Not Writing but Dreaming

Writing in bed makes my back ache so I have configured a standing desk of sorts (pictured).

There is a problem, however, in standing to write. With my body upright and muscles engaged, I am too alert to write creatively. It’s alright for writing academically (just) but even for this kind of writing I prefer to be closer to the ‘dream state’ – and therefore prone.

I’m not the first person to note the connection between dreaming and writing. The fictional text is nothing but a writer dreaming out loud onto the page… and a dream is itself can be viewed as a fictional text.

What’s exercising me at the moment is what a dream brings to a text. It reminds the reader of the fictive reality they are immersed in, I think – the ‘unreality’ of the dream serves to highlight the unreality of the world in which this dream occurs.

In Come to Grief, part of the action of the play takes place in Sylvia’s dreamscape. It is a wonderful balm for her to have the company of her daughter in this space but there is a less welcome guest too.

In Alarm Girl, Indy’s dream hopefully provides a moment of catharsis.

The novel I’m working on at the moment is littered with dreams. I’m dreaming all over the shop. Back to bed, then.