Weaving The Dream

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.
 

In my dream, I am walking through my (waking reality) house to put something I am holding out back.  I come out of a front door but instead of walking around to the back yard, I open another door in the front onto a corridor that leads through the house to another door in the back.  As I step into the corridor and close the door behind me, I think “This is a shorter route.  Why do we get stuck traveling in the same patterns all the time?”

Then I notice that there is a door on my right that I remember leads to another part of the house.  I open the door on an unfinished bathroom.  The shower and sink are installed but not the toilet.  There is a large radiator-like fixture in there as well.  I come out and see another door on the same side.

I open it into a large room that, at first, looks like everyone’s ideal media room but the room appears unfinished, sculpted in what looks like Styrofoam. I think how big the space is and have an idea where everything goes.  Then I turn and look back in the direction of the door I came through and what has previous been black and white is now in full color. Somewhere in the back of my mind I have a sense this isn’t real, that this part of the house doesn’t exist.

I see a kitchen with a sink, open shelves above it and a large island/bar.  There is a woman standing there that resembles our mail deliverer who is there to help me.  And I say “I could give workshops here!”  She nods yes, says I could and because of her response, that she sees what I see, I think, oh it is real!  I am so excited about the possibilities, and when I turn back to the media area it is a finished, furnished, comfortable living room.

Now I see an open staircase going up to another floor and I investigate and discover another sitting/living area to the left and know that there are bedrooms beyond on the right – a place, I think, where people who come for my retreats and workshops could stay..  I am so excited by the possibilities.  I wake up.

The title of this dream is appropriate since I have had other dreams about this house having more space, more rooms, yet undiscovered, yet unfinished, and I am always happy about the extra space, regardless of its condition.

Two things strike me about this dream, however.  The first is the comment to myself at the beginning about moving out of old patterns and paths.  Doing this in our lives and our creativity, opens us up to both seeing things in a new way and to discovery.  I would not have found this space in the dream if I hadn’t taken a different path.

The second interesting thing is that in many of my previous dreams the extra space that is off the family room of our waking life house, has, to this point been in the raw or unfinished state.  In this dream, with the exception of the toilet and some paint in the bathroom, this space is finished.  In fact, I remember in the dream having the recollection that a couple and their small child had lived there for a year so the space was even previously inhabited.

This dream had me springing out of bed this morning, humming with the idea of news paths and hoping that the image of a space to teach – a finished space—implies that the I am moving closer to being able to do the kind of teaching and other work that I want to do.  That soon, I will be able to live in this new space, i.e. this new place in my life.  The space is comfortable with cheery colors, comfy furniture and natural materials.  Roomy but not overwhelming.  Intimate, actually, the way I like to work with people.

So what new paths do you need to take?  And what creative space or creative dream do you yet need to claim?

Potential and possibility shimmer in that space and that dream.  Maybe I should title the dream, Spirit House, instead.

In my dream, I help two of my adult sons sort and clean out the accumulated toys, papers, and mementos of their childhood in a room that looks and feels like my childhood bedroom, when the third son walks in and asks if his stuffed animal is in here.

In waking life, that stuffed animal was a constant companion to my son from infancy through most of elementary school.  His fuzzy companion traveled next to him in the car to the grocery store and on long trips to my parents.  He was carried from room to room in our house and then tucked next to him in bed at night. 

In the dream, I point out the animal, high on a shelf behind some other childhood treasures.  My son pushes aside the stuffed sock clown, and lunchbox-sized vinyl case to pull down his old friend. The vinyl case falls on his head but doesn’t hurt him.  With the animal in his arms, my son is no longer the tall adult but once again a child, his head the height of my waist.

“Mommy,” he says, “he is so clean!”

“I washed him for you,” I say.  Then suddenly my son has the animal crushed against his chest and is crying.  I know, in the dream, that he cries tears of happiness at recovering this beloved part of his childhood.  I hug him to me, comforting him.

I wake up.

Practicing what I teach others, I name the dream “Reclaiming a Childhood Toy.”

Of course, that stuffed animal was more than a toy to my quiet, introverted son—it was companion, pretend playmate, holder of secrets and fears.  Amulet, touchstone, and lodestone all in one huggable being of fake fur and stuffing.

Though the dream seems to be about my son, and on one level it may be, I also know that the dream is very much and more about me.

For one thing, the dream occurs, not in my sons’ bedrooms, but in my childhood bedroom.  The lunchbox-sized vinyl case that falls on my son looks very much like the case in which I kept my favorite doll, Besty McCall, and her clothes.  That case sits in my adult bedroom as I write…

Too, my son and I share the same astrological sign—we are both Leos.

So how is the dream about me?  Well, as we say in dream circle, if this dream were my dream (and it is), I would think that, in fact, I am clearing out things from the past that no longer serve me – that I have grown beyond.  BUT—and this is an important but—while I may put away the things from childhood that no longer serve me, it is also a necessary and healthy thing, especially for the life and well-being of my creativity, to hold onto the amulets, touchstones, and lodestones of childhood imagination, and thereby hold on to that precious inner child.

My son’s tears of joy in the dream were for a rediscovered part of his childhood—the part that held his imagination and inner peace and contentment, all things that we struggle to attain and maintain, especially as creative adults.

Could this be one of the cures for creative block?  To find a toy or some other beloved object from our childhood that can invoke the joy of being a child again while reminding us of the creative power of our imagination?

So, what am I going to do to honor the dream?  Well, I am going upstairs to get out that doll case…

“So where have you taught dreamwork?” a metaphysical shop owner in Indiana asked me when I broached the subject of presenting dream workshops to his customers.

“Uh, well,” I said, stepping back, “I’ve, uh, taught regionally in New York and the surrounding area, but, uh, I want to teach elsewhere now…”

Great answer, huh?  Makes you want to hire me to teach on the spot, doesn’t it?  NOT!

Two nights before that conversation, I had a dream, and, if I had paid more attention to that dream as I teach others to do, I might have been prepared with a better answer for the shop owner.  In the dream, I am promoting dreamwork as a great tool for executives to help create company vision, team bonding, and stress management.  I remember speaking passionately to this person, using my hands, and leaning forward as I talked.  I felt strong and confident about what I, and the dreamwork, had to offer.  I woke in the middle of pointing out other benefits.

This is how I should have talked to the owner of that Indiana shop—leaning forward, speaking with passion and clarity.

My husband called me on it (lovingly, of course) and said my body language was sabotaging me and that there was a disconnect between how I talked about myself to potential employers and how I handled a class of dreamers.

Why is it that many creative and entrepreneurial types (especially we women) are so lousy at self-promotion?

Even after years of experience promoting my weaving while standing in my booth at craft shows, talking to retailers and private customers alike about the unique quality, color, and finish of my work, I still manage to become shy, tongue-tied, and apologetic about my book and my speaking and teaching.  Why is that?

Maybe it goes back to those days in elementary school when I discovered that my classmates did not like someone who always had the answers.  Or maybe it is our societal mindset that says expertise belongs only to those possessing framed degrees and credentials.  Or maybe we just don’t believe we are good—good enough—until someone else (with degrees and credentials, or even more impressive, fame!) tells us we are.  Better yet is to have more than one someone tell us…and tell us…and tell us!

Am I a good teacher of dreamwork?  I am a GREAT teacher of dreamwork because I have been practicing and teaching dreamwork for almost 15 years, and because I love sharing the magic and power and wisdom of dreams with others.  I love seeing people light up when an insight into their dreams gives them insight into their lives.

Wow!  See, I can promote myself!  I am just going to have to practice saying those last two sentences over…and over…and over.  Toot, toot!