a 'dream journal' can be a wonderful thing, especially for an artist. one cannot predict when 'the muse' will strike, but some of my best ideas (and creative solutions to problems that were plaguing me) have come at that wonderful slide into sleep, or in a dream state, or just coming up from a REM phase. with practice, you can wake up just enought o capture in writing the important nuances of the dream and then fall right back to sleep.

Dave