Dagnabbit, I am missing out on something... I commonly have a sound track in my dreams. I've written at least a couple dozen songs that major sections of came directly from a dream. I had a dream about being in Bethlehem on Christmas Eve and going out to the manger (with a starless sky and no Star of Bethlehem) only to find that Christ wasn't born. That's the most horrible dream I can remember, but I woke up with the song, Without That Night. I've had many dreams that were much more mundane that spun-off verses to songs. I had a dream that started out with a song... "Old dog Tray is out on the backporch sleeping, and all the windows of the house got the shades pulled down." The movie/dream turned out to be a Western, but the song ended up just being plain old everyday Midwestern small-town life.
Another dream came after visiting a nursing home, and was in direct response to feeling moved by the people I sang for. It started out with a line I never would have written awake.."And somewhere inside her there's still that young girl, with a Tortoise-Shell comb in her hair."

Who says songwriting is hard? I can do it in my sleep..

Jerry