Mary, oh yes on the shattering effect. Some mornings I have the urge to get a dust pan and broom for all the fragments lying on the floor about my bed.

Jaime Lee Moyer, isn’t it odd, about these weird houses of our alternate lives? I wonder what’s up with that…

Jessica, you’re one up on me – I’ve never dreamed a *screenplay*…

Kari, you SPEAK all those languages? For real? Colour me impressed!

Shakatany, I’ve had a sort of “reincarnation” dream sequence too. I truly do wonder where those images came from.

Wolf Lahti, we really ought to get together more often. Sounds like there’s a heap of stuff to discuss.

Joe – I was astonished, too, when I first heard about people NOT dreaming in colour. It just seems like that’s an obvious thing. But now I wonder what Ansel Adams dreams must look like, so sharply black and white. If my subconscious takes the hint and takes me there, it will be interesting to find out.

My wife dreams entire story arcs that she can then pretty much turn around and write. I’m insanely jealous. Mostly I have stress dreams, mundane dreams, or nightmares. My most frequent dreams are dreams where I’m at work or perhaps doing chores and . . . absolutely nothing of any interest happens.

I’m not generally able to dream lucidly, except that when I’m having a really bad nightmare I’m able to stop the dream altogether. I read recently on a lucid dreaming site that instead of stopping the dream I should attempt to embrace the danger, but the one really bad nightmare I had since then, I went with my instincts before I could think to do otherwise.

I’ve always dreamed in color, though. I had no idea this was considered unusual.

One example was when I knocked on the door of a neighbor – and he opened the door and shot me! Wait a minute…

I rewound the dream and this time stepped to the side as I knocked. He opened the door and shot me. Hmm…

The next time, just as the door started to open, I grabbed the gun. He *still* shot me. (Unfortunately, I don’t remember how this ultimately turned out, though I do recall thinking how this was getting ridiculous.)

Another time I was dreaming a Star Trek-like episode that started in the middle of the action. (Call this segment B.) And I dreamt on through to the end of the story, such as it was. (Call this C.)

To make it into a more tidy package, I then dreamt a beginning, from A to B, then dreamt the B and C sections again, modifying events slightly to make it consisting with the elements established in A.

Control issues? Moi?

I’ve also had dreams where the tide is coming in and we better gather our belongings (which probably come from life as we spent a lot of time at the beach when I was young) though sometimes these dreams turn into we-better-run-for-safety as huge waves are coming in (I used to call them tidal waves but I now know tsunamis are often not that high…they are long). I also had a dream similar to Londo Mollari’s of “Babylon 5″ where huge spaceships hovered overhead. Then there’s the recurring nightmare where I’m back in high school and I don’t know where my homeroom is or what my schedule is.

Many years ago I moved from the apartment I grew up in and my belongings were put into storage which were later lost. I once had the most vivid dream that I was back in that apartment and I knew I was dreaming but I had the thought that if I could hold onto one lost toy/book I could take it with me back into the here and now.

I’ve also had many story dreams usually involving me having adventures with characters from movies or tv shows that I’ve watched.

To me the world of dreams is endlessly fascinating as we still don’t know definitively why we dream or need to sleep.

But it does happen sometimes. A couple of months ago, I woke up with a pilot episode for a TV show fully formed in my head. I knew the characters, the plot, how they all fitted together. I could even see some of the scenes. There were bits of future episodes and plot developments in there too.

The problem: I don’t usually write screenplays. Which means that nothing I’ve written matches up to the vision I had in my head.

The strangest thing was that I knew it was a TV show when I woke. It wasn’t a story or a novel idea. I knew that it was an episode of an ongoing series. It’s still sitting in the back of my brain begging me to write it.

Strangely enough I dream about a house as well, a house that feels like a home I’ve never been to. I can describe the way the tree in the front yard shades the porch, the lace curtains swaying in the breeze, the grass in the yard that brushes my ankles, and the barn off in the distance. For a woman who grew up in the heart of L.A., land of concrete and steel, it’s a very strange place to think of as home.

More than once I’ve dreamt all night and woke the next morning with entire novels in my head. People think I’m joking when I say characters move in while I’m sleeping. Mostly I’m not.

For me at least, there is a direct connection between writing and dreaming. When I go for extended periods of time without writing, my dreams intensify. Writing keeps the dreams at bay.

Sometimes I remember fragments. This morning I was being examined and so was someone else, and the question being asked was the plot of the Der Ring des Nibelungen. I explained how all kicked off with the gold being stolen for a wereguild and said that everything else sprang from. Then someone else was talking and I remember wanting to say more because I remembered more but not getting a word in. . . .I know there was dream before that section but not much about what it was. I think it was an examination before then.

Thank you, all, for your suggestions. I would *love* to get to many of these conferences. This year, I’m hoping to hit Worldcon and World Fantasy, with my own local Capclave in the mix. Now, to figure out another couple of cons to round out the picture…

I would LOVE to go to WisCon and the San Franciso Writer’s Conference. Hopefully, next year, if I’m a good boy…

Great topic, Ms. Klasky.