Using Dreams for Creative Ideas

Sometimes your dreams can be a great source for creative ideas. You just have to pay attention to them. You also can trigger dreams on a topic by using the hypnogogic state of consciousness between wakefulness and sleep to tell yourself to have such a dream. You may find when you work many hours on a project that you may start dreaming about it.

Whatever the trigger for a dream, if it has an idea you can use for whatever you are doing, think about how you can apply that dream in your everyday life or in any projects you are working on. As soon as you wake up, write down what you remember of the dream and how you can use it so you don’t forget it as you turn to other activities in your daily life. To help you remember, keep some paper or a notebook and pen by your bed, so they are easily accessible when you wake up. You might even keep a dream diary, where you write down your thoughts about different dreams, or you collect the papers you used for recording your dreams into a dream book; then you can review what you have written from time to time and look for new ideas you can apply in your work or everyday life.

I’ve been recording and reviewing my dreams for many years, and most recently, I started dreaming about games, since I have been designing about 70 games in books for a new game company, ALB Games. You can see them on the company’s website at www.albgames.net.

My last two dreams about games were so clear and instructive that I used the game descriptions in my dreams to create my latest games. In one of the dreams that became the game “Numbers Up,” I saw an array of positive and negative numbers from 1 to 7, and then I saw them on a series of cards. When I woke up, in a still dreamlike state, I began writing down what I remembered, as well as how I might use this information to create a dream. As I wrote:

“I dreamt about organizing categories for a game. The idea was to create combinations of numbers to create totals using cards with the numbers +1-7 and -1-7. Additionally, some cards could be used for taking an action, such as taking an extra turn or losing a turn. There would be a goal number, and the idea would be to get cards from the deck or other players to match the goal number.”

Then, still in this half-waking, half-asleep state, I added some thoughts about the number of cards to include. There could be 3x the 1 to 7 cards, or 21 cards; There could be 2x the -1 to -17 cards, or 14 cards, plus 20 action cards.

When I woke up, I quickly decided on a name for the game, Numbers Up’ A Game of Finding the Right Combination of Numbers to Score the Most Tricks,” and I began writing the rules and creating the cards. I described it as “a game in which players collect cards which add up to a certain amount, take tricks from other players, and prevent players from taking their tricks. For 2-8 players, age 12 to adult.’ After that the rules quickly wrote themselves, and after a few hours, I had created a game with cards that I printed and cut out to be ready for testing by a group of game players.

A few days later, I had another dream about creating a new game, this time about setting goals. I even had a name for it. As I wrote in my dream diary, “I dreamt about creating an “all things are possible” game book. When I woke up, I tried to remember my dream, and at first, I recalled creating a guidebook of pages with a goal for each week. Then one would put down the goal and the steps to achieve it, and moments later, I saw how that could become a game in which players come up with goals and other players share their ideas on how to achieve it.”

Later that day, I began creating the actual game, listing different types of goals, and with a little help from ChatGPT to come up with additional goals for a series of cards with goals, I had my game. It then took a few hours to put each goal on card, print and cut out the cards, write up the rules, find an image for the cover, and create a game ready for testing.

Once both games are tested and I make any revisions, they will be published and join the other games that were published by ALB Games.

Likewise, you can look to your dreams for creative ideas and think about how to apply them in your creative projects or in your work or everyday life. Gaining insights from your dreams can be a very powerful engine of creative thinking and imaging, because these dreams tap into your intuition and left-brain consciousness, which is usually held back by your dominant logical thinking and right-brain consciousness. But once you let go of that right-side logical dominance, you can unleash all kinds of creative thinking, and dreams are one more engine to come up with ideas and give your creative self even more power.

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The games published by ALB Games have been developed by Gini Graham Scott, Ph.D., who used to be a full-time game designer in her 20s and signed games to major game publishers, including Parker Brothers and Hasbro Industries. About 5 months ago, she returned to designing games. Aside from creating games, she is a prolific writer, who has published more than 250 books, over 50 with traditional publishers; has written over three dozen award-winning scripts, and has developed and produced 20 films released by major distributors.

Some videos of the games are featured on YouTube – A Combo of Games:

and A Gallery of Games:

For more information and to set up interviews, contact ALB Games at the information below.

Karen Andrews
Executive Assistant
ALB Games
c/o Changemakers Publishing and Writing
San Ramon, CA 94583
(925) 804-6333
changemakerspub@att.net
www.changemakerspodcasts.net
www.changemakerspublishingandwriting.com

Gini Graham Scott, Ph.D. is the author of over 50 books with major publishers and has published 200 books through her company Changemakers Publishing and Writing (http://www.changemakerspublishingandwriting.com). She writes books, proposals, and film scripts for clients, and has written and produced 18 feature films and documentaries, including Conned: A True Story and Con Artists Unveiled¸ distributed by Gravitas Ventures. (http://www.changemakersproductionsfilms.com). Her latest books include Ghost Story and How to Find and Work with a Good Ghostwriter published by Waterside Productions; and The Big Con and I Was Scammed, published by American Leadership Press.