Hi there. I've had a fascinating dream about a year ago where I was planning chapters based around the holiday time and dwelling on them and my "kids" (my set of characters are college-age). For the novel I often spent lots of time mining my dreams--effectively *asking* for related material and seeing what came to me (an exhausting and yet valuable process), and during this particular time I had a very funny dream...involving my fictional characters!
In brief, they were all sitting around their circle, laughing and talking, with a view like a slow camera panning clockwise around the circle, showing their amused/happy/animated faces, and when "the camera" got to the grad student who was guiding the group, he was dressed...and I kid you not...in a full Santa outfit, complete with fake white beard and gaudy red! It was another one of my dreams that made me wake up laughing.
So, why did I even dream about the characters I was writing about? Despite my efforts, I had very few dreams that we worthy of integrating into the story I was working on, and yet in this instance--appropriately for the season--I was gifted this dream right when I needed the content! I find it seemingly random and baffling, this "when" and "how" we dream what we do, when the big or meaningful dreams come to us out of the "white noise" of more ordinary dreams. Yet what I do know is they require preparation to be ready for, both in receptiveness/willingness and recall training. Without my consistent efforts, I would have forgotten many fun/amazing details before I could have recorded them.
