Have you ever had a complex idea spring from almost bugger-all?

[Jakub324]

Mine came from a single, unbidden mental image of a man stuck in a crevasse being glared at by eyes belonging to a shadowy predator. Now, it's a richly detailed universe, or so my brother and some friends tell me.

 

[smearyllama]

I get really neat ideas from bizarre dreams.
A dream about a train traveling across a frozen wasteland evolved into a possible element of a Mega Man fanfic.
Stuff like that.