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I consider myself very fortunate that I have very vivid and often lucid dreams - for 50 years since I was a child. My dreams are like cinematic productions - crazy camera work and all. I dream in color and sound. Many of my dreams have soundtracks. I often wake up in the morning with the soundtrack still playing in my head and I turn on my phone and record. I have dozens of them now. When I was ten years old I had a dream where there was a credit role at the end of the dream. None of my friends had dreams like that so I realized at a young age that I had a gift. It's obviously a very personal gift as no one else can fully experience my dreams. I do write the good ones down and share them with close friends. Of course the nightmares are also very vivid too, and also sometimes have soundtracks. I consider myself a creative person but certainly not exceptionally so. But I do feel blessed to have interesting dreams that I remember.

I too am fortunate to have frequent vivid and lucid dreams. Some of the music generated in my dreams has been the most beautiful I have ever heard. I've always been afraid that I would have less lucid dreams as I got older after reading statistics on lucid dreams, but it's reassuring to hear that you were still able to experience vivid dreams as you got older

i have similar impression of music in my dreams

i wake up with a feeling that what i heard was the most wonderful music ever, yet in reality hardly remember it

I realize that I have amazing dreams of intricate complexity and richness but only recall the impression I had of the dreams upon waking. The rich details dissolve away within minutes. I am left only with the sketchy, and disappointing, meta-data--the impression--I had of the dream.

same for me too

i remember my dreams in full details, like the stage, lightning, color, cast, interactions, dialogs, etc.

but mostly only small part of the whole story

music i often hear either when i fall into sleep or wake up, but also when i play it in the dream like a guitar

also i dream of pseudo-code

yeah, sometimes i wish there was a way to screen-capture my dream, because some of them would make amazing blockbusters (like some dystopian lost worlds)

I've often wished for some kind of dream recorder. I have had some very intense dreams, even "inception" style where I fall asleep inside a dream. In these dreams I'll talk to witty people, hear incredible music, see fantastic sights. But once I wake up 90% of the dream is gone and I only remember some highlights.

A weird realization for me is all the events in the dream were produced by me. Yet in real life I'm useless in front of a piano, or a paint brush. It would be great if there was a way to tap into that creativity once awake.

yeah, a dream within a dream is also a thing

i too hear the best music in the world in my dreams

yet after i wake up i forget it instantly

the only thing i remember then is the fact that i heard it, just not exactly what

> Yet in real life I'm useless in front of a piano, or a paint brush. It would be great if there was a way to tap into that creativity once awake.

Imagination and technical skill (that is, how well you use a piano or paint brush) are orthogonal domains. The way to tap into your imagination is to develop your technical skill to the level where you're capable of translating what you imagine to the physical motions necessary to convey it on canvas.

It's just a sign of the times. There was a long period of time when everybody dreamed in black and white, then when color TV was invented everyone started dreaming in color again.

I don't know if it's particularly creative to dream with a sound track just as I don't know if it's particularly creative to dream in black and white. But your brain is definitely influenced by cinema.

> IMO a lot of movie plots are really bad and stick to typical tropes and lessons

It's a huge problem. I have watched very little American media produced in the last decade because of this. Whenever some coworker talks about how great this new show is, I'll watch it and cringe. It's 90% an A-plot B-plot following the same tired template. Then 10% of it is doing some form of virtue signaling, grievance agitation or other propaganda technique to rile the plebs. I can only imagine people who watch it are desperate for any sort of escape from reality.

Outside the US, at least other countries play with different storytelling techniques. France with their 85 plots in a single story and Korea with their strong single plot driven by the main character's emotion. Plus, thankfully Japan's entertainment industry is going strong by having the different mangas compete with each other until the most interesting stories get adapted into an anime.

> Plus, thankfully Japan's entertainment industry is going strong by having the different mangas compete with each other until the most interesting stories get adapted into an anime.

That's not really true, it's usually the most popular as it's a money issue. Pick randomly a few seasonals and you'll find that most of them are not that good.

The existence of bad doesn't mean the absence of good. There's next to no good American media produced in the last decade. Maybe even longer. Counter that to a country that regularly produces new, original, captivating stories on a regular basis.

You said that the most interesting stories get adapted into anime, not that there are some anime that are good. The first statement is false, the second is true.

Among the manga market, there is a wide range of quality. The success of an individual manga depends heavily on creating a story worth reading and using that quality to attract an audience. Other factors are at play, and what's "good" is a matter of taste. Still, morbius as a manga would not have attracted an audience, so it would not have moved up market.

Otherwise unknown artists can and often do make a name for themselves by telling a good story, and their story gets boosted by a functioning entertainment industry.

Contrast that to America's entertainment industry. A filthy and incestuous cabal of people decide what does and doesn't make it. Ideological zealotry required to step foot at the gates. Serial rapists as the gatekeepers using their power to take advantage of others.

You can see it in other media, too. Same tired tropes most of the time.

You can even see it in social media, you can make out the common tropes shaped by the society/culture/subculture/mainstream media and while original thoughts and non-us/them|black/white comments are there, they get downvoted. Which is pretty sad. All the while, everyone thinks they're right and better than everyone else.

Japan's entertainment is not that different imo, most of it uses the same tropes, maybe with a small difference (that they later forget about). But yeah, some actually original content shows up more often.

Japan's entertainment is fundamentally different because the stories are proved in the manga market before they move up the entertainment chain. In America, the same nepotistic cretins write the same drivel - or are hired to fill in the mad libs template for a sequel's drivel - over and over again. Stories are tested by an executive before coming to TV or theaters. Not an audience.

> I sometimes get dreams of really interesting stories. The dream itself is like a movie

I have that too, surprisingly complex plots. I suspect it's because of what we consume - movies, culture, politics, etc.

I recall dreams seeming to follow movie-like structure sometimes. At least once, there was an additional thing: it seemed I was aware I was an observer of some story directed by someone else, and I was critically aware of tropes and artistic choices the creator was making.

(Maybe I'd been watching a lot of movies or TV shows at the time, not very immersed, and some of that audience mode was just getting tickled by the GC cycle?)

Sounds like your subconscious is a fan of Game of Thrones.

I have similar dreams sometimes, but in the first person. I meet people in my dreams and have interesting, complex conversations (at least they feel that way in the dream). I usually have lucid dreams too-- or it could be that these are the ones I usually remember. Oddly, I will sometimes know when I am about to wake up and I'll say goodbye to the folks I've met.

in my dreams people behave in the same manner i expect them to

for example if the setting is in school, my classmates would react to me as they would in real life

Wait until you take up a role in these unfolding dramas and the story arcs start linking up from past dreams.