Famous Creations That Were Inspired by Dreams

Our dreams can give us the most fascinating and even the most strangest ideas. Ideas we might not have imagined concocting up as we spend our waking hours pondering the latest story idea.

If you've ever woken up in the middle of the night from the most bizarre dream or nightmare, you know precisely what I'm talking about.

What are dreams? Are they just how our mind sorts out the events of our day and our life in general? Or are they something more? Like visits to other dimensions each time we close our eyes.

No matter what they are, dreams have offered a wealth of inspiration. Here are a few well-known novels that were created from the unexpected inspiration of a dream.

Frankenstein - Mary Shelley (1818)

What is often considered the first science fiction novel, Frankenstein has become embedded into horror and pop culture phenomenon. It involves a mad scientist, life and death, and the horrifying reality of attempting to play God.

Mary Shelley was only 19 when she wrote Frankenstein and what's even more impressive is that it all began as a dream!

Mary Shelley along with a few others had just taken on the challenge to think up the scariest ghost story. After much talk about ghost story ideas, Shelley was inspired but still could not come up with an idea that stood out enough to write about.

That is until Shelley finally retired to bed and not too long after had the most bizarre yet fascinating vision of a waking dream.

In the dream she saw a man hunched over a body. What was he doing? Could he be trying to bring the body back to life?

This vision would evolve into how the character Dr. Victor Frankenstein was created and one of the most well known horror, science fiction novels came to be.

Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson (1886)

Most of us, if not all, are familiar of the concept of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and the splitting line between good and evil.

It has become so ingrained in pop culture and the most thought of vision of a split personality between a caring, kind hearted individual and a sinister monster.

One night, Stevenson was tossing and turning in bed having the most disturbing dream. His wife next to him did what any concerning person would do and woke him up.

If you were having the most amazing dream, you'd probably be annoyed if someone woke you up.

Even though he was having a nightmare, Stevenson was indeed annoyed to be awoken.

It probably happened something like this:

Wife: Wake up! You're having a nightmare.

Stevenson: Why did you wake me up? I was just having the strangest dream and it was getting to the good part!

Immediately he started writing his bizarre nightmare down. The dream must have truly inspired him because he hadn't been so dedicated in writing a story as much as he did Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. The first draft only took him a few days to write and he madly scrapped and rewrote the story again until it came to be the classic tale of good and evil we all know.

Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde might have also been inspired by Deacon Brodie, a real-life serial killer of Stevenson's time.

Misery - Steven King (1987)

The most fascinating story ideas can happen in the most unlikely of places.

Like when you're at work.

Or on a plane.

The story concept of Misery came to Steven King while he was on a flight to London. While napping on the plane, he dreamt the most disturbing yet captivating dream:

A writer who was held hostage and ultimately killed by some crazed fanatic who was obsessed with their work.

King immediately grabbed the first thing he could write on, a napkin, and wrote down everything he could remember. He worked feverishly at the air port and hotel to write Misery - a novel that would become one of his best sellers and a successful film adaption.

The next time you wake up from a dream or even a nightmare, write it down and maybe save it for your next story idea.

You just never know.

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