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Stephen KingMid-1980s, on a flight to London (King gives no exact date)

Stephen King's nightmare on the way to London

A writer falls asleep on a plane and dreams of a fan who holds her favourite author captive. The note he scribbled became Misery.

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Der Traum

Nach den unten genannten Quellen in eigenen Worten nacherzählt, nicht zitiert.

Stephen King has written that he fell asleep on a flight from the United States to England and dreamed about a popular writer who falls into the hands of a psychotic fan living on a remote farm. The fan is devoted to him and utterly dangerous.

When he woke he wrote the idea down on a cocktail napkin so he would not lose it. In London he kept going: he wrote the opening pages in a notebook at his hotel, at a desk that the concierge told him had belonged to Rudyard Kipling.

Woher die Geschichte stammt

King tells the story in On Writing (2000), his memoir of the craft, where he uses it to show that a story often starts as a single situation rather than a plot. Misery was published in 1987 and filmed in 1990; Kathy Bates won an Academy Award for playing Annie Wilkes.

The dream as King tells it was darker than the published novel, and he says the book changed direction as he wrote it. The date of the flight is approximate; he gives the story, not the day.

Wie der Traum gedeutet wurde

Forschung

Nightmares about being trapped and at someone's mercy are among the commonest threatening dreams. Threat simulation theory reads them as rehearsal, while the continuity hypothesis looks for the waking worry. For a famous author whose fans wrote to him constantly, the worry is not hard to find.

Geschichte

King presents the dream as a seed, not a gift: the notebook, the hotel desk and the months of work are as much part of his story as the nap. It is one of the best documented modern examples of a novel that began in sleep.

Fragen zu deinen eigenen Träumen

  1. Have you ever dreamed of being trapped by someone who says they love you?
  2. Which relationships in your life feel like they ask more than you can give?
  3. Do you keep anything by your bed to catch an idea before it fades?

Symbole in diesem Traum

Hattest du einen Traum, der dir im Gedächtnis geblieben ist?

Meinen Traum erzählen

Quellen

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  1. Stephen King (2000). On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. New York: Scribner.

    als Quelle angeführt, nicht vervielfältigt

    • Fundstelle: section on the origin of Misery (Fundstelle noch nicht geprüft)
    • Fundstelle: origin of Misery (Fundstelle noch nicht geprüft)

  2. Antti Revonsuo (2000). The reinterpretation of dreams: An evolutionary hypothesis of the function of dreaming. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 23(6): 877-901.

    als Quelle angeführt, nicht vervielfältigtumstrittene Theorie

    • Fundstelle: threat simulation (Fundstelle noch nicht geprüft)

    Threat simulation theory: dreams as rehearsal for danger. Influential but contested; presented as one theory among several.

  3. G. William Domhoff (2003). The Scientific Study of Dreams: Neural Networks, Cognitive Development, and Content Analysis. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

    als Quelle angeführt, nicht vervielfältigt

    • Fundstelle: continuity hypothesis (Fundstelle noch nicht geprüft)