Creative Dreaming
If you are a creative person like myself and you like to write, paint, draw and so on then your dreams hold the key to an endless wealth of inspiration and content. Your imagination for stories, magical landscapes, creatures and characters is only limited by realms of your dreams... Which is good news because they are limitless! By the aid of dreaming you can find the images and content to fill a thousand novels and more if you wanted to. The images are yours and you know that it is straight from your own head even if you didnt technically think of it, it was presented to you by your unconscious on a silver platter. Even if you are saying to yourself "Well Im not creative so..." that doesnt matter because everyone has that creative outlet of their dreams.
One of the most famous examples of creative dreaming is that of the scientist, yes scientist, Friedrich August Kekulé von Stradonitz. The structure of the Benzene molecule was a mystery for quite some time and whilst trying to solve this mystery Kekulé had a dream of a symbol known as Ourobus which means the circle of existence and shows a snake eating its own tail creating a circle. After witnessing this symbol Kekulé showed his findings of the circular bonding actions of carbon-carbon molecules to the world. This dream occured in the late 19th Century and little was known about chemistry in this day. Other creative dreamers such as the famous scottish novelist author Robert Louis Stevenson dreamed up his concept for the story of 'Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde'. Everyone has heard the famous song 'Yesterday' which was written by Beatles living legend Sir Paul McCartney who woke up one morning to find the song had been left in his head.
"I just woke up one morning and.. I'd got this little song in my head. I found my way to the piano, sleepily, and I found the chords that it seemed to be. And i thought, it can't just have come to me in a dream - it doesnt happen, does it?" Sir Paul McCartney - on how he found his inspiration for the hit song, Yesterday.
I too have personally found images for my writing within my dreams for example within one of my novels a young boy crosses farmland as he heads towards a castle. This is a fantasy novel so things ought to be fantastic really so the farmland is unlike any other in existence. The fruits are grown in huge trays of earth that are attached to a central mechanical tower. These huge trays rotate around the tower following the sun throughout the day moving hourly with the sun with great mechanical noises and then returning to be quiet once again. This scene came to me in a dream where I myself was walking towards the castle Id built from my mind and placed into my novel. Its as if my previous idea of simple flat every day farmlands was being restricted by reality. My dreams broke down this barrier and let me have access to the more exciting and awe inspiring sights needed for a fantasy novel.
Solving Problems Through Dreams
There are ways to try and get your dreams to help you out with creative insights. Firstly prepare whatever it is you want to solve, say a painting or drawing or half write a part of a novel leaving it partly unfinished. Ask your dream to give you the insight you need to finish the piece and keep this at the forefront in your mind before you fall to sleep. If the dream does not directly reveal to you any extra to your piece of work re-read what you have written and you may find that towards the end you will recieve the information and know what to write, draw, paint to do next.
One way to test this method is to find a riddle or puzzle and attempt to complete it. If you cannot find the soloution then take the thought of the puzzle to bed with you and fall to sleep knowing that the answer will be available to you in the morning. Whilst you sleep your brain re-organises and arranges information such as memories and processes new information and stores them away for you whilst you sleep unaware of it all. Letting your subconscious do all the way is an easy way to wake up to find that you simply now know the answer to your problem or have had an insightful dream from which you can come to a conclusive answer by interpretation.
This method of asking your subconscious to help you through your dreams need not only be limited to puzzles and games but it can work with real life problems as well. If you find yourself in a dilemma and need to make a decision or are trying to work something out about yourself or a friend try asking your mind for an answer. You might be surprised by what you recieve back. I used this very same method to combat an issue I had niggling away inside of me. It was really getting me down and Id just started to read up on dreams and their meanings when I found the concept of asking the subconscious for help. So I told myself and asked, feeling rather silly at first, my dreams to give me the answer I wanted. The results of that nights dream were so spot on it scared me at first. Not only did it answer my question but it did so by involving every person involved in my problem and by switching between two or three inter-relating dreamscapes and events throughout the night. This single dream was one of the reasons I chose to believe in the power of dreams instead of discarding it.
Visual Questions
1. Think of a problem that you want to solve. Anything at all. A fight with a friends, a problem at work or the face that your struggling to make new friends and fit it and so on. After you've found your problem think about it and try to find objects from around your house to represent each individual aspect of your problem symbolically. For example use a cactus to represent a nasty boss or a cuddly toy to represent a friend who makes you feel more confident and relaxed.
2. Once you have all the items you need place them onto a table in some order that can represent the situation. If your feeling excluded for example place the object used to symbolise yourself away from the rest of the objects. Or if the problem is complicated such as a row between a group of friends place your objects in a mess to symbolise this. The idea of this excercise is to add symbols to your problems to help your subconscious mind assign these characteristics to the people or the situation and so on.
3. Keep reminding yourself that you will dream about the problem and that you will find a soloution. Keep thinking of your symbols right up until you fall to sleep. You answer may present itself in the form of the people of whom it concerns or show you an event occuring that may need to happen for your problem to go away. Your subconscious may even adopt the symbols you used in your dreams so pay special attention for these making appearences.
4. If you dont get your answer after one night perservere and keep going over the event night after night. It shouldnt be too long until your dreams find a conclusion and give you the answers you are looking for,