Many consider dreams to be a door into the subconscious mind. The hidden truths they reveal can appear in various forms. Nightmares that evoke disgust, shame, or sorrow or terrify you to your very core are one. Or they could show up as a thrilling, once‑in‑a‑lifetime experience you don’t want to wake up from—and just about everything in between. For some, they can even inspire masterpieces, the likes of which the world has never seen. Check out these 10 masterpieces plucked from the artist’s subconscious.

10 Masterpieces Plucked From Dreams

10 “#9 Dream” (1974): John Lennon

After a months‑long bout of writer’s block, John Lennon fell into a “half‑sleep” and heard a mysterious voice speak to him in a language he didn’t understand. The sound jolted him from his sleep, and the words kept playing in his mind: “Ah! böwakawa poussé, poussé.” For the first time in months, lyrics flowed freely. Lennon discussed the process of writing the song in an interview with BBC:

“That’s what I call craftsmanship writing, meaning, you know, I just churned that out. I’m not putting it down, it’s just what it is, but I just sat down and wrote it, you know, with no real inspiration, based on a dream I’d had.”

May Pang, an Apple Corps employee with whom Lennon had a Yoko‑Ono‑authorized short affair, described the track as one of his favorite songs from his 1974 album Walls and Bridges:

“This was one of John’s favourite songs… because it literally came to him in a dream. He woke up and wrote down those words along with the melody. He had no idea what it meant, but he thought it sounded beautiful. John arranged the strings in such a way that the song really does sound like a dream.”

9 Songs of Innocence (1789): William Blake

William Blake, an English poet, artist, and printmaker, pioneered a printing method he used to create some of his most famous works. These include Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, two illustrated books of poetry that provide a “profound commentary on the human condition, from the purity of youth [Songs of Innocence] to the harsh realities of life [Songs of Experience].” To create the “illuminated” works, Blake used copper plates for the text and illustrations, then finished each picture by hand with watercolors.

Even more unique than the artworks was the inspiration for the printing process used to make them, which Blake described as a dream in which his youngest brother, Robert, visited. Blake was training his brother in drawing, painting, and engraving when Robert suddenly fell ill during the winter of 1787. As Robert died, Blake claims to have watched his spirit rise through the ceiling, “clapping its hands for joy.” Robert continued to visit him after that, eventually showing him the printing method for which Blake would become renowned.

8 Waking Life (2001): Richard Linklater

An image near the beginning of independent filmmaker Richard Linklater’s movie Waking Life was based on one of his childhood dreams. In the scene, a 9‑10‑year‑old boy wearing a striped T‑shirt holds the handle of the family car when his body suddenly begins to float upward. A mysterious force appears to pull him up and away from the world and its “everyday reality.” Holding onto the car with all his strength, the boy resists the temptation to drift away.

“That’s a very early memory of mine,” said Linklater, “I call it a memory, but obviously it took place in a dream state. When you’re a little kid, you don’t really make the distinction that clearly. As you get older, you build up a solid model of real versus unreal, and you start depreciating the unreal. But that moment was weird. I remember it very clearly because it was scary but kind of exhilarating—a sort of non‑gravity, upward pull away from what you felt the whole world was, but at the same time, there was some force begging me to stay. That was some strange memory.”

7 The Red Book (2009): Carl Jung

Carl Jung’s famous Red Book is a compilation of illustrated journal entries from a particularly dark period in his life when he was “haunted” by troubling visions and heard inner voices. He ultimately considered this time a “confrontation with the unconscious.” Though kept private during his lifetime, the entries were found and published after his death.

Journalist Sara Corbett describes The Red Book as “a kind of phantasmagoric morality play, driven by Jung’s own wish not just to chart a course out of the mangrove swamp of his inner world but also to take some of its riches with him. It was this last part – the idea that a person might move beneficially between the poles of the rational and irrational, the light and the dark, the conscious and the unconscious—that provided the germ for his later work and for what analytical psychology would become.”

Or, in Jung’s own words, “All my works, all my creative activity, has come from those initial fantasies and dreams.”

