“I dream my painting and I paint my dream.” 

What if we did the same as storytellers?

Does Morpheus bring sweet, soft colors and puffy clouds you can climb to and dance on? Or, perhaps, dark dungeons from which escape seems impossible as you scream without sound.

Whatever the case, dreams are the stuff that stories are made of. 

Night dreams OR day dreams can be the inspiration for a story. Even a nightmare can spur your creative spirit to craft a tale. Do you dream of flying; of walking on water; of slaying a dragon? Turn it into a story. Do you day dream of finding your one true love; of making tons of money; of being famous? These too can be the seeds of a great story.

When you embark on this crafting journey, you may not have the ending, or all the details. That's okay. Start with the images from your dream. Then move on to formulating the story.

The hero's journey works well for turning dreams into narratives. Begin with the character and the setting. What's the problem or challenge? What's the obstacle or struggle? How does the character deal with or overcome the odds? What crucible must they endure? What lesson(s) do they learn?

Now connect the rich images from your dream to the structure of your story.

You can even mix dreams and reality:

I had a dream the other night. I was in the...I met...I tried to...
When I awoke, I knew I had to...I wanted things to be different from my dream, so I...
In the end, what I discovered about both dreams and reality is that...

And isn't that partly what stories are about...mixing dreams with reality?