In love...

“Talking about his relationship to his art, Picasso describes an altered state of consciousness familiar to most people; being in love (Pg. 82)”.

I never knew that being in love could be considered an altered state of consciousness! Wow! Our book notes certain characteristics commonly associated with being in love; a passionate absorption in the object of desire, to the exclusion of much else in the world, a combination of arousal, love, and total focus (great explanation). This is so true, hence the saying, “when in love, nothing else matters”.

The creative has, what can be referred to as, a love affair with his imagination. The call to creativity is similar to the call the God. When a man or woman is called to God, from a Catholic view, they give up their traditional lives to become nuns or priests. Their lives revolve around worshipping God. When called to creativity, the artist often gives up their traditional life, excluding much else in the world to create. The “much else” often includes personal relationships. Hence, many creative people fail to make “mature” personal relationships, Pg. 83.

In the call the God, Catholic nuns and priests are forbidden from marrying in that they are considered to be married to God. “Some artists are extremely isolated, but the satisfaction of exercising their gifts, of hearing their work, outweighs the promise of alternative pleasures (Pg. 83)”. A nun or priest is traditionally satisfied being married to God, spending their time living in the image and likeness of Jesus, and also by reaching others through their work. For them, this outweighs the traditional lifestyle of getting married and having children.

A love of anything is what brings you happiness and permits you to succeed. Picasso loved art so he was an amazing artist. Bruce Springsteen loved music so he was an amazing musician. If we find what we love and follow that, we will be happy and hopefully successful.

Voodoo

Here is the link to Godsmack's song Voodoo. It is a dreamlike state.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=yn0CnVGWmGE

Subconscious Artwork

Here is a link to Jeane Nevarez's subconscious artwork.
http://jeanenevarez.com/Subcon/Penguin%20Diver%20page.html

The Creative Unconscious and Subconscious

With my being an English major leaning towards law or lobbyist type of job I still find myself doing one thing more and more. That thing would be writing. I consider writing as one of my hobbies. It has a special place with me just like fishing, working on cars, and playing video games do. I find it one of my more relaxing hobbies. I started writing after watching the slam poet E-Baby at the Penn State New Kensington Campus and taking Dr. Judy Lindberg's Creative Writing class there. I know that yes I seem to write rather well when I am forced to sit and write a paper or something for school; but when it comes to what I do to relax, I feel it is my best. It has also become rather apparent to me that some of my better works have come at night as. There have been numerous nights in my life after I started writing where I would find myself being jerked out of a sound sleep and scrambling for a pen and paper to write down what was on my. The next morning I would think to myself "Wow! I wrote that and I don't even remember waking up." There have even been times where I was let's say sitting in math class bored out of my skull and all of a sudden I would get the urge to just write; but I would still appear as my one friend let me that I was just daydreaming at writing.

From those points on I always carry or have a note book nearby just for these occasions. I think that most of our creativity does seem to be within our unconscious and subconscious. If you ask alot of artists, musicians, and writers they end up saying I got the idea for this in a ream I had. Which leads me to think that even though the smartest people book wise use the biggest portion of their brains they don't necessarily use more of there brain than someone who is creatively endowed to use the subconscious and unconsciousness of their brains to produce works such as Dali's Sleep, Milton's Paradise Lost, or Mozart's Requiem. It would seem that creative people tend to harness more of the brain's potential than even the most gifted scientists.

Interpreters (blog 1)

This is my first blog--EVER. I have posted on forums many times but never a blog (whats the difference anyway?).
My first thoughts on this book were that this material is way over my head. I flipped through the book and was really interested in the subject matter but as I began to read, I become a bit overwhelmed, to be honest. However after sticking with it, the readings became involving, particularly about Shamans, Joseph Beuys and several contemporary artists like John Lennon and Bob Dylan. Shamans are mysteriously able to transcend the mortal self and interpret the world around them through animals perspectives. Musicians can follow the same course by channeling the seldom seen 'otherworld' through lyrics. Rave dancers take psychotropic, mind-altering drugs to follow Shaman ways through dance and rhythm.

