Interview with Raymond E Feist by Victoria Quinton May 1998
VQ: Are your dreams predominantly visual
REF: OK, the dreams I remember are. I don't know if I have ever recalled a dream that was not. I think I read somewhere even blind people dream primarily in pictures. I dream in color, which I believe is consideredrare, as most people do it only infrequently, then again it is also in the category of "dreams I remember." Most of my dreams are the early morning, just before I awake kind, and I don't remember anything significant in most of them.
VQ: Had you "met" any of the characters from Midkemia, Kelewan or elsewhere in dreams before writing about them
REF: No. Not one.
VQ: Do you dream of the way people talk before you begin writing
REF: Nope. Those are skills used by a writer to do writing. There's no dreaming involved. There's creating voices in my head, which is a writers trick for making character dialogue sound different to the reader.
VQ: Have you studied mythology
REF: Studied no. I have no formal education in myth. Have I read myth Sure. Anyone with a half-decent liberal arts education has been exposed to it, from Edith Hamleton to Joseph Campbell.
Best, R.E.F.
Never attribute to malice what can satisfactorily be explained away by stupidity.
Interview displayed by permission of the interviewer and is copyright Victoria Quinton 1998. No reproduction without permission of the author.
Victoria is also the Australian Contact for the project on international dreamwork for the Association for the Study of Dreams.