6 Frankenstein (1816): Mary Shelley + Other Classics

Mary Shelley wrote in her preface to the novel Frankenstein that her inspiration came from a nightmare she had while staying in Geneva with the poet Lord Byron. When she went to sleep, she wrote:

“I saw—with shut eyes but acute mental vision—I saw the pale student of the unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life and stir with an uneasy, half‑vital motion…”

Similarly, Robert Louis Stevenson is said to have developed the storyline for The Curious Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde after a nightmare where he witnessed “a man forced into a cabinet after ingesting a potion that would ‘convert him into a brutal monster.’”

Another example is Bram Stoker’s (1897) Dracula. According to his son, Stoker claimed the book’s inspiration came from a nightmare induced by “a too‑generous helping of dressed crab at supper”—one of several theories supported by his notes.

5 Book of Dreams (1960): Jack Kerouac

Dreams were a consistent source of inspiration for American writer Jack Kerouac, a pioneer of the Beat Generation of the 1950s. He believed they held a more profound meaning beyond the surface level and eventually published a collection of personal dream journal entries titled Book of Dreams. In it, he writes: “Dreams are the touchstones of our characters.” Through his writing, Kerouac presents a fascinating insight into his mind and creative process while encouraging readers to examine their dreams as a powerful tool for self‑discovery and artistic expression.

The Book of Dreams defies traditional structures and styles by its lack of organization. Divided into sections, each with its theme, there is no straightforward narrative or plot. Kerouac presents the dreams in a stream‑of‑consciousness style that reflects how dreams unfold. Also thrown into the mix is a dream that inspired Kerouac’s most famous novel, On the Road, in which he saw himself and his friend Neal Cassady driving cross‑country in a car.

4 Dreamcatcher (2001): Stephen King

In 1990, a minivan smashed into Stephen King as he walked down a country road near his home in North Lovell, Maine. He underwent three operations and endured a months‑long recovery, during which he experienced vivid dreams. Some of these dreams ultimately led to the creation of one of his best‑selling novels, Dreamcatcher, later adapted as a film directed by Lawrence Kasdan.

“The first really strong idea that occurred to me after the accident was four guys in a cabin in the woods,” said King. “Then you introduce this one guy who staggers into the camp saying, ‘I don’t feel well,’ and he brings this awful hitchhiker with him. I dreamed a lot about that cabin and those guys in it.”

Due to the severity of his injuries, King was unable to type. He wrote the story in longhand in just six months. His vivid dreams were the closest he had gotten to the type of otherworldly phenomena present in so much of his work.

3 The Devil’s Trill Sonata (1799): Giuseppe Tartini

Giuseppe Tartini’s most famous musical piece, “Violin Sonata in G Minor”—more famously known as “The Devil’s Trill”—contains a dreamlike harmonic vibe and a melody that is hauntingly poignant and deeply dramatic. It is one of the most challenging scores to play, even by today’s standards. Equally stirring is the sonata’s inspiration: a nightmare in which Tartini made a pact with the devil.

Tartini explained in an interview with French astronomer Jerome Lalande just moments before his death on February 26, 1770:

“One night, in the year 1713, I dreamed I had made a pact with the devil for my soul. Everything went as I wished: my new servant anticipated my every desire. Among other things, I gave him my violin to see if he could play. How great was my astonishment on hearing a sonata so wonderful and so beautiful, played with such great art and intelligence, as I had never even conceived in my boldest flights of fantasy.

I felt enraptured, transported, enchanted: my breath failed me, and I awoke. I immediately grasped my violin in order to retain, in part at least, the impression of my dream. In vain! The music which I at this time composed is indeed the best that I ever wrote, and I still call it the ‘Devil’s Trill,’ but the difference between it and that which so moved me is so great that I would have destroyed my instrument and have said farewell to music forever if it had been possible for me to live without the enjoyment it affords me.”

2 Persistence of Memory (1931): Salvador Dali

Spanish artist Salvador Dali considered sleep as a tool that could fuel his Surrealist practice due to its connection to the unconscious mind. He would take many brief naps to enter into a “fleeting hyper‑associative state,” enabling him to combine unpredictable associations and concepts to challenge perceptions and evoke dreams. It was a technique that became known as the Paranoiac‑Critical Method. In the artist’s words, the technique was a “spontaneous method of irrational knowledge” that allowed him to tap into his subconscious and explore the depths of his psyche.

