5 Tips on Using Dreams as a Tool for Inspiration
1. Honor the Dream!
Many people assume that sleep dreams are nothing more than a rehash of the day’s events. I speak from personal experience when I tell you that they are so much more than that. Most dreams, like a fine work of art, are multi-layered, and offer much in the way of inspiration, guidance and motivation if we give them the honor of paying attention to them instead of deleting them or tossing them into the recycle bins in our minds.
2. Keep a Dream Journal
One of the best ways to honor them and to mine them for their creative wealth is to keep a dream journal, recording our dreams on a regular (not necessarily daily) basis. Give your dream a title, record its date, and then write the dream down in present tense. Why? Something about the way the brain works—if you record it in present tense, you remember things you might otherwise forget.
Writers, from Dante to Poe to King, used dreams to feed their writing. William Blake used dreams for both visual and verbal inspiration.
3. Use those Dreamscapes
If you are a painter, making use of the dreamscapes of your dreams can be a straightforward matter of painting the image. If you are a writer, playwright, or choreographer, consider the dreamscapes as settings or backdrops for your story.
Examine the landscape for mood, colors, odd juxtapositions of images or visual puns, and for time period and place. Record any scene that captures your imagination in as much detail as you can, either verbally or visually or both.
4. Who are those Very Important Dream People (V.I.D.P’s)?
Just as the people that cross our paths in waking reality are grist for our creative mills, so too are our dream characters. And they will fade into the ether never to return if we don’t capture them in our dream journal.
First, record or give them their names. If you have no name, then give the character a name according to her role in the dream, for example, “mother”, “scary old man”, “benevolent guide”. Then, write a description of the character, including clothing. Is there something about this person’s character that plays into your current project? Does he take center stage, or act in a supporting role? What does she have to say to you if you dialogue with her?
5. Ask for a Dream
If you could ask your creative muse a question, what would it be? Make the question as succinct as possible and then write it down and put the paper under your pillow. Yes, I know this seems a little out there but, for whatever reason, it helps. Think of your question as you drift to sleep.
You may find the answer floating to the surface of your hypnogogic (that time just before sleep) dreams, or it may come to you in a spontaneous dream. Record your dream or whatever images, words, or feelings come to you.
Don’t discount anything even if it seems too far out in left field to be applicable. Remember to look for puns and other verbal riddles within the dream. And finally, be patient. The answer to your question may not show up the first night, or the second. Sometimes it takes a week or more. You don’t have to ask every night, but at least do it several times a week, trust in the process and stay patient.
Whether you need to break through a creative block, figure out the next scene or step in your project, or want an idea for your next book or painting or song, dreams are an unending source of inspiration and one of the best tools for a meaningful creative life.
May 23rd, 2008 at 9:51 am
Paula,
I don’t remember my dreams very often and those I do remember are often on the disturbing or uncomfortable side. I think your suggestions are interesting and I’d like to try them - do you have suggestions for accessing your dreams? I do have a dream journal next to my bed…for those mornings I do remember them!
May 23rd, 2008 at 3:02 pm
Hi Paula,
Wow, what a wonderful blog! I love dreams and have often used them in my poems. I’ve also taken a couple of dream workshops led by a writer in the Montague Ullman tradition. I also just recently started reading “The History of Last Night’s Dream” by Rodger Kamenetz. Are you familiar with this book? Good stuff.
I really enjoyed all your posts (yes, I read several of them even though I am behind in my work). I’ve bookmarked this site and plan on visiting regularly.
May 25th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
Shawn,
Two great questions or issues here. First, how to access your dreams.
Start with recording in your journal any phrases, thoughts, feelings, or songs that are running through your head when you wake. Or, if you have even just the briefest dream image record that, giving it a title just as you would for a longer dream.
Or, try telling yourself at night, before falling asleep, that you will sleep well, dream well, and remember your dreams when you wake. A kind of dream programming.
I generally recommend to women that they pay attention to the phases of the moon because my experience is that we tend to dream more around the full and new moons, so that might be a time to make the effort to remember and record.
As for the disturbing or uncomfortable dreams, they are often unfinished dreams, that is, dreams we wake ourselves from because of their emotional content. Often we can re-enter those dreams to resolve them, face our fears, or learn the message our dream messengers are trying to send us.
Thanks, Shawn, for visiting.
Cheryl, I haven’t read the book you mention but will check it out. And dreams are great grist for the poetic mill, especially because they both often use metaphor and symbol. Thanks for stopping by!