Every Scene Should Be a Dream

Today’s post is for all you writers out there, or fantasy lovers who just love to talk story and storytelling. I’m going to share a scene-structure technique that I’ve developed over the years of my own writing journey. No, I’m not a best-selling author or anything (yet), but I hope you’ll at least find it interesting.

Dreams and Carl Jung's 'analytical psychology'

So in this book, the Chidren’s Dreams seminar, the famous psychoanalyst Carl Jung, in his prime at the time during the late 1930s, gave a seminar series on dream interpretation that is still of relevance to this day because it was so advanced and nuanced. It was based mainly on his many years of working with patients, but also his familiarity with mythology and folklore, working with psychotic patients in an age before antipsychotics, and he pioneered research on the word-association test which is still used today. Jung built on Freud’s famous work, but over all, many of his theories about dreams have held up remarkably well to subsequent empirical and laboratory dream research. You can check out my website to find scholarly non-fiction writing that I’ve published on that subject.

Anyway, Jung gave the Children’s Dreams seminar (one of many others available) and they are incredible, where he outlines how dreams are typically ordered, following a typical structure of locale, exposition, peripateia, and lysis. So 1) locale, is just the place, time, and characters. Who is there–usually the dreamer and a number of other characters in a dream, some familiar but most unfamiliar–and where are they. 2) exposition is an illustration of the problem. What do they want and why can’t they easily get it, 3) peripateia is the change, complication, or catastrophe, that throws a wrench in the works during the dream and 4) lysis is the resolution–does it end in catastrophe? Does the dreamer reach the goal? Does something else completely different happen?

Dream Structure and Scene Structure are the SAME

So that is Jung’s dream structure. And any of you aspiring or accomplished writers out there can see, boy does all this sound familiar, doesn’t it? Especially when it comes to scene construction! So when I came across this, it gave me pause. Why is this, I asked myself? This structure, with different terms but otherwise nearly identical, can be found in the storytelling advice given by experts such as John Truby, with his “Anatomy of Story” book and lecture series, Robert McKee in his outstanding book “Story”, and especially in the work of Shawn Coyne in his book and system “Story Grid”. I could easily give lots of other examples, because in my own journey as a fantasy author, I’ve studied many of the methods out there, took what I liked and combined them together. All of these and many others suggest constructing scenes in exactly this way. They don’t, however, ever refer to dreams and dream interpretation (why should they?). So this is either a wild coincidence (it’s not), or these storytelling experts have simply found a fundamental truth about the way the brain organizes information - via storytelling.

So, then, why are these structures so similar? Well, it’s because both fiction (especially fantasy fiction) and dreams have the job of constructing meaning, and meaning is most efficiently created, stored, and repeated in the form of stories. It’s how the brain constructs memories, helps to regulate our emotions, form social identities, and plans for the future. 

Every Scene Should Be A Dream

So, what the storytelling experts will often tell you is that every scene should be a kind of mini-story in itself. This is, of course, good advice. But I add another layer. I think every scene should be a dream. So here, I start with the locale and ask who is this scene about. Since we’re using the dream as a model, the POV character is the one the scene is a dream about, and in dreams locations are usually metaphors for the psychological situation the dreamer is in. If you’re feeling confined, the location will be physically constricting. If you’re feeling free, it might be in the air. If you’re feeling like intense emotions are closing in on you, you might be in a burning building. You don’t have to be writing fantasy to do this, but obviously fantasy gives you the widest choice of visuospatial metaphors you can use, since fantasy is the least constricting genre. Anything imaginable can happen, so only dreams and fantasy can do that with the most precision. Nevertheless, you can HINT at such symbolism in non-fantasy by using the right settings, weather, locations, etc. Next, the exposition gives us the desire–what does the character want? What are they trying to do? What is or is not in their way? Here’s where you can introduce one layer of inner/outer conflict.

Third, the peripateia is what Jung calls the “possibility for transformation”. In dreams, it’s the element that challenges the dream ego, representing something going on in life that is keeping them from accomplishing their goal that was not previously obvious. So it’s about what has been unconscious up to now from the dreamer’s POV. It’s either an unforeseen consequence, and unexpected complication, or something already setup in a previous scene. Something that throws a wrench in the works. In stories, this is very important because it keeps your story from becoming a stale conflict that is just hitting the same beat over and over. An example of this mistake might be: The heroes must find the temple of ultimate darkness, but enemies are in the way so they fight them. Then, in the next scene, the heroes are still trying to find the temple, but a cliff bars their way. Then, the heroes are still trying to find the temple, but the enemies have a new weapon. This is fun on a certain level, but it can also get repetitive and stale. So the peripateia is needed to add unforeseen complications. One of the heroes gets sick. A different faction, unrelated to the main two factions, suddenly crashes into the scene. At the bottom of a cliff the heroes find someone in need of help–is it a trap? You get the idea.

Finally is the lysis. This is how it all ends in a dream, but since in dreams, the brain is still trying to sort out all the possible outcomes and meanings, often the lysis simply ends, or it ends with a question. When it does end, it can be incredibly devastating. Like one dream I discuss in my book Understanding Dreams etc., of where the dreamer encounters an evil “killer of children” in a garden, then they engage in a bloody battle. The dreamer drags the killer into a pool and stabs him three times then drowns him, only to discover that the killer was himself a young boy in disguise. Those of you who have read KOTFD will see how I adapted this dream to a crucial scene in the novel, where I gave it a few more twists to make it even more devastating.  

Dreams and Scenes - Differences to Exploit

In any case, for this fourth part, during the lysis, I especially love the Story Grid technique, which is to put your scene character into a double bind. Some kind of tough decision between the lesser of two evils, or two irreconcilable good outcomes. Make it really tough, then have the character choose. Then you have the fallout of that decision. Coyne terms this the crisis (double bind), climax (where the choice is made), and resolution (aftermath). Here, in the dream structure all of this is the lysis, and for providers like me, this part tells me a lot about the dreamer. For writing, of course, this part tells us about the POV character in the scene, because it not only keeps the plot moving, but allows you to demonstrate character through the most powerful way possible–not by their hobbies and quirks, but through their active decisions.

Every Scene Should Be A Dream

This “every scene a dream” technique gives tons of opportunity to include plenty of inner and outer conflict, and hopefully helps you to really get at the heart of the character who is at the center of the scene, since the way the scene plays out will therefore not only reflect the outer situation she or he faces, but their inner dynamics as well, viewed through the lens of dream symbols and metaphors. 

This is the technique I used in writing King of the Forgotten Darkness (https://www.collectiveinkbooks.com/roundfire-books/our-books/king-forgotten-darkness-novel), so I hope that helps all of you aspiring writers, or just anyone who is a fantasy fan and loves to talk story.

Keep dreaming, friends!

EG