I am in deep trouble. Trouble that is deeper than the rocky floor of the Marianas Trench. I just woke up from a brief nap–can we call it a Katnap? No. We cannot–and the dream in the midst of that nap was perhaps the most perfect skeleton of the most wonderful story I’ve ever had live in my head.
As ridiculous as it sounds, I’ve dreamt a lot of stories over the years. My normal dreams are a bit like a Dali painting with me starring as one of the melting pocketwatches or an episode of The This Is Your Life Boat where I’m trapped in an odd experience with random Very Special Guest Stars from various eras of my life. You know, pushing through a bargain basement sale at Harrod’s with my third grade teacher and Vern Yip. That sort of thing.
But every couple of weeks or so, my normal notnormal dreams are replaced by what I can only describe as a Brainmovie. The dream is me, cast in one or more parts of a very compelling story. They’re great stories, too. More than once I’ve found one of my good dream stories serving as a movie (Ghost) or a great book (the second half of Shining Through). There has been more than one time where I’ve been late for breakfast because I’ve tried to go back to sleep and grab more of the story before facing my day.
And this dream I just dreamed was the best story I’ve ever dreamed. So good that I want to write it up. But I’m in the middle of writing up other things I promised myself I would finish. So I’m torn between starting an 8000th work of fiction, ignoring the new hotness or just going back to sleep.
Just Another Pretty Farce 
If it was the best ever, go back and finish the dream. Then at least get an outline down.
I’m jealous of you: at least you get creative in dreams in ways you can do something with. But I have (twice, in fact) dreamed an entire (imaginary) Old 97s album,* and loved the music, but can I recreate it when I wake up? Noooooooo. Which … I dunno, it’s not like there’s a dearth of Old 97s’ material out there, but somehow I feel that if I could record that music from that dream and get it to the band, they would put it out for real, and then there would be more of it.
*what makes this weirder is that they are not my favorite band.