The unusual method relied on self‑induced paranoia and hallucinations, allowing Dali accurately to create “hand‑painted dream photographs” that were simultaneously rotted in realism and fantasy, deliberately designed to confuse the viewer’s eye. He used this method to make many artworks, including one of his most iconic paintings, The Persistence of Memory. Dali hallucinated the entire scene before painting what he saw.

1 Avatar (2009): James Cameron

More than one idea for a movie scene has come from what James Cameron describes as his “spectacular dreams.” As he said in an interview with GQ magazine, “I have my own private streaming service that’s better than any of the sh*t out there. And it runs every night for free.”

Not only did he dream of the iconic scene in Aliens where Ripley sees the Alien Queen after standing in a silent room full of eggs, but his fantasy epic, Avatar, also came from his subconscious:

“I woke up after dreaming of this kind of bioluminescent forest with these trees that look kind of like fiberoptic lamps and this river that was glowing bioluminescent particles and kind of purple moss on the ground that lit up when you walked on it… And these kinds of lizards that didn’t look much until they took off. And then they turned into these rotating fans, kind of like living Frisbees, and they come down and land on something.”

When he woke up, he was so excited that he drew it. The drawing later saved him from at least ten lawsuits after some claimed he’d “beamed the idea out of their head.”

When we talk about 10 artistic masterpieces that dazzled the world, we usually picture works that took months, even years, to perfect. Yet history is full of jaw‑dropping examples where a bestseller was penned in days, a chart‑topping hit was composed in minutes, or a celebrated canvas was finished in just a handful of hours.

10 Artistic Masterpieces Created in Record Time

10 Visage: Head of a Faun

Some painters have turned speed into an art form. Take Morris Katz, for instance, who pioneered a method he called “instant art” and allegedly cranked out a staggering 225,000 paintings in his career. Picasso, ever the prolific genius, is credited with roughly 13,500 canvases over a lifetime, according to Artsy. He famously painted the monumental Guernica in a brisk three‑week sprint, and legend has it he once produced a portrait on the back of a café menu in just five minutes.

Among his rapid‑fire feats, the piece most celebrated for sheer velocity is “Visage: Head of a Faun.” Created for Henri‑Georges Clouzot’s 1955 documentary *Le Mystère Picasso*, Picasso sketched the work in a mere five minutes while the camera rolled, constrained by the limited supply of film stock the director could afford.

The drawing resurfaced recently in the Royal Academy’s “Picasso and Paper” exhibition. While the clock ticked, Picasso kept morphing the image—shifting from a flower to a fish, then a chicken, before settling on a face—layering monochrome lines with vivid, saturated hues, as Open Culture observed.

9 A Study in Scarlet

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s debut novel featuring the legendary detective, A Study in Scarlet, first saw the light of day in 1887’s *Beeton’s Christmas Annual* before being issued as a standalone book. The story introduces us to Holmes and Watson’s inaugural meeting and chronicles a grim discovery of a corpse in a dilapidated house.

Remarkably, Conan Doyle managed to pen the entire novel in just three weeks—a swift feat considering it launched the wildly popular Sherlock Holmes franchise, a cultural juggernaut that continues to thrive more than 130 years later.

8 The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Robert Louis Stevenson’s chilling 1886 novella, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, emerged from a nightmarish dream. Suffering from tuberculosis and possibly under the influence of medicinal cocaine, Stevenson awoke to his wife Fanny screaming after hearing him shriek in his sleep—his subconscious had birthed the tale of dual identity.

He allegedly drafted the first version in three frantic days, only for Fanny to burn it in a fit of criticism. Undeterred, Stevenson rewrote the story over another three‑day burst. While folklore suggests a six‑day marathon, scholars estimate the entire process took roughly six weeks, still an astonishingly rapid creation for such an enduring classic.

7 Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)

When producer‑songwriter Terius “The‑Dream” Youngdell walked into a studio and declared he’d craft Beyoncé’s next smash hit, many assumed it would be a long‑haul effort. Instead, the anthem “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)”—the crown jewel of her 2008 *I Am… Sasha Fierce* album—was composed in a lightning‑quick 17 minutes and vaulted to No. 1 on the Billboard charts.

