<Why should we want to [dream]? As you say, it’s meaningless. Random firings of the synapses of the neurons in their brains.>
<They’re practicing. They’re doing it all the time. Coming up with stories. Making connections. Making sense out of nonsense.>
Xenocide by Orson Scott Card
I often wake up in the middle of a dream. Not because it was a nightmare or otherwise so intensive that I wake myself up, but simply at a point in the dream where I think that the story is not quite over yet.
Some time ago, I started to set my alarm clock at six o’clock, although I must (definitely) get up not until eight o’clock. But having these two hours at my disposal allows me to set the alarm clock half an hour later each time it wakes me, and slip right back into my dream to “see how it ends”.
I rarely see the ending of the dream I just had (nor of the ones in the next two hours) — most of the time a new one starts. But it is almost always worth it. Sure, the waking up two hours earlier is hard, but the slipping back into bed is extremely nice (sometimes, pleasures are all about contrast). And the quality of the dreams, the involvement and transportation are much, much better than what TV/cinema ever gave me.
You can even start to keep a dream diary and write down your dreams. It’s one of the first steps to train Lucid Dreaming, because this way you learn to recognize reoccurring signs that you are dreaming. But I find it hard to switch to such a cognitive demanding task as recollecting and writing, when I rather would just enjoy the soft sheets and the fantastic spectacle my mind and creativity is sending me to. And I expect that I would probably be disappointed by the quality of the stories in the harsh light of the day — nevertheless, even bad ones are good starting points for better stories.
So, I don’t record my dream (with rare exceptions), but simply give my mind the freedom to play — and enjoy the resulting dreams as the first creative acts of the day.
