This isn’t about using your own dreams for inspiration - though I am obviously in favor. (Jennifer Dumpert’s Liminal Dreaming is a fun manual for getting more juice out of that side of your brain, if that’s what you’re looking for.)
These are rules for dreams and dream interpretation by PCs, and presume that such things are, as they are in many human cultures, a relatively ordinary part of the mystical experience of the world.
(I believe these also meet ISO compatibility standards for MOSAIC Strict, and issue all necessary declarations to that effect.)
The dream roll
Make this pertaining to one PC's dreams each time there’s a long rest and either a player is curious about it or the GM wishes. (Or if there’s deliberately induced hypnosis, whatever.) GM rolls 2d6 secretly.
On a 2-5, the dream is random bullshit, albeit random bullshit PCs can read into.
On a 6-8, the dream is random bullshit, unless you’re in an area with Deep Emotional Resonance, or being observed by scrying entities, or surrounded by invisible spirits, or have some other particularly good reason to have your subconscious invaded from without. If you're sleeping somewhere that Something Happened, you get visions pertaining to that; if someone's scrying on you, you can talk to them. If something wants to talk to you, for some reason, they can.
On a 9, at least one unknown but real threat or opportunity appears in the dream in coded form.
On a 10, the dream lies to you. This is different from bullshit; a skilled interpretation will reveal actively false or dangerous intelligence.
On an 11, at least one unknown but real threat or opportunity appears in relatively uncoded, direct form.
On a 12, you get a vision full of relatively straightforward, useful information. A vision of the villain's evil plans, or where something is, or what God wants you to do, or whatever. There's a dressing of confabulatory bullshit around it, but the core is real and straighforward.
Narrating dreams
Dreams are naturally confabulatory, i.e., we make them up as we go along. This makes them perfect opportunities for characterization, by prompting things like “what’s something you’re afraid of?,” “what was your childhood home like?,” “who’s the one who got away?” and so on. Regardless of whether it’s a true dream or a false dream, do a mix of asking for these confabulations and throwing in seemingly arbitrary details. If it’s a true dream, then at least some of it (both basic emotional cues and surrounding odd details) points to true stuff.
If you’re lazy, just do this with remembering one emotionally cued element with one arbitrary additional detail.
Interpreting dreams
If the dreamer’s willing to share with someone else, the someone else can try to interpret. As with the dream roll itself, the GM rolls 2d6 secretly.
If it’s bullshit, then on 2-5 you suggest a false conclusion, and on anything else you’re stumped.
If it’s not, then on 2-3 you get a mistaken conclusion and on 9-12 you get an accurate, but likely incomplete, one.
(Note that false dreams are distinct from bullshit ones. Bullshit dreams are all noise so any signal you get from them is coincidental or imposed, whereas false dreams, accurately interpreted, will give you dangerously false information - just as if, if I write down a lie and cryptographically encode it, an accurate decryption will yield a lie.)
Obviously anyone can speculate beyond this, but that’s what rolling per se will get you. You can’t roll to interpret your own dreams.
Bonuses on these sorts of rolls
I’d advise the GM to figure out what bonuses characters get on these, if any. If you’re playing 5e, then perhaps Wis, being a Sorcerer or Warlock, and having a chaotic alignment increase the chances of significant dreams, while Int, being a cleric, and proficiency in Insight improve interpretation slightly. Or you could just make a guess about how dreamy and intuitive each character is. Either way I suggest not telling players the formula; let it be as mysterious to them as dreams are to us. Perhaps your GM is just pretending to roll and it’s all bullshit? One can never know.
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