Another interesting point was the perception of the mind and how it choses, or forces, the brain to see things that aren't there at all. The multi-tasking brain section made me realize why I could never play the guitar, and why some people seem to be born to play it, and other instruments that require the right side of the brain to control both sides of the body at once. Multi personality disorder is a rare and in my opinion, commonly over diagnosed; Sybil's case history examined her 16 different personalities. It is fascinating that someone can carry so many different personalities (and keep them straight!) and at the same time manifest them in different sexes. This is yet another example of the Shaman in humans, where the self is representing both sexes at once.

Dreams

When I found out that we were going to be reading and talking about dreams, I was really excited. I've always held a profound interest in the dream state for reasons unknown, how and why we have them, and whether or not life itself affects the types of dreams we have. I've also always wondered why I seem to have the same dream many, many times throughout my life. Do the events that happen in a person's dreams hold any specialized context? Do they mean anything? How about those dream meaning books that are available, do the symbols that are listed in these books actually hold meaning?

I don't think I exactly understand Freud's point of view, however, I do like and agree with what Carl Jung believed. It seems to go along slightly with the notion of symbolism in dreams and different types of personalities and individuals that are present in dreams.

I also found the part concerning lucid dreams to be very interesting. I've never experienced or know how to manipulate myself in order to experience a lucid dream; however, it seems like it would be a very interesting thing to do. I also found the part about out of body experiences and the near death experiences to be very interesting as well. Has anyone experienced or know anyone who has experienced these events?

Meaning in Dreams

I believe that dreams have meanings that can be different or similar . I had a dream the other night that i was walking to the corner store and there was a little standing on the corner 10 years old crying to another teenage girl to help her cross the street. the little girl continue to cry until the teenage girl said " you are old enough to cross the street by yourself, I'm not always going to be here all the time to help you cross the street ". While i was sleeping, i didn't think nothing about what the teenage girl said because i was dreaming and i though it was nothing to think strongly about. Until i woke up that morning and i talked to my aunt on the phone about some textbooks i needed and she told me that she couldn't buy my books and i had to buy them on my own because she was going out of town and she didn't have the time to order them. Then, as i hung up the phone with her, i thought my dream i had that night about the little crossing the street and said "I am that little girl who always needs someone to do things for her and i am old enough to handle situations on my own now.

Thoughts on Dreams

I agree with what many people from the class have stated about dreams and being completely fascinated by them. Whenever I sleep I have the strangest dreams, to the point when I wake up I have to ask myself, what the hell that was about. I used to wake up in the morning and write my dreams down, and dare I admit it, but I would reference my dream interpretation books which have proved too completely and utterly useless. I also agree with a couple of students comments regarding Freud, and his view on dreams to be a tad cynical, I also happen to think he was a tad perverted, I never read of any man so focused and obsessed with sex and sexual repression like him. I think his neuroses were projected into every aspect of his career. I can't say that I agree completely with the Jungian Angle either, I see to some degree how repressed thoughts and feelings can collectively lay in a "storehouse", so to speak, but to say that dreams are gateways to certain archetypes and connect individual dream symbolism and medieval alchemy, to me anyway I thought was a tad far fetched. If that was the case and maybe I am interpreting this incorrectly, then dreams should be the unifying key and things such as man vs. woman and racism, should not exist if our dreams create a unifying principal. It is hard to see purpose to my dreams, I have found neither inspiration, creativity nor discovered any deep personal feelings, not that I know of anyway, but I mean how in-depth can you get when you are dreaming that you and your grandmother are at frat party and the cops bust the party and there's grandma running right along side with you holding the keg, I see no uncovered emotion or sexual suppression in that and what creative genius could be sparked by that is beyond me. I just chalk it up to a crazy dream.

Lucid dreaming, OBE's, and NDE's were extremely fascinating. I have never experience any of these, but I would love to talk to someone personally who has ever had or known someone who has over had an experience like that.

Brain-Tidying or Creativity?

There is nothing more perplexing and rewarding, to me, than dreams. On the very rare occasion that I wake up without remembering a dream, I feel more confused than if I had dreamt of the craziest thing ever. I find myself asking what it was I did that blocked out my recollection of these pathways to my subconscious.

