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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/38653
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/38653
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I do not think this is a good strategy at all; for the same reason Galastel has cited: It is anti-climactic. There are no consequences to the drama, and the reader feels deceived by the narrator. Those all contribute to a decision to stop reading.

One way you **might** use something like this is to use it **several** times so it is the **dreams** that have consequences. That could be an interesting story; the MC has dreams, as readers we know they are dreams but they are a bit cryptic, still somehow they manifest themselves in his real life, and he sometimes fails to recognize how the dream applies to let him avert a disaster (but realizes what the dream was saying after the fact) and sometimes succeeds in averting a disaster because of the dream.

So from the beginning this is part of the MC's normal world; he pays attention to his dreams and they influence his actions and decisions. Then, even though the reader is not tricked into thinking the dream is real, they are engaged because they know it has consequences and needs to be interpreted. The fact that the MC might fail to interpret it correctly adds tension, once the MC is back in his real life. This could (but doesn't have to) have a slightly supernatural element of prescience; but the situations he sees in the dream could also just be predictable things that might happen.

For example, take an easy one: He wakes up with his heart pounding in a panic, Isaac and Noelle are dead in his dream. Later that day, he realizes Isaac **will** come to his house next week, he shows up unannounced every May 17th, on the anniversary of their father's suicide. But he will be at work that day, so Isaac and Noelle could be alone for several hours. **_Discussing suicide._**

He changes his plans to take the 17th off; and sure enough, Isaac shows up right after lunch.

Original score: 1