I read that the average person has about 1,460 dreams a year, and it got me thinking about prompts

I was reading this old science blog the other day and it said the average person dreams roughly four times a night, which adds up to over 1,400 dreams a year. That's a crazy number of stories our brains just make up while we sleep. It made me realize how many of my own weird dreams could be turned into writing prompts if I just wrote them down when I woke up. Last Tuesday, I had this one about a library where the books changed their stories based on who was reading them. I scribbled it on a notepad and it's been sitting there. It feels like a goldmine of free ideas we all have access to but mostly forget. Has anyone else tried mining their dreams for story starters, and did you find it worked better for certain genres?

3 comments

3 Comments

hugow303mo ago

Honestly saw a documentary once that said we forget like 90% of our dreams within minutes of waking up. Tbh that library dream sounds way cooler than my usual stress dream about missing a bus. Ngl I've tried keeping a notebook on the nightstand, but my morning notes are just weird scraps like "giant floating teacup". It works for surreal horror stuff for me, but my friend gets full blown adventure plots.

seth_carr3mo ago

My phone's voice memo app saved my dream recall, hugow30.

ellis.victor1mo agoTop Commenter

Man, I had a buddy who did that too. He recorded this crazy dream about a talking raccoon giving him stock tips, and his notes were so detailed he could almost invest based on it. He tried to follow the advice the next morning and lost twenty bucks on some random penny stock, said it was the raccoon's fault.