My dreams are a large part of my creative process. I try, with some difficulty, to write down my dreams as soon as I wake up so that I am able to have the most accurate depiction of my dream, as well as a record for myself. I have often used these recollections as the basis for short stories as well as a way to see inside my brain and figure out what it is that’s really going on in there.

Nearly all of them are unexciting, reiterations of what may happen to me on a daily basis, complete with all of the normal people that I may interact with and their requisite attitudes and personalities. However, contrary to what the book says is a commonly held belief that these have no meaning I find them to so much more meaningful and a better look at my psyche than if I was dreaming about dragons and monsters. On more than one occasion I have had to ask someone about what it was that I had done the night before, because my dreams are so real, in feeling, look, emotion, thought (within the dream), and any other context, that I literally cannot dissociate between the dream world and the real world. The first time this happened I was really quite scared, but I have learned to embrace it and actually look forward to it.

The book poses the question: Are these types of dreams used in tidying the brain to preserve sanity, or is it creativity coming through in our subconscious? From what I’ve been through so far, if these are used to keep a person sane, they could be doing a much better job.

The Aha! Factor

This may sound kind of ridiculous but I experienced, “the aha! factor” when I first read about it in the book, Altered States.
The aha factor is of course explained in our book as, “The phenomenon of inspiration, which may occur during development of the creative process as well as at its point of origin, is typically experienced as a physical sensation expressed through an “Aha!” response, an alteration in breathing pattern.”
So in essence I literally said “aha” when I realized that some portion of science recognized the same phenomenon. (I hope I didn’t tear space or time) But like many topics we read about in this book, my revelation of the “aha” was not the only time an “aha” took place for me.
I said “aha” at least three times during the Lucid Dreams portion of chapter 4.
Our group addressed this subject in basic discussion last class period.
I must admit I have experienced this dream state quite often. Sometimes I even recall many details from these dreams. I must say that the lucid dreams are most profound for me because I consciously have an opportunity to examine why I dream particular things. When people and places from many years ago appear in my lucid dream, I often sit back and mentally digest why those particular aspects of my past seem to be floating in my consciousness. This examination process takes place in the conscious mind, when I’m awake. and makes dreams more than just a mess of mixed up thoughts.
I can’t say I can predict the future, cure illness or even draw creative ideas from the lucid dream process, but I do recall memories (and details from memories) that I haven’t consciously come up in my mind in years.
For me I equate these lucid dreams more to the rationalization that our minds are much more vast then we think. Simply, there is just a lot going up there – sometimes.

Repeating Myself

I know that I mentioned my dreams in the last class, but since it's relevent here, I am going to repeat myself. The chapter on dreaming obviously was very interesting to me, as I have never met anyone else who has 'lucid dreams' like I have had, now I see that it's not "weird", it's just another kind of dreaming. I can't always control my dreams or know that I'm dreaming, but about once a month I'll have a dream that I either know I'm in a dream, can control my dream in some way, or can tell myself to wake up when I need to. The first time I can remember having a dream like that was when I was a junior in high school. I had recently cut my very long hair (after losing a bet with my mom) and it was way to short (I hated it!!!). A few nights in a row I would have dreams where my hair was long again and then I would wake up and realize it was a dream. After about a week of that, I started having the same dreams (about my long hair) only as soon as I noticed the length, I said to myself "Melissa, it's just a dream". Ever since, I have been able to do that on multiple occasions. I have also been able to tell other people in my dreams that if they get scared to tell me and I'll just wake up.
Other dream 'issues' that I have had are being able to remember significant portions of my dreams as well as the recognition of multiple dreams in the same night. I live with my fiance, and in the morning we'll tell each other our dreams (if we remember), when he tells me his, he vaguely remembers the overall plot of the dream. Then when it's my turn, I can go on for about 10 minutes discussing what happened with detail. I've also noticed on so many occassions that in my dreams, I am doing the action as well as observing myself doing the action. Also, I have never had a dream (that I can recall) where I am doing anything out of the norm- like flying or being dismembered.

I am very open to the possiblity that people have pre-cognitive dreams because I believe strongly that my mother does it all the time. And her creativity definitly comes through her dreams. I also experience deja vu a few times a month.

