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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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El sueño

Narrado con nuestras propias palabras a partir de las fuentes indicadas abajo, sin citas textuales.

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.

De dónde viene la historia

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.

Cómo se ha interpretado

Investigación

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.

Historia

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.

Preguntas para tus propios sueños

  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?

Símbolos de este sueño

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Fuentes

Todas las interpretaciones de esta página se basan en estas obras. Aún no se han comprobado todas las referencias a páginas; las pendientes están marcadas.

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

    citado, no reproducido

    • Ubicación de la cita: section on the origin of Misery (referencia aún sin comprobar)
    • Ubicación de la cita: origin of Misery (referencia aún sin comprobar)

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

    citado, no reproducidoteoría cuestionada

    • Ubicación de la cita: threat simulation (referencia aún sin comprobar)

    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.

    citado, no reproducido

    • Ubicación de la cita: continuity hypothesis (referencia aún sin comprobar)