Work on the Dreams
Nikolaus Maack
Doing so won't get you very far. To understand and appreciate dream material
and messages, you have to work with dreams, play with them, strive to
understand them better. Only by doing this will the full depth of the dream
material become apparent.
Some of the things I do is write out further explorations -- for example,
write a dialogue with a dream character, and put questions to them I wanted
to ask but never got a chance. Even while awake, a dreamy feeling comes over
me, and the responses I get from the character, although formulated while
conscious, are legitimate.
Sometimes I rewrite a dream. If I don't like an action I took, I can write
the dream on paper, and then change it so that I do the thing I wish I did,
and then see for myself what consequences that new action has. Again, even
though I am fully conscious, I find that writing allows for a certain amount
of "dreamy" feelings, and the writing flows out on its own accord.
Another useful trick is to draw or paint out images or ideas I see in dreams.
Sometimes this is difficult, as I'm not sure, exactly, what it is I saw --
the memory of the dream is hazy while awake. That's when I try to trust my
intuition, and let the unconscious guide my decisions as I paint.
I recently posted a dream to alt.dreams.lucid -- here's a recap:
> Walking along on a city street, it comes to me that I am dreaming. Deeper
> into the unconscious is the place to go. There's a sewer grating at my feet,
> easily pulled up. The sewer is bubbling with water. Without any fear at
> all, I step over the hole and let myself fall down through it.
>
> I expect to have trouble breathing for a moment, as I fall into the water,
> but no. Instantly I'm in an undergound parking garage. I walk down several
> levels, trying to get deeper and deeper into this thing.
>
> That's when I encounter the angry man, roughly the same age as myself,
> trapped in the car. He's locked inside, banging against the windows, howling
> and snarling like a dog. I'm not quite sure if he escapes or I let him out
> -- but I suspect I let him loose.
>
> He immediately starts "attacking" me, beating at me on the chest with his
> fists.
>
> "There's no point in that," I tell him. "I have no desire to fight you.
> This is a dream, after all. Let's try to work together, okay?"
>
> He immediately agrees, and offers to take me deeper underground. "I'll take
> you to the meet," he says. Or does he mean "meat"? As in the meat of a nut?
>
> We go down further into the parking garage, and then into a room. There is a
> poster or painting hanging on the wall -- I forget what's on it. Possibly an
> abstract of some kind. People are lined up next to it. They all want to
> jump into the painting, and are each waiting their turn.
>
> I could get into line, but I realize I am on the brink of waking up. Things
> are flickering and threatening to fade to black. I ask the person standing
> guard next to the painting if I can go first, because I'm afraid I'll wake up
> too soon. He agrees, as do the next few people in line.
>
> I politely thank them, and then leap into the painting.
>
> I'm in a tunnel made of pink fabric, climbing upward at a forty-five degree
> angle. Lights shine through at various points. There's no feeling of
> claustrophobia at all. I'm not quite sure where I'm headed, but I know it's
> important to get there, so I crawl along as best as I can.
>
> At one point I realize something is sewn into the fabric of the tunnel. I go
> back down, and tear open a seam. Inside is a piece of paper -- a print out
> of an email. I read it, but don't remember what it says. It's some sort of
> explanation of a lucid dream I once had. Somehow, the number "50" is
> mentioned -- that I had the dream 50 years ago? I'm 34, so this doesn't make
> much sense to me.
What struck me as interesting was the painting people were jumping into, and
how it was called "meat". Although I have no conscious memory of what the
painting looked like, I've decided to paint it.
It's a work in progress, but here's what I have so far:
http://www.nikart.ca/painting/6/dream.jpg
What's interesting is that, as I paint, I create something completely new --
but it "feels" like the painting in my dream. It's as though on some level I
did see the painting, and remember it, and now I'm bringing it into the real
world.
I mention all of this to hear your comments and thoughts on the matter -- do
you "work" on your dreams after you have them? Do you see the point in doing
so? Do you write, paint, dance, draw, or somehow bring the unconscious
material to life?
I find it very difficult to describe why, but it strikes me as very
rewarding.
Graham Jones
Nikolaus Maack <nikm...@sympatico.ca> writes
>It's not enough to just have a dream, write it down, and leave it at that.
It's enough for me to just have a nice dream, but...
[big snip]
>I mention all of this to hear your comments and thoughts on the matter -- do
>you "work" on your dreams after you have them?
Yes sometimes.
> Do you see the point in doing
>so?
I use dreams as inspiration mostly, I don't try to discover something
deep about myself.
> Do you write, paint, dance, draw, or somehow bring the unconscious
>material to life?
