Dreams

I had a dream this morning. It was a complete story. It had a plot. It had several characters, including a protagonist and an antagonist. It began and ended in a jailhouse, and there was a surprise plot twist at the end. If I were a writer and could remember all of it in detail, I could sit down and write a short story. But alas, I’m not a writer. Well, not that kind, anyway.

Many things have come to people in their dreams. Songs, novels, and inventions have been inspired by dreams. Nobel prizes have been won because of dreams.

Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein was inspired by a dream. Robert Louis Stevenson dreamed the plot of his novel Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Stephanie Myer wrote the Twilight novels after meeting the characters in a dream.

Director James Cameron encountered the cyborg assassin The Terminator in a fever dream.

The tune for Yesterday came to Paul McCartney in a dream. Keith Richards dreamed the riff to the song (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.

French philosopher and mathematician René Descartes dreamed the basis of a new philosophy called the scientific method.

James Watson dreamed the double-helix structure of DNA. Friedrich Kekulé dreamed the structure of benzene.

Elias Howe invented the sewing machine after getting the idea of how it would work in a dream.

U.S. President Abraham Lincoln dreamed of being assassinated three straight nights preceding the day of his assassination.

Scientists have theories about why we dream, but no one knows for certain.

I’ve written several times about my own dreams, including dreams in which people spoke to me in another language, and dreams in which I was aware I was dreaming (lucid dreams).

One night I had a long dream, woke up in the morning, and went about my day. Then, I then woke up, again – I had only been dreaming I was awake. So I went about my day, again. And then, I woke up for the third time.

I think I’m awake now and typing an article about dreams. But I can’t be sure that I won’t simply wake up and just say, “Damn!”