Dreams

When I found out that we were going to be reading and talking about dreams, I was really excited. I've always held a profound interest in the dream state for reasons unknown, how and why we have them, and whether or not life itself affects the types of dreams we have. I've also always wondered why I seem to have the same dream many, many times throughout my life. Do the events that happen in a person's dreams hold any specialized context? Do they mean anything? How about those dream meaning books that are available, do the symbols that are listed in these books actually hold meaning?

I don't think I exactly understand Freud's point of view, however, I do like and agree with what Carl Jung believed. It seems to go along slightly with the notion of symbolism in dreams and different types of personalities and individuals that are present in dreams.

I also found the part concerning lucid dreams to be very interesting. I've never experienced or know how to manipulate myself in order to experience a lucid dream; however, it seems like it would be a very interesting thing to do. I also found the part about out of body experiences and the near death experiences to be very interesting as well. Has anyone experienced or know anyone who has experienced these events?

Dreaming

I too believe in dreams. I have them almost every night when I go to sleep. Happy dreams, weird dreams, dreams I can't even describe. Sometimes I even see some of my dreams come true. I'm serious when I say this, it's almost a sense of déjà vu when this happens to me. It's like a remember this event somehow. I've read about people who had premonitions or visions, and I don't think I have premonitions, but it's strange that I get the sense that I've seen these events somehow. When I was young, I daydreamed a lot. One does when they have a vivid imagination. And to hell with what Freud said, that "daydreams with grandiose fantasies are self-gratifying attempts at 'wish fulfillment'." They weren't like that for me. They were my ways of escaping from reality. It almost felt like an out-of-body experience for me. I was there, but I wasn't there. It's hard to say exactly what they were, but they weren't wish fulfillments. Whether God has any say about dreams or if they're something that the body does at night when we sleep, I don't know. I just know that dreams exist and that they do have a purpose in this life.

Just the other day, I saw some music videos of new age artist Enya, and they have a very dreamlike quality to them. You can view them on YouTube by just searching for Enya.

Here are some links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NNLzheTxCA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLVN3M8dFKQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RO8fCBkO0s4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vb3ptYPXizs

Dreams

Just like many of you stated already, I am fascinated by dreams. It's interesting to see what the mind will produce when you are not in total control. To me, dreams are ideas that simply surface in creative representation. In my personal experience, most dreams parallel an experience, thought, emotion, desire, etc.. that occurs when you are fully awake and aware; they are, essentially, that precise topic but are simply shown in a different way.

When I can remember the majority of one of my dreams, I try to find a recurrent symbol, motif, or theme that surfaced continually throughout the dream. Usually, that symbol will help me figure out the reasoning behind my dream. For example, I often have dreams that my teeth fall out. In particular, I once had a dream that I was hiking through the woods alone. As I was walking back down a heavily wooded hill, I noticed one of my teeth were loose. The instant I touched it with my tongue, it fell out. As I looked down at it in my hand, I realized there was a person standing in the woods staring at me. As I ran toward the end of the path, the person followed (they didn't physically run to follow, they were just kind of there beside me the entire time). The next day, I could not figure out what that was supposed to mean, until I went to class that evening. I was getting ready for a presentation(very nerve-racking), and I realized it was a creative representation of my fear of humiliation/embarrassment. I am afraid of screwing up even when I am alone (alone in the woods).

I don't usually create new ideas in my dreams. They usually reflect some emotion I already have. Sometimes they help me realize emotions I never realized were existent (or maybe they actually create the emotions, who knows!). I am envious of people whose dreams lead to serious creativity. I suppose I just need to learn to use my dreams for creativity.

I also believe that Freud's ideas of dreaming are a little cynical. Classifying every dream into either sexual repression or aggressive repression is extremely narrowing. There are many complex emotions that have little or nothing to do with sex or aggression. What about love? Love does not necessarily include sex and typically does not involve aggression? Or what about those dreams about being chased? I certainly don't think that's sexy, and you are definitely not showing aggression.

I seem to agree more with Jung, but not completely. "Below the personal unconscious, where repressed feelings and thoughts developed during an individuals life, lay the collective unconscious, 'the vast historical storehouse' of feelings, thoughts, and memories inherited and shared by all humanity." (Hughes, 56) We all see the same basic ideas in our dreams. We feel the same universal emotions, but represent them individually in our dreams.

