For the past year I have been writing a dream diary, and so far the experience has proven to be most interesting.
However I have noticed that there are certain elements that are proving to be quite persistent and tend to reoccur every now and then.
First and foremost, the locations. While my dreams tend to be quite rich in imagery and can produce landscape of true wonder, whenever the plot of the dream leads me into a city, it usually is one of the two variations. The first one I have come to call the Day City. I call it that because it is not just bright and sunny in there, but the light seems to be pouring into the streets from above, looking almost solid at times. Day City consists of two squares and 3-4 street, with lots of trees and flowerbeds to be found, made of mostly 4-5 stories buildings built in what I think is the baroque style. There are usually a couple of shops, a theater, a railway station, a library and a open air cinema in there, and more often then not they are pretty static in terms of location. It's about 4-5 minutes to cross the Day City from one end to another.
It has many alleys leading out of it, and while the Day City itself doesn't seem to correspond to any place I've actually been to, those roads and alleys lead to random or plot-related places I have actually been to, like the street where I grew up, my old school, university grounds, other real life places.
I have a map of the Day City, but it wouldn't let me post the link to it though
I hope I won't get banned if I try - i072.radikal.ru/1207/60/42fd09a7511b.jpg
And then there is Night City. Sometimes the events of the dream start there, sometimes I get to Night City through one of the side alleys in Day City, sometimes vice versa. Just as often it simply takes for night to fall on the Day City or any other similar location in my dream for it to morph into Night City.
Night City doesn't have any geography I could pin down. It sprawls in all directions, with its narrow cobbled streets, alleys, tunnels. Buildings of unnatural yet still geometric shapes spreading in all directions, coming together and apart, all while engulfed in shadows and poorly lit with street lights. While Day City is saturated with colour, the colour palette of Night City can be narrowed down to black and amber. Most of the city is engulfed in shadows, but there are also streetlights which give off feint amber light, enough to provide contrast and make me and my dream characters find his way. Sometimes Night City is empty, except for my character, sometimes its streets are crowded with people. It's a maze either way, but interestingly enough my character never has any trouble navigating. Same as with any other maze-like location I come across. Here is what I drew in paint some time after I started recoding my dream, for clarity - s45.radikal.ru/i109/1207/57/f9b5760591fb.jpg
There are also two characters that I tend to come across again and again. The first one is a tall, slim girl with long frizzy raven-black hair, large bright green eyes, a pretty little turned-up and dark full lips. She usually wears an evening dress, black or white, with a rather prominent cleavage. In my dreams I usually either see her sitting at a round cafe table looking at me from afar (just as a background detail, not related to the dreams plot), or I'm chasing her through the landscape.
The second character is also female, but entirely different in appearance and role. While the brunette is almost the same height as me, this girl almost a full head shorter. She is noticeably more athletic that the brunette, and not as dark in complexion. He has a short, somewhat tom-boyish, choppy haircut, and the hair itself is dyed purple, except for several locks on the front which are pink. She has blue eyes, and doesn't use any cosmetics. Her closing is mostly practical, usually sweatpants or jeans and a singlet. She appears about as often as the other character, but she is easier to remember because she always interacts with my characters. We talk, occasionally she comes to my characters' aid, on occasion I help her. On at least two occasions plots of the dreams have been derailed because I was to busy chatting with her about something.
I thought I would talk about themes too, but I have already written quite a bit and would feel really luck to get some responses to that.