’, until at times it cam become unclear whose world is more real (say around three in the morning, when an author’s on deadline and her third Diet Coke since midnight!). Both are affected by the other’s experience. Both are changed by the process of creating story. Both worlds shift and flow and re-invent themselves over and over–just like  a dream itself does.

Writers embrace their dreams and even paint them for the world to see… So does everyone else, in varying degrees, even if you’re not aware that you’re doing it. Because we all dream. We all tell stories in our minds. While we sleep, we all see and hear and accept things that aren’t there, and we all change because of it. Writers/artists just have more fun playing with all that great material once we’re awake ;o)

I’ve been studying dream theory for a couple of years now, and I’ll be sharing more later about what I’ve learned and how I’m weaving that into my “Legacy” series. But for now, let’s start with the idea that our dreams actually construct a model of the world where the thoughts and feelings and experiences of our day can play out while we sleep. And that the result of that dream “play time” can bridge over into our waking worlds through our emotions.

Don’t believe me? How many times have you woken up feeling unusually anxious or excited or worried or peaceful? You can almost remember what was happing in that last dream, and if you could just reach back and grab a piece of it you could…wait…wait…no…it’s gone. A better analogy everyone can identify with–when was the last time you pulled yourself out of a book or left a movie still feeling what the characters you just visited were feeling, almost as if you’d lived a part of their world with them? That’s the artist’s job–to get you to feel and to give up your world for just a little while so you can join the character in hers. And that’s the dream’s work, too.

No, what happens in a dream shouldn’t necessarily be taken literally. And, no, most people can’t control what they’re dreaming, let alone what someone else’s mind fantasizes about (though I’ve had a ton of fun making that a reality for the twin psychics in Dark Legacy). But if  I’ve learned nothing else in the last two years of research, it’s that dreams exist in both our sleeping and waking worlds. And dreams are all about emotion–otherwise, why have them at all? Dreams are important to your wellbeing. Some of us harness them for our jobs, while others consciously leave them behind when we strike out into our day. But the dreams go with us, regardless. They’re a part of who we are and what we think and want and fear. So like every other part of us, dreams need to be embraced and accepted and even wanted. Because when we fight who we are, we’re tearing at things that we need. We’re tearing at ourselves.

So, like Maddie in Dark Legacy, embrace your dreams and let them run free. And, if you find yourself in the midst of one tonight (as I often do–it was amazing to me to discover that most people don’t realize they’re dreaming while they’re dreaming…amazing, yet bizarely affirming that, yes, I am a freak ;O)–relax into the dream. Let it show you what you need to see. Don’t be afraid of it. Have a little fun. Your life will be richer because of it, the same as when you read that next book or watch your next play or movie or hear the newest artist’s latest release (go Adam!!!) and let the experience take you somewhere you wouldn’t have gone on your own.

Your dreams are your stories. Embrace them… 

Tags: Dream Theories, dreams, fantasy, fantasy author, Legacy Series, parapsychology, psychic

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 28th, 2009 at 8:33 pm and is filed under Dream Theories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.