Like many writers, I find inspiration in dreams. But I constantly struggle trying to hold onto the memories of my dreams. They are incredibly vivid and overwhelming while they last. But the moment I wake up, they melt away and disappear — unless I write them down. But is it the same dream once it becomes a story? The problem is that dreams have a different logic than narratives. And trying to "translate" a dream into storytelling inevitably becomes just that — a translation. It may be better or worse than the original, but it is different.

Many writers have faced the problem of translating dreams into coherent plots and stories, while retaining that ineffable quality that makes dreams…well, dreamlike. There is a whole sub-genre of fantasy called oneiric fantasy that deals with the porous boundary between dream and reality. Some books in this genre try to recreate the jagged illogic of nightmares. Others are concerned with the influence of dreams on waking life. Still others — and those are my favorite — build whole worlds soaked in the atmosphere of dreams. Here are five of my favorites, both well-known and obscure.

H. P. Lovecraft, The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath (1927)

I am not a big fan of the Mythos, but this novella is both charming and unusual — a slow glide into a nightmare.

Ramsay Campbell, Incarnate (1983)

This one of the many horror novels that explore lucid dreaming, along with F. R. Tallis The Sleep Room (2013) and Brandon Zennan The Experiment of Dreams (2014). Campbell's novel is a very slow burn but some of its imagery is unforgettable.

James Brogden, Tourmaline (2013) and its sequels The Realt and The Narrows

Literally, a world of dreams (and of course, nightmares). The characters are forgettable but the settings are wonderfully bizarre.

Tony Ballantine, Dream London (2013).

This is about nightmares taking over the city of London. I may be in the minority, but I loved this novel that combines two of my favorite things: dreaming and the Big Smoke (London).

Artyom Dereschuk, Matryoshka (2019)

I bet you have never read anything like this. Set in contemporary Russia, it is a wild ride through post-Soviet decay and contemporary greed, all spiced up with some of the strangest dream sequences imaginable.