Robert Louis Stevenson in one of his books, Across the
Plains, devotes a whole chapter to dreams. He was a vivid dreamer
and had the persistent habit of giving specific instructions to
his subconscious every night prior to sleep. He would request
his subconscious to evolve stories for him while he slept. For
example, if Stevenson’s funds were at a low ebb, his command
to his subconscious would be something like this: “Give me a
good thrilling novel which will be marketable and profitable.”
His subconscious responded magnificently.
Stevenson says, “These little brownies [the intelligences
and powers of his subconscious] can tell me a story piece by
piece, like a serial, and keep me, its supposed creator, all the
while in total ignorance of where they aim.” And he added:
“That part of my work which is done when I am up and about
[while he is consciously aware and awake] is by no means
necessarily mine, since all goes to show that the brownies have a
hand in it even then.”