Dreams.

I often have vivid dreams. Really clear ones that I remember easily. Colour, events and heaps of dialogue that I recall with little problem. And some of these dreams I've used in my writing. In fact I keep a notebook where I jot down ideas or thoughts, including dream thoughts, and draw upon later for stories.

Dreams, however, rarely make stories in and of themselves. They tend to lack a narrative, or a plot that will sustain a story. But they are excellent launching pads for ideas. Recently I had the experience of waking up with memories of a dream that was an almost fully formed story. It only needed a little tweaking to whip it into shape, and I'm finding it's a story I'm quite excited about.

A couple of years ago I started having lucid dreams - ones in which you realise you're dreaming. And then I took it that step further into lucid dreams that you can control. (Not all lucid dreams can be manipulated.) But it's fascinating when you are in a dream state and you start changing the  environs, or manipulating events, or introduce people into your 'world'.

One of the ideas I've had is to bring a writer, say Philip K. Dick, into my dream - and then discuss story ideas with him. Of course I recognise that this would simply be a projection of my subconscious, but what a fantastic way to access ideas from that level. Unfortunately, once you're in a lucid dream, you don't always remember what you were planning to do when you were awake. And so far, I haven't brought PKD in.

Still, I now know what it feels like to fly (I'd never had a flying dream until I created one), and I know what it feels like to play a guitar solo in a Deep Purple type band in front of 20,000 screaming fans.

One of these nights I may ask for trouble and try to bring in Hunter Thompson and PKD. Now that could be a nightmare.