— Princess Mononoke (1997) - dir. Hayao Miyazaki

⚠️ emeto

You’re writing PTSD dreams wrong

But don’t worry, most writers are and I’m here to help because reading them is making me cRAzY.

I’m writing this because I’ve read three otherwise great romance novels back to back featuring characters dealing with PTSD (or PTSD symptoms) and each one of them made the same dream mistakes. I honestly can’t think of a fiction book I’ve read that didn’t make these mistakes, so I thought I’d compile a handy dandy list of mistakes and how to fix them. 

Lucky for you, I have PTSD and a ton of fellow veteran friends who deal with these symptoms. 

*This is based on my experience and things told to me by friends. This is not to say that the below doesn’t happen in real life, only that it’s not as common as you might think.

The issue with these dreams is twofold: on one side is the psychological accuracy of the dream and on the other side is how you’re using the dream within the narrative.

Oh an Black Sails spoilers-ish ahead. 

1) Stop writing the dream as a shot-by-shot accurate retelling of Traumatic Event.

Listen, not only do dreams seldom follow reality, but our own memories are tricky at best. I don’t remember getting beaten up because a) it was horrifying and we block stuff like that out and b) I was going in and out of consciousness. It would be pretty strange for me to dream something I don’t even fully remember. Our brains are simply not wired to do these vivid factually-accurate cinematic retellings.

My friend dreams things that did happen, but in his own words those dreams are always wrong in some noticeable or bizarre way. For instance, he’s getting chased through the streets of Iraq by a werewolf. 

2) Dreams are informed by reality, not direct reflections of it. 

It’s entirely likely my friend dreamt of a werewolf in Iraq because I got him binge watching Supernatural and the two ideas merged in his dreamstate. But see, that’s how dreams work. 

The trauma event exists as a constant in his subconscious, but he has all this other information right there in his conscious mind all day, every day. In dreams, there isn’t a clear delineation between that information.

My dreams are often dependent on whatever I’ve fallen asleep watching on television. The themes are consistent, but not the content.

In Black Sails, Captain Flint’s trauma dreams feature his dead partner and friend following him around his empty ship. You have an element of the trauma (the animated corpse of his friend) + his daily existence (his ship). The two things intersect to form these unsettling nightmares as expressions of his fears and grief. He never once relives the event itself in his dreams as shown on screen.

Speaking of…

3) Trauma dreams often revolve around feelings, not necessarily the events themselves.

The PTSD package generally includes heaps of shame, guilt, anger and fear. As someone who survived a beating when I should have had control of the situation, my dreams tend to revolve around fear that people will know I’m a fraud or being unable to act in a dangerous situation. 

Again, it’s entirely common for trauma victims to not remember large chunks (or the whole thing) of the trauma event. So why should their dreams be stunningly accurate? What we remember are feelings. Real strong feelings.

You cannot go wrong if you write your trauma dream around feelings, not a specific event.

4) If you present trauma dreams as expressions of themes, you can let go of the trauma dream as an exposition dump/way overused suspense trope.

You know you’ve read this: MC has dreams that are a shot-by-shot retelling of Traumatic Event that always cut off right before Traumatic Event, so that the Big Reveal must happen by a discovery later in the novel. 

If I were the MC in a book, the easy and common thing would be to use the “dream sequence” as an expository retelling of Traumatic Event as a way to give some backstory to why I might be surly, mistrustful, afraid to try something new, whatever, and to clumsily shoehorn in suspense where there doesn’t need to be.

The much more interesting thing might be if my dreams were inconsistent in content but consistent in theme. In one I’m on an alien planet (because I fell asleep watching the Science Channel again) and the ground opens up and I fall into a pit from which I can’t escape because I am helpless. In another a man is watching me while I sleep where I am again frozen and helpless. This would force the reader to think: what is the recurring issue in these dreams? Why is it important? What is this telling me about this character and what happened to her? 

It could be a personal preference, but I’d rather see the Traumatic Event either told in narrative flashbacks (not dreams) or verbally retold by the character in question. Let the dreams tell me something deeper about the character. It’s not that I was beat up, it’s that I feel like a failure because of it. One of these things is a shallow factual detail, the other tells you something about me as a person that I’m sharing with you, gentle reader, because talking about this stuff is healthy.

5) The Traumatic Event doesn’t have to be a big secret. 

In Black Sails, we know what happened to Captain Flint’s partner. It happened in real time in the show. That didn’t make his uber disturbing dreams less disturbing or mysterious. Fans still debate exactly what the symbolism was and what they were telling us about James Flint in those moments. We do know from the dreams that he was disturbed, obsessed, and also monumentally guilty and blaming himself for what happened. 

The mystery was perhaps more heightened by the fact that the dreams weren’t direct reflections of reality. We know who this person was, what she believed, and why she died. That Flint is imagining her screaming silently in his ear is horrifying and discordant with what we know to be factual. This adds emotional complexity to his character and the decisions he’s making while suffering these dreams. 

^^^this didn’t happen. It was a dream. A real unsettling dream.

Once you let go of the concept of the trauma dream as a literal retelling and exposition dump, you have the entire dreamscape to work in other narrative elements, like symbolism, metaphor, foreshadowing, etc. 

*1st gif source: @idontwikeit

100% this, and excellent reading. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve dreamed about Traumatic Events™ in a direct fashion. Mostly I dream about seemingly-unrelated scenarios that make me feel a similar way.

The silence is deafening.

3.13

- Robert Frost

Captured- 5

This is a series, Part 1 is here.

