TREKCORE > VOY > WAKING MOMENTS > Behind the Scenes

	This episode had the working title "Sleep of Reason".
	The episode's writer, André Bormanis, usually worked as science consultant on Star Trek: Voyager and Deep Space Nine. This installment was the second of seven Voyager episodes that bear a writing credit for Bormanis, although this is the only one for which he alone is credited as having written both the story and script. He later said of the episode, "I used to have lucid dreams…I have not had them for a number of years now. I was thinking about a possible story for Chakotay. Given that he has a Native American heritage I thought this would be a good area for him. I pitched it to [executive producer] Jeri Taylor and then I sat down in the writers' room and we broke the story. [Producer] Ken Biller helped a lot on the script."
	During the episode's development, co-executive producer Brannon Braga was anxious about the dream-themed outing. "I was the only guy on the staff who didn't want to do that episode," Braga recalled. "I felt that we do too much dreaming on the show."
	He also felt that the episode helped establish his character's vague spiritual beliefs. Beltran mused about Chakotay, "I don't think his spirituality is very defined [....] When you don't have definition to that sort of spiritual mysticism, you can't use it that much. You can only use it as it pertains to a certain episode [....] If they need me to enter my dreams in order to take care of a problem or a dream alien or something like that, which is in [this] episode [...] then you deal with that."
	An over-jacket that B'Elanna Torres wears on top of her uniform in this episode was intended to help disguise the fact that, although the character is not pregnant at this point in the series, actress Roxann Dawson was.
	Even though this episode's script called for a dreaming Tuvok to apparently find himself naked on Voyager's bridge, Tuvok actor Tim Russ believed that, while a typical Human would doubtlessly be embarrassed by such a situation, a typical Vulcan wouldn't allow his or her self to feel embarrassment and wouldn't even bother to experience such a sensation. Russ noted, "In fact, Vulcans probably don't have the same hang-ups Humans have about being naked. So my take on that, as the actor playing a Vulcan, was to find a way to make that moment work." Rather than focus on any such embarrassment, Russ decided to concentrate on playing Tuvok's reaction to breaching protocol by being improperly out of uniform, in a setting where he was meant to be in uniform. Russ also believed that Tuvok would know his nakedness would make the other bridge officers uncomfortable, another facet that the actor tried to include in his performance of the scene. Shortly after working on this episode", Russ admitted, "That was interesting to play. We never had a chance like that to look at the societal differences between the cultures in so specific a way. I hope we get to do more of that."
	Tim Russ (for the filming of the scene wherein Tuvok seemingly finds himself naked on the bridge) had the makeup department mold a ridiculously large physical appendage that the actor wore on to the set, where – upon Russ removing his dressing gown to reveal that he was wearing the molded attribute instead of underwear – the entirety of the cast and crew broke out laughing.
	This was the last episode of the series (and of Star Trek) to be directed by Alexander Singer and is thus far the last episode of television directed by him.
	The footage of the deer that a dreaming Chakotay sees aboard Voyager was filmed by the second unit filming crew.
	Visual effects supervisor Ronald B. Moore managed to create the cavern full of sleeping aliens, compositing three actors together with CG matte paintings.
	Before this episode's first airing, several fans and members of the production staff expected that the installment would be extremely boring. A production staffer who ultimately revised his opinion of the episode was Brannon Braga. "In the end, I was wrong, of course," he conceded. "It actually had a very good premise driving it, which was the idea that some species see dreams as just as valid a reality as the waking state. That is a fascinating idea."
	This episode achieved a Nielsen rating of 3.7 million homes, and a 6% share.