Back in my art school days, I dreamt I was in a pawn shop and bought a Pentax k1000. That was back in '86. I thought to myself when I awoke, "well that was weird, cuz I'm not interested in photography at all." A few years later, I was wandering around downtown Victoria, and passed a pawn shop. I went in and saw a Pentax K1000, and bought it. It's been all about photography ever since.
Dreams and creativeness was prescribed in the Surrealist Manifesto. Dali was best for connecting his painting with dreams. But his relation with his Russian wife was very awkward.
If I'll start to use my dreams and photograph naked ladies, my Russian wife will boot me.
Cannot point directly to an event, but considering that dreams are a vital part of how our brains process and organize information, they definitely have an influence - noticed or not. There have been studies done that say that lack of quality dreamtime has a detrimental effect, especially the REM phase. Depression and all.
I have a recurring theme in my dreams of elevators going down, twisting, breaking and behaving dubious ways... So I decided to pay attention to that and write things down in a journal of sorts (notes in phone), meanwhile enjoying quality Soviet elevator repair YouTube videos for some time. It would be fun to represent this in photography, but in reality it's hard to compress elevator cabin walls and find ones that have problems aligning floors and behaving controllably
As stated - haven't noticed a direct connection, but dreams influence all.
Given I have PTSD photographing my dreams would be both bizarre and dangerous. So my dreams do not influence my photography. Actually my photography is a positive for the most part with respect to my dreams.
Since I am most aware of dreams when I have not slept well, I suppose dreaming has a bad effect on my photography if it indicates poor rest - it does not seem to influence it in subject terms.
My wife seems to dream full colour, movie-like sequences. Must be quite something - it can take 15 minutes to describe one!
In my case it's the reverse--I have a persistent dream in which I'm confronted with something eminently photographable but I don't have a camera
Edit: maybe I misspoke. I did buy a little Rollei 35 and for a long time I kept it in my car or next to the front door so I could always have a camera handy. Might have been because of the dreams.