Starting off with a dream sequence?

Hey fellow tropers and writers. Is it acceptable to start off a story with a dream sequence or should I build into it by starting the story after the character wakes up? For the story I am drafting, dream sequences will be important in starting up a chapter but as it goes along the main character becomes less able to separate dream from reality as he faces his own mind screw of sorts but at the writers' group I am with, they told me that starting off with a dream sequence can screw the readers' minds but I feel it will ruin my writing. What does the TV Tropes writer community have to say about this? Your suggestions are appreciated. Please mind the question mark in the title's topic.

edited 31st Jul '12 6:44:48 PM by SpellcraftQuill

It'd be an interesting way to start. My second book starts with a dream sequence (if you don't count the introduction).

I don't know. In such a situation it might work. Typically it's recommended against starting with a dream sequence or prologue because the reader gets attached to whatever's going on in the dream or prologue, but if you're going to return to the dream early and often, it might not be a problem.

Personally, I see it as no different from any other opening of the story. The questions you need to ask are "Why start here?" and "What does this scene accomplish?". With the latter, does the dream sequence help establish the main character's personality? Or does it help start the plot? If the answer is no to these two questions, it's probably not the best way to start the story.

So long as the dream sequence is plot- or backstory-relevant, there shouldn't be a problem. In fact, dreams/nightmares about an important event in a character's past is among the best ways to provide important exposition without it coming off as an infodump.

This is pretty much my opinion. As long as the dream is relevant to the story, go for it.

Basically, it is a recurring dream where the main character finds himself in complete darkness. Suddenly he is across from a cathedral's altar. This altar resembles where the main character was forced to prayed and often taught or indoctrinated. He made it through but started to hate the religion after learning its truths about their god actually being a god of evil. He became an apostate dedicated to destroying the religion but ever since he left he has had this dream often. At the altar he meets a spirit claiming to be that of his grandmother's. He is always distrustful of her as she reminds him to reform the religion and not destroy it before he becomes much like the same monster he has sworn to protect. This dream I feel serves as his own internal conflict of either freeing the known world from the religion he knows the truth of by all means necessary or to truly follow his apparent call as the religion's new Patriarch whom the protagonist has sworn to kill with his own hands out of revenge. It is more about the anti-hero's internal struggles which the plot will revolve around anyways.

I stopped reading when I hit "recurring dream," because at that point, you're pretty much set. So long as the dream actually recurs in the text, (either with minute changes, or a common thread that between dreams) and you don't have the character say "I've had this dream like, forty times" and then it's never brought up again.

I think it's fine to me so long as the dream sequence contains information vital to the story, thus it is something that the reader can spend time reading, remembering and then use that information later on as they read the rest of your story. Also just make sure they're clear on what just happened, as it's probably most problematic in that the user doesn't realise what they just saw was a dream sequence.

In fact, it'll be in my blog. Specifically, this page: http://thespellcraftcolumn.wordpress.com/2012/08/01/a-sample-of-my-planned-novel/

Every chapter will start with the same scenario but they will gradually change up as the main character Roul develops to avoid repetition. Please read and note if I should do anything regarding the transition as Roul wakes up.

Like many have said, I think it's fine as long as its relevant to characterization and/or story. In fact, I've started both of my screenplays with dream sequences. The first script (while not a great story in retrospect) had the dream foreshadow the main conflict, and the second shows the protagonist's fears and anxieties, as well as establishing the tone of the film. In a visual medium like film this may be more appropriate than in other media, as a striking visual hook is often desirable (and dreams are known for striking imagery), but I think there is some universality to the whole thang.

Based on what you said, it sounds like your dream sequence fits in with the story, but one thing I would caution against, given your description, is making it solely a means of exposition. That is to say, avoid making the dreams too literal. Think about how dreams are actually experienced, the way things flow from aspects that make relative sense to aspects that are absurd (while cutting out the shit that's too absurd or irrelevant, so as to avoid unintentional comedy), and think about how they flow from blatantly obvious expressions of one's thoughts and feelings to expressions that are more indirect, abstract, or roundabout (again, avoid being too roundabout, so as to avoid reader confusion. After all, you want the illusion of a realistic dream, not a carbon copy of dreaming).