Yes, painting, mostly.
I paint landscapes and seascapes, usually from real life, memory,
imagination. Often I see amazing landscapes in dreams and sometimes I
try to paint those. Also I get hypnagogic images, which are often easier
to remember and paint.
It seems fairly clear to me that in dreams, in hypnagogic images, and in
playing around with paint (or more recently pixels), I am accessing the
same source of creativity. That's nice in a way but could become
limiting. The thing that really stretches me is looking at a real
landscape...
--
Graham Jones
http://www.visiv.co.uk
Emails to gra...@visiv.co.uk may be deleted as spam
Please add a j just before the @ to ensure delivery
Meltdarok
news:QwOtAWAx...@visiv.co.uk...
I really haven't thought of pixels seriously, thanks.
I use my dreams as inspiration to do more helping
when I can, since I believe that the Cosmos is alive
and well, and communicates with us through our dreams.
As for right now, I'm studying the Kabbalah.
> --
> Graham Jones
> http://www.visiv.co.uk
> Emails to gra...@visiv.co.uk may be deleted as spam
> Please add a j just before the @ to ensure delivery
>
--
meltdarok
http://hometown.aol.com/meltdarok/
Peter
news:0001HW.BCD57219...@news1.on.sympatico.ca...
<snip>
> It's not enough to just have a dream, write it down, and leave it at that.
> Doing so won't get you very far. To understand and appreciate dream
material
> and messages, you have to work with dreams, play with them, strive to
> understand them better. Only by doing this will the full depth of the
dream
> material become apparent.
You bring it to the crucial point at best!
> I mention all of this to hear your comments and thoughts on the matter --
do
> you "work" on your dreams after you have them? Do you see the point in
doing
> so? Do you write, paint, dance, draw, or somehow bring the unconscious
> material to life?
>
I deal with the analysis of my dreams in any case. I have created a
collection from my own dreams with different topics. I typed them and
decorated the single topics with a funny as well as serious clip art. It
doesn't look so skillful, for me however the analysis has the priority.
Every dream contains a preview, followed by the interpretation, upshot and
ends with explanatory remarks to the dream symbolism. All these dreams found
a connection to my real life. In specific cases I'm partly capable to
predict if a dream can be expected. This is bound at very specific
conditions. Also the symbolism is of very personal kind. One can use it only
with restriction to other ones. Only a coarse generalization seems possible
to be.
jajofar
Hi,
-------It's not enough to just have a dream, write it down, and leave
it at that.------
Once a dream is dreamt, it outlived its usefulness. However I think
you can gather many useful facts from the dream while it is fresh in
your memory. You can sometimes tell what caused the dream, what the
dream wanted you to do, and what memory the dream was based on.
On the creative side – I think dreams and dreaming will be the model
for the next generation of computers. If one looks into dreams very
deeply, one can discern a subtle control and command system that uses
light, colour and ideas as units of energy to control and wake the
sleeper. How does it work? When a sleeper perceives a light, whether
it is from an outside source, or from the memory bank, the level of
consciousness rises by a notch. A colour, and idea do the same. Then
there are combinations of all three, until the sleeper is sufficiently
alert to understand commands. The commands tell the sleeper to run,
fight, move different body parts, feel pain, sorrow, anger, laugh,
cry, and wake up.
All these actions are imperceptible, even to the most objective
scientists. In fact the subconscious mind is so clever in deceiving
the over-confident scientists that they do not know where they are!
Consider this: watching people sleep and dream in normal
circumstances, one can sometimes see a sleeper thrash about, talk,
laugh, scream and do many other strange things, yet when he or she
wakes up, there is not a trace of the dream. The dream has done its
job and vanishes without a trace! Contrast this situation with what
goes on in the sleep lab! The sleeper is woken and lo! And behold
there is a dream to report! The scientist is completely unaware that
the dream was caused be the waking!
Sometimes there are bursts of creativity, or great discoveries on
waking up that are attributed to dreams. However I think they are due
to the fresh and rested brain.
Cheers Jajofar
Nick Argall
"Nikolaus Maack" <nikm...@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
news:0001HW.BCD57219...@news1.on.sympatico.ca...
> I mention all of this to hear your comments and thoughts on the matter --
do
> you "work" on your dreams after you have them? Do you see the point in
doing
> so? Do you write, paint, dance, draw, or somehow bring the unconscious
> material to life?
>
> I find it very difficult to describe why, but it strikes me as very
> rewarding.
I agree, but I'm not eager to discuss why either - possibly because the
semester is ending, and I've suddenly noticed that I'm a medical student!
Nick