I Hate Dream Sequences

I've been listening to Truman Capote's famous true-crime book, "In Cold Blood" for the past couple of weeks. This book is so fact-based, so full of long quotations and testimonials, that it reads like a documentary. This morning, however, I spent ten minutes of my commute listening to a painful and highly detailed account of a dream that the lead detective had about the case. I could barely stand it.

I think it was meant to convey how completely consumed the detective was with solving the mystery at hand. He lived and breathed it so completely that he didn't even stop thinking about the case while sleeping. Instead of a long, drawn out dream sequence, I would've preferred this sentence, "Detective Dewey lived and breathed it so completely that he didn't even stop thinking about the case while sleeping." Look! I just saved 12 pages!

I hate dream sequences. HATE them. I hate them in books, I hate them in movies. I will actually skip over dream sequences in books. I'm not precisely sure why they annoy me so much. I think part of me considers dream sequences to be cheating on the part of the author or screenwriter. Anything goes in a dream sequence, right? Can't find a realistic or natural way to work in your symbolism? Can't express a character's feelings through the traditional means of dialogue, actions, or the way he interacts with his environment? No problem! Just give him a wacky dream!