Day Dreaming Method

It's interesting how you sometimes don't see an answer to your question until you write it or say it.

...

I was having sort of a conversation with myself regarding what I'd like to write and posed the challenge that discourages me - the plot. My usual writing method is to tap into my Imagination and let her take over. She can do some amazing stuff if I let her have complete control but unfortunately, there's a drawback. If story is not properly planned, it may end up nowhere. So how do I let Imagination take over but have control over the plot?

This all refers to the story I wrote at the beginning of this blog, "Change." I love it. The way I wrote it is by remembering back to my favorite dream and then passing the baton to Imagination. I love it what she did with it. She took me on an awesome ride and I feel like I'd like to expand that story, turn it into something larger, more complete.

Problem is that I've tried to continue it and it dried up quickly. I want to be able to tell a tale of epic journey, battling evil or who knows what. Yeah. Nobody knows what because I haven't come up with it yet!

...

Then, I thought back to the longest story Imagination has written so far. My day dream world. So here it comes. I've never told this to anybody before.

It's a long story how the dream world came to be. To describe it in short, for probably two decades now, I've been day dreaming the same story. I can do it whenever I want to, really. I repeat a phrase over and over again until my mind is taken out of reality and into the story. I'm not in control of it and I'm not one of the characters. It's like watching a movie or reading a good book. I do it most of the time to put myself to sleep. It's my favorite way to fall asleep. Each night I continue wherever the story ended during last session. I can continue the story for weeks, even months until I notice that it stops moving forward. Then, I start it over again. I usually change a detail or two every time I restart it so over the years it's changed a lot. It's quite fascinating how it works. I've never heard of this and don't know how to call it but I can do it easily.

And now my point.

This could be the solution to my plot problem.

I could let Imagination do her thing in the "dream mode." I could let her take my "Change" story and continue it in the dream session and see where it goes. If story dries up, then I could change a detail and see what happens then just like I've been doing for years. I've never tried this but I won't know until I try, right?

There will be challenges though.

First of all, I've never done day dreaming with a different story. I'm a bit afraid to let go. What if I loose my original story as a result? That would be awful.

Second of all, there's a fundamental difference between my day dreaming story (sorry, I don't know how to refer to it since I never titled it) and "Change" and that is the characters. "Change" is written from my point of view and I could change that eventually but right now that's what it is. I'm describing what it feels like, what I think. In my day dreaming story, I'm a spectator. I watch my characters. I sympathize with them and I know more than they do but I'm not them. I don't know if "Change" will even work as a day dream.

Then third of all, I've never written down my day dream story. I don't remember all the details of what I dreamed up. So if somehow I manage to day dream "Change," I need to accept the fact that I won't remember it and will have to do it over to write it down.

........

I'm so confused and I'm scared to fail. I should give it a try though, right?