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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/2866
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Opening with a dream is a technique that I've seen get a lot of criticism. I think there's a few reasons for it.

One, if you're using the dream/vision to immerse your readers in a world, it's asking a lot of them to get immersed in that world, and then a few paragraphs later have to jump into a whole NEW world when the dreamer returns to reality.

Two, it may create tension, but it's a false tension. The reader feels ripped off, only a few paragraphs into your story, to realize that s/he has ALREADY been fooled.

Three, as an alternative to two - if you acknowledge that the scene you're painting is just a vision/dream, then there isn't any tension at all. Why do I care that some character I don't know is having a dream about some place I don't know? I don't know.

There's probably a four, relating to being a cliche, etc., but those three are the ones that jump out at me.

For your situation, how about borrowing an idea from One Monkey and having the story open in the doctor's office? You can establish enough about your character to make us care a little, you can establish a bit of setting, and you can have tension from the fact that he thinks he's got a tumour, or is going crazy, or something. And then he could have the vision, right there in the doctor's office. Just a suggestion.

Original score: 9