Trying to Find Inspiration in Dreams

It seems the second I decided that I'd try to tackle writing something longer than a blog post, my work load increased a thousandfold. Finding time to write has not been easy. Instead I've been trying to brainstorm something to write about. And even that has been hard to do. So I've been hoping to have a nice vivid dream of a plot to write about, but that's not happening either.

In the past I've had some really excellent dreams that would make really great stories. I don't often have dreams that I can remember, especially vivid ones, but there have been a few that I can still remember clearly. One, when I was a teenager, was of my mother drowning at a dam. It was the only dream I've ever woken up from in tears. I had to call her that morning just to hear her voice. A vivid and sad dream, but not story material. When I was in a creative writing class in college I had a very strange dream with the most amazing setting. It was the Lincolnville ferry terminal, at night, and I was swimming in the water near the dock. It was dark out but there were these huge spot lights illuminating large circles in the water, making giant gray polka dots on the dark surface of the water. I could move from circle to circle but the dark voids between the dots made me invisible to anyone around. I was trying to help someone who committed a murder escape by hiding them in the darkness. It was a very, very strange dream.

I think the most vivid, and haunting, dream I ever had was between IVF cycles, I think we were doing IUIs then. I was reading Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series at the time (if you haven't read these books, stop what you are doing and go read them all...right now) and was completely lost in the story of Jamie and Claire. In my dream, I was Claire and my husband was Jamie, I was standing by the window wearing a white night gown watching him outside, I had a hand on my belly feeling a baby kick. He came inside and told me I was bleeding, I looked down, saw the blood and told him very calmly that I was having a miscarriage and to go get a doctor. The doctor came and told me I was never pregnant, that my belly was full of plants (invasive milfoil if you are curious) and she had to scrape them out. I woke up convinced something was wrong with me. It was a very strange, but memorable dream.

There have been other dreams that I've woken up from and said "man, you really should write a story about that one" but it seems I have forgotten them all now that I think I could make use of them. So I'll just keep brainstorming and hoping that one of these nights I'll have another really good dream!