Dreams like art…

“Just as paintings can be impressionistic or abstract or can appear to be so real they jump off the canvas, so can our dreams.  Dreams can also be like a collage, an artistic composition made up of various materials such as paper, fabric, and wood.  Our dream collages can be as illogical as snippets of conversation spoken by a woman balancing a tepee on her head as she’s chased by a pck of llamas.  Most of the time there seems to be no rhyme or reason to them, but if we’re willing to reflect on them, they make perfect sense.  Eventually, dreams are our spiritual illustrated discovery journals.”- Sarah Ban Breathnach in Something More.

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Writing Down Your Dreams

As a lover of words and literature, I find the process of writing so intriguing.  But I realize that not everyone enjoys writing, or even feels comfortable doing it.  Believe it or not, I too have my days when I think the last thing I want to do is write some more.  Sometimes, I’m scared that nothing interesting will come out.   But… there is a secret behind what makes me pick up and start writing again:  it’s not until you actually try it and give it a chance that you come to learn that writing has its own power to grow… grow ideas, grow new perceptions, grow solutions and even grow a whole set of words that you never had planned in your head beforehand.   And I am always fascinated to find out where this will take me. And the only way to find out, is to START the writing.

One of the greatest lessons I learned from my favorite English Literature Professor- Lee Johnson- is this Wordsworthian idea that writing has “the power to move thought forward”.  The romantic poet Wordsworth felt that the mere act of putting pen to paper (or pen nib and ink to scrolls- in that period?) – writing a word or one thought down- actually allows more thoughts to develop and surface.  It is, therefore, in the act of writing that the writing  grows. Sometimes, you might think you have no idea what to write, but it’s because you haven’t started yet. Let the writing happen for you. Writing actually generates more writing.  Believe me, it works.

I have suggested in previous entries in this blog that using a voice recorder, or scribbling down images and pictures of your dreams, is a helpful way to record the dreams as immediately as you can.

Nevertheless, it is important not to use this as an excuse not to write the dream down in words.  If you can try not to, do not use your voice and sketches as a substitute for the writing. The reason for this is that, just as Wordsworth described, it is in the writing – the process of putting the words down- that more ideas and details emerge.  It’s not that your mind will be making things up as you write. It is that you will start jogging your mind’s memory as you start jotting the first thought or idea down.  “Even if you only remember one object, …record the object, your feelings, and ideas about it. …Sometimes in the process of recording this snippet of information you will recall other pieces.”- (Dreams of the Goddess-p. 85)

The digital recorder and sketches would be better thought of as tools to help you to better remember and describe the dream so that once you do write it down, you have a more accurate picture to work from.  This does not mean that you have to write every dream down or stress yourself out with too many words.  Simple is fine.  But try not to eliminate the writing. You’ll be amazed at what you get out of it once you start.

The more you record your dreams in writing, the more value you give your subconsious and the dream world.

” Befriending the dream begins with a plain attempt to listen to the dream, to set down on paper or in a dream diary in its own words just what it says… and so one takes care receiving the dream’s feelings, as with a living person with whom we begin a relationship.”- James Hillman (in Dreams of the  Goddess)

It’s getting your mind into the habit of this recording and honoring your dreams that is important.  It’s similar to writing in a journal. Some people do not like writing, but once they train themselves to write in a journal regularly, it becomes more natural and comes more easily.  With dreams, it helps to practise keeping track of them.  Writing, with its power to move thought forward, is one of the best ways to do this.

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