Anna DeStefano's Blog

I’m loving how much more detail I’m adding in Secret Legacy about dream theory and research.Some of it is my sole creation, some uses gems from my research into dream study.  And some, it seems, is a spooky combination of both… For example, I’ve used a “dream bank” in my WIP from pretty much day one. A database where Richard Metting stores everything he knows about the Temple Twins’ dream patterns, particularly Sarah’s. Then today, I stumbled across this paper about studying dream content.

It’s dry reading, unless you’re a closet tech writer like me, and then you’ll love all the science and find yourself lost for hours that should be going toward working your way back into a WIP you haven’t written on in a while… Where was I? Oh, yeah, it’s dry reading, so I’m bulleting some high points below for those who love dreams as much as I do. But the thing I’m finding startling is how close some of this is to what I’ve already crafted into Dark Legacy and now Secret Legacy, based on my own dream experiences and the world my characters have helped me build.

The intuitive, creative mind is an amazing thing. Which is kind of the point of the dream study I chose to base my first Legacy family’s gifts in. Good affirmation, but also a bit of a goose bump moment. Another in a long series of boo!experiences that have convinced me there are worlds playing out around us, just beyond our understanding. It couldn’t be cooler to have a job where researching into what intrigues me most is part of my day-to-day.

For those of you who love this kind of thing, too, enjoy some of this study’s intereting tidbits:

• “…most people are consistent over years or decades in what they dream about, and that the most frequent characters, social interactions, and activities in their dreams are continuous with their waking interests and emotional concerns (Domhoff, 2003).”

• Uncovering the mysteries of dreams themselves is complicated by the fact that the dreamer can’t report details of the dream while it’s happening–which, of course, isn’t a problem for my psychic twins and their mad scientists, bwahahahaha! Good to know I’m on track emphasising the uniqueness of this kind of dream study set up.

• Dream banks have allowed the study of a single subjects’ dreams across major life spans–a very cool concept that I touched on in Dark Legacy, when the twins were dreaming “back” to their childhood, and thus dipping into images and symbols they dreamed about as children. I’m already using this again in Secret Legacy, as Sarah searches for a lost child she’s shares a dream link with, and finding that their joined dreams mirror disturbing visions from her childhood that haven’t made sense until now.

• The study talks about dream reports, sets and studies. I like the clean terminology. Making a note to borrow or use something similar for my own science in Secret Legacy. Readers must be intrigued but not confused to distraction ;o)

Great stuff for me. Was it good for you???

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 26th, 2010 at 7:06 pm and is filed under Dream Theories, Secret Legacy. 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.