Elsewhere in this issue, we discuss people who dream productively. A screenwriter gets a fever, and dreams up a movie monster. Famously, Mary Shelley dreamed Frankenstein and his monster. Since dreams are your subconscious' way of solving problems, that's not too unusual. Unfortunately, far too many people keep notepads by the bed, and expect inspiration to strike. They often awaken at 3 am, jot stuff down, and get up in the morning to find out that it was either junk, or a mishmash of last night's TV show. So it goes.

There are people who will take your money to teach you 'lucid dreaming'. Forget it. Dreams aren't meant to be lucid, anyway, merely suggestive. Save your cash, and try a little bit of what I'm going to suggest. This advice will cost you nothing, so if it's worth anything at all, you're still ahead of the game.

What I'm going to suggest is creative daydreaming. But first, a few words about the background of idea-making and sleepiness. It might help.

Hypnagogic and Hypnopompic States

Are you a person who falls asleep quickly? If so, you may not be aware of this transitional period, called the hypnagogic state. It's just before you fall asleep. You're not asleep yet, but you're not quite awake, either. Funny things come to you then.

The hypnopompic state is what you experience on the other side of sleep: that period before you're fully awake. Sometimes, if you go to sleep thinking about a problem, you'll find the answer in the hypnopompic state. Of course, if you tend to jump right out of bed, hollering for your morning coffee, you might miss it. It's not a bad idea to set the alarm a few minutes early, so you can linger over the waking up business.

Some people worry a lot about the idea of meditation. They even read books, join study groups, and pay gurus to learn how. But meditation is basically learning how to achieve the hypnagogic state, and stay there for as long as you like. You don't have to be lying down – in fact, it helps if you aren't, because then it's easier to avoid falling asleep.

Falling asleep is the ever-present danger in this exercise, as anybody knows who has attended a Quaker meeting. A Quaker meeting for worship consists of about an hour of people sitting quietly in the hypnagogic state, and waiting for the Holy Spirit to talk through them. It's wonderfully refreshing, if done right, and can be very enlightening. Punch your significant other if she starts snoring,

I suppose the hypnagogic state could be described as a light trance. I discovered, quite by accident, that this was fairly easy to achieve in primary school. The room was pleasantly lit, the temperature comfortable, my teacher's voice soothing. And since there were 28 other students in my class, she really didn't need me to be pestering her with questions. As long as I was ready to answer one occasionally, my thinking time was my own. So I practised controlled daydreaming while waiting for Wanda to understand the arithmetic problem.

I soon discovered that I could make up stories this way. By staying in a state of semi-alertness, I could avoid derailing my teacher's train of thought, while keeping my own running nicely down its own little track. I'd start with a 'what-if': what if the government had a top-secret project and chose our school to house it? What if our teachers became important research scientists? What if the janitorial staff had to care for a high-security facility under the basement? Wouldn't that be exciting?

I bet the government would be impressed with our teachers. All of these ladies were very knowledgeable about math and science. Why, I bet they would come up with wondrous discoveries…and, of course, they could have our fourth-grade class as research assistants. Naturally, we'd have to get those white lab coats. And memorise all the code words. We'd swear never, ever to tell the Russians what it was all about…

I had just about got to the earth-shaking breakthrough by which Mrs Newman had insured world peace forever, and was composing her Peace Prize acceptance speech, when that brilliant lady asked me the capital of Pennsylvania. I replied promptly, then went back to my mental composition.

The meditative state is cool.

Exercise

The problem with waiting to dream up a plot is that it's hit or miss. Your brain may have other plans. You have little or no control over where it goes. And, let's face it, the unconscious mind is not big on logic. Dream solutions often don't work in the real, waking world.

Equally, making up plots in a state of full alertness can be a frustrating business. You get distracted. The phone rings, the kids yell, there's a visitor from Porlock…you get the idea. No, better to be neither fully awake nor fully asleep. Better to go hypnagogic.

Turn off the phones. Go away from the computer, lest you be tempted to answer an h2g2 post. Go sit somewhere peaceful, but without distractions. Promise yourself that you're going to have some really enjoyable thoughts. Sit back, relax. Don't try too hard. Start with an idea you've had. Don't overinvest in it, nobody knows you're having it. If it doesn't work, nobody will know. Start with that thought, and let it go somewhere…see where it leads you.

How about that character you've been wanting to use in a short story? Don't close your eyes, but try to see the character. Male, female? Young, oldish? Short, tall? Hair, eyes? Where, when? What are they doing? Ah, you see it now…just watch, don't judge.

Before you know it, you look at your watch, startled, and find that an hour has gone by. Where have you been? Out somewhere with your character, taking mental notes. No, you haven't been lazy. You weren't 'resting your eyes'. You were working, darn it. But it feels pretty good.

The ability to realise that you can see pictures in your head without closing your eyes is one of the talents that makes writers work. You don't even think about it. You just do it. And now you know you can.

You even have a fancy name for it. 'Oh, I do my best preparation in a self-induced hypnagogic state. ‘Aren’t you just the classiest intellectual?

Writing Right with Dmitri Archive

Dmitri Gheorgheni

24.03.14 Front Page

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