Writers are often tempted to pen dream sequences and hallucinations. And for good reason! Reading a novel itself feels a bit like a dream, and writers want to take full advantage of the medium, which allows us to get inside a character’s head in an unparalleled way.
But you should proceed with the utmost caution.
Once you start undermining the reality of a novel it becomes difficult for the reader to assume anything is real. After a dream sequence, from that point on the reader is going to have in the back of their mind: “Is this a dream? Is the character hallucinating?”
Here are some tips on including dreams and hallucinations in novels.
Think twice about including them in the first place
To be totally honest with you, most dream sequences and hallucinations tend to feel pretty self-indulgent. They are often writing for writing’s sake and authors often use them as a chance to flex their writing muscles.
They almost always fall into an awkward nether region akin to the problem with including intentional symbolism. If it’s super obvious what we’re supposed to take away from a dream sequence the reader might feel a bit beaten over the head, and if it’s not obvious what we’re supposed to take away… well, we’re not really taking anything away.
Don’t get me wrong. There are great dream sequences in novels and sometimes they can punctuate a transcendent moment or create tension and suspense. Just be honest with yourself about whether you really need them.
Keep the dream or hallucination tightly contained
Unless you’re writing something along the lines of magical realism, where the boundaries between waking and dream life are intentionally blurry, in order to avoid disorienting the reader you should try to keep the dream/hallucination tightly bound and contained.
Basically: It’s clear the reader was asleep/out of it, now it’s clear they’re awake/lucid.
This means avoiding “rug pulling” techniques where the dream exists solely to trick the reader. These tend to be pretty cheap plot devices on TV shows, but they’re even worse in novels because of how much harder it is for a reader to suspend disbelief and get into a flow losing themselves in the world of the novel.
Trickery shakes that flow by revealing the hand of the author, and it can be hard to get it back.
Know what you’re trying to achieve
Don’t approach dreams lightly!
This is kind of ironic advice because dreams are the among the most mysterious and elusive elements of life itself, but you should be very, very intentional with your dream sequences in novels.
Don’t just include a dream sequence because you want to invoke a “mood” or because you want to be writerly. Understand how it fits in the story.
This means that the dream should be relevant to the story. It should have a “real world” impact on the character that helps the reader contextualize why we saw it and keeps it further self-contained.
Do you have any thoughts on dream sequences in novels? Tips for writing good ones? Take to the comments!
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Art: Antonio de Pereda – El sueño del caballero
My suggestion is not to open with a dream. I can see where it could work as a memory dream, kind of a flashback, or a dream that sets up the idea that the character is afraid of something, but I still suggest avoiding it. Or at least make it overtly clear it’s a dream. Often dreams can make the reader feel cheated, especially if it’s out of character or tone with the rest of the story. It’s like a story within a story. If I’m following it, I expect it to go somewhere other than someone suddenly waking.
In my first novel, The Key and the Crest, The Unlikely Adventures of Frances Westerly, Frances is a sixteen year old handicapped girl plagued by nightmares which force her to relive terrible events in her life. Those dreams are only referenced, but one night she has a dream which is not a nightmare. In this dream Frances sees a girl across a beautiful pond. The girl looks like Frances and beckons her come to her across the water. There is no way she can do that and awakens in the morning frustrated and wondering what the dream meant. Later that day at school Frances has a private conversation with a new and mysterious teacher who mentions a curious item in her dream. This teacher had no way of knowing about that item or that Frances had just dreamt of it. Thus the dream had a place in the story and Frances soon learned the meaning of the symbolism of a girl who looked like her gesturing to be followed: The teacher would soon send Frances on an long, dangerous voyage and she was the girl in the dream…and no longer crippled. There was only one other dream in the story wherein Frances gets better acquainted with the “curious item” mentioned above and finds that it exists in her real life as well.
When I wrote this book I felt I already had a good idea of how dreams can be used improperly. So I tried to keep the two I included short with a minimum of symbolism. The dreams were vital to the tale but did not have importance unto themselves.
I love dream sequences as a reader, though I’ve hardly ever written one.
Dreams usually frustrate me in books. Movies, and television, as well. Except Mulholland Drive. That is a perfect dream movie. I think the only way I usually accept it is when the character introduces it, “I dreamt” or whatever. And keeps it short.
So true. At their worst, dreams are fluff for their own sake and damage our ability to trust anything else.
At their best, your cautions are essential. Besides being clear when the dream ends, it’s usually worthwhile to show at the start that it’s a dream. (I like *Risky Business* beginning with “The dream is always the same” — although ALL movies are an iffy model for dreams in books because the screen is too eager to find a visual form for things.)
Most of all, I agree about giving dreams a purpose. They’re normally outside of usual cause and effect: “just a dream” means it had no consequences except maybe showing that the dreamer was worried. So a proper use for a dream would be to deliver a specific, strong insight into the dreamer, or some compelling mystical clue. Like any other scene, a dream should *change* something to us.
Thank you for this post. I have several dreams in my novel. The purpose is to show the reader what the mc is feeling. I think I’ll remove them and replace them with memories.
Timely post, since I do have a fugue state in the early stage of my novel. It is magical realism, so I think the fugue will work, but I take your advice to heart so the readers won’t think the reality is also a dream.