The Dream later explained to *Insider* that “the songs that take the smallest amount of time are usually the biggest because you’re not over‑thinking it,” a mantra that proved spot‑on for this timeless dance‑floor filler.

6 Gismonda Poster

Czech visionary Alphonse Mucha, though later famed for his elaborate Art Nouveau designs, earned his first major break in a surprisingly short span—just under a week. In December 1894, the illustrious French actress Sarah Bernhardt commissioned a new poster for her play *Gismonda* from the Parisian lithographers Lemerciers.

Bernhardt, ever the marketing savant, wanted something fresh and was racing against time. With most Parisian designers on holiday, the workshop manager begged the young, relatively unknown Mucha—who happened to be nearby working on a favor for a friend—to step in.

Within seven days, Mucha delivered a poster that would become a cornerstone of the Art Nouveau movement. The image depicts Bernhardt as a Byzantine princess, draped in gold against a backdrop of palm leaves, and remains one of his most iconic works alongside pieces like *Zodiac* and the *La Plume* poster.

5 Yesterday

The Beatles’ 1965 ballad “Yesterday” is renowned not only for its haunting melody but also for the astonishing speed of its inception. Paul McCartney woke from a dream with the tune fully formed, and, according to *NME*, he transcribed the melody in under a minute.

McCartney later confessed, “I have no idea how I wrote that. I just woke up one morning, and it was in my head. I didn’t believe it for about two weeks.” The lyrical component, however, required a more measured approach, taking a couple of months to perfect.

While the single is officially credited to the Lennon‑McCartney partnership, John Lennon later clarified that he had little to do with the composition, giving McCartney full credit for the masterpiece that would become the most covered song in history.

4 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

What began as a simple summer‑holiday assignment in 1960 blossomed into a literary classic. Muriel Spark’s novella *The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie* follows an unconventional Edinburgh teacher whose charismatic mentorship shapes the lives of her students during the 1930s.

Spark recalled, “We were given to write about how we spent our summer holidays, but I wrote about how [my teacher] spent her summer holidays instead. It seemed more fascinating.” The concise, one‑month writing sprint yielded a work that resonated deeply with readers.

The novel’s impact extended to the silver screen, inspiring the celebrated 1969 film in which Maggie Smith earned an Oscar for her unforgettable portrayal of Miss Brodie.

3 Your Song

When Elton John teamed up with lyricist Bernie Taupin, their collaborative routine often involved working separately before merging ideas. Yet the 1970 ballad “Your Song” materialized at breakneck speed—both music and lyrics were crafted in roughly 20 minutes.

John recounted to *Rolling Stone*, “It came out in about 20 minutes, and when I was done, I called him in, and we both knew. I was 22, and he was 19, and it gave us so much confidence.” The track quickly became one of his most beloved hits and marked his first major U.S. success.

2 The Boy in Striped Pyjamas

John Boyne’s harrowing Holocaust novel *The Boy in Striped Pyjamas* was drafted in an astonishing two and a half days—a frenzied burst that left him surviving on minimal sleep and scant meals. This lightning‑quick approach defied his usual, more measured writing process.

Producing a full‑length novel of such emotional weight in just a handful of days is almost unimaginable, yet Boyne managed to weave a poignant tale of eight‑year‑old Bruno befriending Shmuel, a child inmate at the concentration camp overseen by Bruno’s own father.

The story later leapt to the big screen in 2008 under the title *The Boy in Striped Pajamas*, starring young actor Asa Butterfield and sparking both commercial success and spirited debate.

1 Rocky

Sylvester Stallone found himself penniless, even considering selling his beloved dog to make ends meet, when inspiration struck after watching Muhammad Ali face off against the underdog Chuck Wepner—who famously knocked Ali down. Stallone seized the moment, declaring, “If this isn’t a metaphor for life…” and proceeded to write the *Rocky* screenplay in a mere three days.

The resulting film not only captured the Academy’s Best Picture honor but also ignited a sprawling franchise, catapulting Stallone to stardom and cementing *Rocky* as a timeless cinematic work of art that continues to inspire generations.