Dreams of Stories, Dreams of Life

I dreamed about the murder of the King of Norway's daughter right before her wedding. It's still very vivid - I saw the butler carrying her slashed body out in silence through back rooms so the king and queen wouldn't find out. The butler made eye contact with me and I knew I could not tell the parents, not yet. We sat having tea with the Queen and someone remarked how good her English was. "Well, she's American!" I said. It was one of those dreams that felt like reality when I woke up and never faded into the mists like so many dreams do.

I think I just came up with a new story. How can I not write this? I looked up the King of Norway on the internet, and then wish I hadn't. He looks like a very nice man and apparently has a daughter and grandchildren. Well, as usual with writing, we take bits of reality and interweave them with much more straight from the imagination.

I mentioned this dream on Facebook. Two other writers independently posted of dreaming part of a story. Dreams seem to be in the air.

We saw the movie "Inception." It's all about dreams, dreams nested in dreams, shared dreams. It has way more action scenes than mine ever do, but is realistically confusing at times. How did we get from floating in the elevator to falling off the bridge to skiing toward the fortress? It was exhausting in its dream-truth.

One of my favorite songs is Joni Michell's song about Amelia Earhart. "Dreams, Amelia, dreams and false alarms," is the last line. It's a good thing seeing a princess slashed right before her wedding is a false alarm. It's a good thing I'm a crime writer so it doesn't seem totally odd that I'm excited about such a gruesome dream. What would Fritz Perls say about it? All parts of the dream are parts of yourself, and you own the power of each part.

Have you ever dreamed a story and then written it? Or read one and wished it was a dream? Look for a short story next year featuring the dead Norwegian bride.