Dreams As Windows

I’ve always been fascinated by dreams, especially the recurring, vivid ones that linger after waking. Both the building where Harry lives and the house in House of Fate came from dreams. The house, strangely, was built on top of a railroad spur. I don’t know why. In the book, the house isn’t literally on the tracks, but the trace of the dream stayed with me.

Over the years, I’ve also dreamed about some of the characters I write. I don’t think I create them from scratch. I think they already have form in another dimension, and our dreaming selves sometimes get to visit them, to see and experience a version of their lives. Some of these dreams stick with me more than others, and occasionally they leave traces in my writing.

I’ve been thinking about and developing this theory for a long time. When I read Richard Bach’s A Bridge Across Forever and One, it didn’t give me the idea, but it felt like a validation of my suspicion that infinite possibilities exist, and our dreams might allow us to touch them.

In House of Fate, Gwendolyn says she doesn’t believe coincidences exist. This is a tie-in to my theory. I believe, as Gwendolyn does, every time we face a choice, each option plays out somewhere. Every “what if” manifests in another dimension. Most of the time, we’re anchored in one reality, but occasionally, we are allowed to step into another life. Not as visitors exactly, but as our current selves temporarily inhabiting another reality. This is why some dreams feel so real, so tangible. Because, in a way, they are.

Some of my dreams show me entirely different lives. In some, I’m married; in others, single. Sometimes I have children, sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I’m wealthy; sometimes struggling. Sometimes I’m lonely; other times, fulfilled. The variation is striking, and it makes the idea dreams are glimpses into alternate dimensions feel even more real.

Dreams like this have shaped my writing. People, places, things, (you know, nouns!) are glimpses from dreams which leave traces in some of the stories I create. Writing becomes a way to give form to what we can only visit fleetingly in sleep. It is a way to turn ephemeral experience into something tangible.

Of course I can’t prove it. If I could, I would be very rich. But the experience of dreaming like this is undeniable. Everyone has moments when dreams feel like other lives, moments that could be memories, reflections, or alternate existences waiting to be noticed. Perhaps we all live in multiple dimensions, our waking selves anchored in one, our dreaming selves free to explore the rest.

So the next time a dream feels unnervingly real, pay attention. It might be a visit from yourself, or a life you never knew existed. A path already lived somewhere else. And maybe, just maybe, they are lives worth noticing.