Ideas for writing a great dream sequence?

One way is to italicise the dream sequences. Alternatively, you might inset them (but don't do both). I wouldn't use a different type-face, though.

Also, you need to develop a different 'voice' by varying your rhythm and word sequencing. But I wouldn't spend much time on that during nano - save it until later.

Good luck.

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MJ

What makes dreams different than real life? Focus on that to give your dreams that dreamy quality.

In my own dreams, things are always changing. You think you're in your living room, then a minute later your living room is also a restaurant.

I also find that dreams include unexpected combinations of people: maybe I'm on a trip with my parents, a friend from college, some co-workers, and a historical figure. The cast of characters also changes repeatedly.

Characters, settings, and plots are mismatched - you wouldn't be in colonial America with George Washington trying to fight the Redcoats - you'd be in a space shuttle with George Washington trying to get to a phone to call your friend for her birthday.

Dreams often have a sort of urgency, either a quest (I have to get to the airport!) or you find that you've screwed something up and have to fix it (it's finals week and I haven't gone to any of the classes!)

So a scene that contained elements of unexpectedness, urgency, and familiar things in odd combinations, would seem like a dream to me. To drive home the point, include things or situations the reader knows can't be real - maybe the character is talking to someone who is dead, or far away, or doesn't exist.

Stylistically, I'd make sure the dreams were set off in their own chapters, or at least their own sections. You could also call them out explicitly: "That night, he dreamed that..." I agree that italics can help. Even if your reader doesn't know what's going on, italics signify "this is not part of the regular story."

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I'm writing a dream sequence right now, I just took a moment off.

In my dreams (I can only speak for mine), I'm always content, even when everything is horrible and I'm sobbing. If that makes sense. There's always a good side to the dreams.

Also, dreams often reuse places/things you know, but turn them into places/things you don't but have (or haven't) been thinking of. Like, a garage from my real life became a jail cell in my dream.

In dreams, I often imagine things. The difference is, there isn't one. If that makes sense. Like, in real life, there's a difference between sitting here typing and thinking about how my NaNo will end. The latter is less real. Not so in dreams! Everything feels equally real.

Another is bizarre transitions (and juxtapositions) that make no sense. Drawing on my own dreams, I caught a giant squid. Someone from church congratulated me. Then I was driving a car with my girlfriend. (IRL, I'm a straight woman.)

Sometimes in dreams, I can't speak, and sometimes I can't run.

Sometimes my bladder is full, so (in the dream) I go to use the toilet, but it doesn't work for whatever reason. Either I forget how, or I use it and yet my bladder doesn't empty. Or on one memorable occasion, it was actually an armchair and I couldn't figure out where the hole was in which to relieve myself. (The hole in the chair. The other possibility would make for a good nightmare, though.) When your bladder's full enough before you wake up, your dream will become about that. For instance, I once dreamed ninjas were playing a game that involved finding a way to use the toilet in a cave. When I woke up, I hardly made it to the bathroom.

Sometimes things don't make sense. I conflate things in dreams, like a facelift and brain surgery or myself and my friend.

Sometimes I press my face into the pillow and then I dream I can't breathe. Once I dreamed I was half-underwater (one side of my face, I was lying on the beach in the waves) and that side was pressed too tight into the pillow when I woke for me to get air.

Sometimes, things that are not a threat in real life happen in dreams. Once, in a dream, I was almost forced to get a facelift I didn't want. Sometimes, things that would be bad in real life aren't that bad in dreams. Three times (rough guess), I've dreamed I've been in jail, and all the dreams were pleasant.

Sometimes, things that you should be able to make sense of aren't QUITE the same as their real life counterparts. For instance, a math problem that looks like a bunch of grapes. For less extreme examples, my dreams are in English, SORT OF. In my dreams, "renegade" has been a transitive verb and consistency is unimportant. You can't really pore over books in dreams because the words won't be quite coherent. You CAN read in dreams, but only little bits where the grammar is less important.

Certain details will be present and others will be missing. I got out of a tank of water and was totally dry. Items go missing. I set down the gun I meant to kill the evil walrus with, but then when I went to look for it it wasn't there and the walrus killed me. Then my life reset like a videogame.

In dreams you just know things. Someone showed up to kidnap me and I just knew that even though he was black and had the wrong build, he was Marluxia from Kingdom Hearts. And someone else who was his brother and caucasian and ALSO Marluxia was down the street kidnapping someone else.

I can do cool things in dreams. Like fly. When I fly in dreams it's very consistent and follows its own consistent and intuitive laws of physics (the same ones used for running in dreams, when I can run; in some dreams I'm paralyzed): I have to keep using my arms, not flapping but doing a breaststroke. I can't know I'm dreaming, because if I do I'll fall. (Actually, I can know I'm dreaming, I just have to not THINK it. So I've spent time flying and knowing it was a dream and having to sing loudly "THIS IS REALITY".) In my dreams, when I'm running slowly it's sometimes on two feet (or sometimes I glide). When I'm running kind of fast, it's on my hands. When it gets REALLY fast, I'm just flying then.

In dreams, I and others do very illogical things. Once, I needed to get to someone slightly behind me, so I went in the opposite direction, climbed a tower and flew down to him. Another time, I needed to take a train from Philadelphia to Berkeley. I wore pajamas and the train had stops in Alaska and China. (That was the dream where the toilet was an armchair. I finally decided the floor was a nice enough receptacle, not that that helped because it was in real life I needed to go.)

Or the time when I was wanted and I walked up to the people ranting about how they needed to find me. I wore no disguise and was unrecognized.

You know how in videogames, everyone looks like everyone else? Like, you see a random person on the street, then you see another that looks just like them, then another? Or (at least in Zelda) how Malon shows up in one game, then in another game the same design is used for some other person? My dreams do the same thing. I'll watch someone who looks just like me do something.

Also, often you'll just know that someone is SOMEBODY YOU KNOW, or a character from a book, or something, in the face of absolutely no evidence of this.

Like the time when I dreamed I was a dragon, but when I flapped my arms I couldn't fly. Weird.

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I just finished, at 40k. I'll be adding a prologue.

I have several dream sequences and they are all in present tense (after all when we dream, we dream as if it is happening right now) - might work for you? I also put them in italics but mainly for my reference so I can find them easily.

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Main Character plot twists:
- fallen through thin ice
- attacked by a wolf
- best friend poisoned
- fallen in love, been betrayed by her
- rescued people from a fire and then had the burning building collapse on him

This guy has some bad luck!

Wow, thanks everyone!! You answers have been VERY helpful!

I don't remember my dreams often... maybe only about 2 or 3 a year... but it is definitely helping, reading your ideas! Thanks, again!

Get 8 hours of sleep a night on a regular basis and you're more likely to remember your dreams. You can also look up inducing lucid dreams which increases your chance of remembering your dreams. Males are less likely to remember dreams than females, but that's probably because women have more fluctuation in hormones a night.

Most people who don't remember their dreams aren't getting a full night's sleep or are having disturbed sleep patterns. But in most cases, I've encountered, people just aren't sleeping eight hours a night. 8-9 hours is when you start dreaming and you are more likely to get lucid dreams.

So perhaps do some dreaming homework? I know I do a lot of writing in my sleep (though not physical). I'm working when I'm sleeping.

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Novelists are a conscienceless lot.--Diana Gabaldon (An Echo in the Bone)