TW: Non-con drug use, religious abuse

It was another three days before Harrow could speak again. He was given water every morning, hauled onto the mule, and only dragged off of its back at night. The mule didn’t seem to mind, but he did. It added an aching seat and sore spine to his other problems. They’d begun feeding him, but only a thin soup. He’d kill for a cup of coffee and a loaf of actual bread. Hells, he’d joyfully kill at least the elder two paladins right here and now, if he could. He enjoyed brief fantasies of getting his knives into Ard and making him beg. They didn’t last long; he was too far gone to hold any thoughts very well.

Every day was the same routine of travel, the same single cup of soup and dosing with drugs at night. He passed the time in a blur of hunger, constant aching and abrupt flashes of pain. They passed through small villages, but he’d heard the two young knights talking and knew there was a proper town at the foot of Castle Carnoch. Tomorrow night they’d be passing through it before presenting him like a hunting trophy at the Castle. A gawping, jeering crowd was the last thing he wanted right now, looking like he knew he did after nearly starving, being drugged and then dragged through the dirt for this long. His black hair hung about his face in tangles and under the horrible muzzle he could feel the roughness of stubble trying to grow past the dirt. 

He’d been dosed again tonight with more Nightbell in his water, a dagger held to his throat to keep him from speaking spells while it took effect. He never got used to that creeping cold as it slid into his mind. Swallowing had still hurt but the slash on his tongue was finally healing. He didn’t bother trying to speak to Ard, not even when the dagger was taken away and Ard and Laron left him against his tree to go make their own meals and his soup. It was Emmet, the squire, who brought him the soup this time.

Harrow looked up at him. “How old are you, kid?” His voice was rough with lack of use and his clumsy tongue but he could finally speak again. 

“Um, I don’t know if I’m supposed to talk to you.”

“They’re busy, they won’t mind. B’sides, what am I gonna do, cast spells at you while drugged half insensible?”

Emmet shrugged. “I’m seventeen.”

“And well on your way to becoming a knight of the order, I see.”

“I’m going to be just like Ard!” said Emmet fervently.

“Gods help us,” said Harrow just as fervently. 

“What?”

“Oh, nothing… You wan’ to be like him, do you? Goin’ to do what he does?”

“Well, yes,” said Emmet. “That’s why I’m his Squire. I’m going to join the knights someday.” He fed Harrow the soup, holding the cup for him and letting him drink.

“And torture warlocks?” Harrow asked, swallowing.

“What? He’s not a Purifier. But they- they do what they have to. So does Ard. You’re tied up because if we didn’t bind you, you’d fight.”

“Hells know I would, that much is true, kid. Did he have to slit my tongue? Will you also break people’s legs one day for the glory of Arost?”

“It’s not like that!” Emmet’s face colored as he scowled.

Harrow smiled. “Isn’t it? He’s taking me to the Purifiers. People don’t survive that. You’re talking to a dead man- how’s it feel, kid?”

“You stop that. You can always confess, and embrace Arost! You should be purified, to save your soul!”

Harrow finished the last dregs of his meager meal, then nodded down at his chest, at the branded mark half visible through his split shirt. “What makes you think I have one to save?”

“Ard said that brand means you- you sold your soul to…” He lowered his voice, leaning closer, eyes wide in fear of the name, “to the Raging Fiend… A- Asmodeus. Did you really?”

Harrow suddenly leaned forward and locked eyes with him, fathomless black into soft blue, and smiled a joyless grin. “Yes!”

Emmet scrambled backward, dropping the empty cup and nearly landing himself in the campfire as Harrow laughed.

Laron stomped over. “What happened, Emmet? He can’t hurt you, he’s dosed up on Nightbell.” He helped the Squire up, dusting him off. “Go water the horses, alright?”

Emmet nodded, shaken, looking back at Harrow and then leaving the clearing quickly. Ard noticed the ruckus, but also saw that Laron was handling it and went back to making notes in his log. 

Laron crouched in front of Harrow. “What did you do to him?” he snarled.

“Didn’t lay a finger on him, Noble Sir,” drawled Harrow, waggling his bound arms behind him to illustrate this, still smiling. “Lad’s jumpy. I think maybe he’s ‘fraid of me.”

“You so much as trouble his dreams again and I’ll break your other leg and let you crawl the rest of the way to Carnoch! Understand?”

“He’s important to you- isn’t he.” said Harrow, now speaking more gently. “Even more to you than to Ard. You care about him an awful lot. Why is that?”

“I don’t have to chat with you, devil worshipper.” 

“But he matters to you. Probably not brothers-“

“He’s my cousin!” Laron snapped. “He’s all I have left of my half-sister. So if you ever-!”

“Alright, alright, I understand,” said Harrow.

“I doubt you do. Devil worshippers aren’t know for their happy families. We found you alone.” Laron was the one smiling now. “No one is coming for you, are they? No one cares that you were taken, and no one will notice you’re gone. Most of the people who knew of your existence were sure you died two years ago with the rest of your little band of murderers, a city fire wasn’t it?”

Harrow went quiet, his face unreadable.

“Must have been rough for you, a fire you weren’t the master of, killing everyone you were close to in your devil cult. For a while there we were sure you’d died with them!” Laron hissed. “We only found you because of a few random reports. No one else survived- Just. You.”

Harrow’s jaw tensed but he said nothing.

“Not so talkative now, hm? You’ll beg to tell the Purifiers absolutely everything. You’ll invent sins to confess to when they have their hands on you. So you sit quietly- your judgment day is coming, Harrow.” He stalked off back to where Ard sat.

Harrow laid his head back against the tree behind him. As the Nightbell dragged him slowly into the dark, he tried not to think about tomorrow.