Dreams and other crazy things

As I alluded to in my previous post, dreams definitely spark my interest. When I was in high school, I would continually fall asleep at the dinner table while eating, or I would fall asleep in classes (what high school student doesn't, right?). The thing is that I was getting plenty of sleep every night. My mother decided to make me an appointment with a neurologist to see what the cause could be. It was agreed that I would undergo a sleep study overnight at the hospital to test for narcolepsy. What my doctor discovered was that within five minutes of falling asleep, I would enter a REM state, and remain in it for most of the duration of my sleep. Seeing that your mind is just as active in a REM state as it is when you're awake, the reason I was so tired was that I was never actually getting proper rest. From what I understand, narcolepsy occurs even in the absence of REM sleep, so I was never actually diagnosed with anything, but we did at least find out the reason for my fatigue. I liked to think of it as suffering from excessive dreaming. Years later a psychology professor of mine told me that people who deal with depression are prone to excessive REM sleep, and this could have been an explanation of what was happening at the time.

I also mentioned in my last post that I've had experiences with precognitive dreams. The book mentioned the possibility that we may be picking up on subliminal messages during the day and they manifest themselves in our sleep. I wouldn't doubt if this is the case. I'm open-minded on the issue, but whether precognitive abilities come from some sort of "psychic" source or from an ability to perceive things that aren't readily obvious, I don't think it makes them any less valid or worth looking into.

Another crazy dream experience I had was when I was prescribed Ambien (this was years after the excessive sleeping problem). I was prescribed the lowest dose, and on the third night of taking it, I think my brain exploded. I took my pill and crawled into bed as usual, only I didn't fall asleep right away. After a few minutes of lying there with my eyes closed, I started to see incredibly bizarre shapes and movements, so I opened my eyes. Much to my horror, the images were still there when my eyes were open, and they were becoming increasingly more bizarre. The first thing I noticed was that my walls were breathing and my bed felt as though it was on wheels; I could feel it rolling from one side of my room to the next. There were people standing around my room wearing top hats, chattering amongst themselves. I saw fraggles and Alice from Through the Looking Glass... it sounds insane, and it was. I managed to fumble out of bed and turn my lights on, hoping it would make everything go away. Between my bed moving and my struggling to get out of it, I ended up getting sick, which apparently solved all of my problems. Needless to say, I stopped taking sleep medication immediately. My doctor told me that it is very rare, but I wasn't the first patient to report having that side effect. Apparently what had happened was that my mind was asleep but my body was still alert; I was dreaming while I was awake. I did a google search to see what other kinds of experiences people had while on Ambien, and fascinatingly, a lot of people reported seeing the same thing that I did--people standing around in their rooms having a party. It made me wonder what chemical in the drug caused most people to have more or less the same hallucination.

I also mentioned in my last post that I'm able to tap into my creativity in my sleep, at least as far as songwriting goes. In reading chapter five, I realized that depending upon the art form, I go through a different process and have different means of achieving inspiration. With music, it is a much more passive experience, and I could relate to what some of the artists and writers were saying about it just having to come to you. With writing prose, though, inspiration has never been an automatic or passive experience for me. I've found that with stories and characters, I have to train my mind to be actively open and perceptive; it is usually the trivial or mundane thing that will strike me. Taking something seemingly dull and transforming it into something novel is what I strive for, and I actually couldn't relate to what most of the writers were saying about not being able to explain where their inspiration came from. Maybe it just comes easier to them than it does to me, but I definitely think writing differs from painting and music in that you have to make conscious strides toward inspiration. I'm curious to see if anyone else finds that they have different means of inspiration depending upon which medium they are dealing with.

Sleep to Dream

I just wanted to ask, before taking this class, was anyone going to sleep with the hopes of dreaming while they sleep or did they just use sleep as a form of rest?. Was dreaming just a bonus, and if so, is it any different now that this class has started?.

My Experiences with Dreams and Creativity

I found the Dreams chapter touching on a personal level for me, because I never remember my dreams. I know I dream, but I can’t recall them right after I wake up. I never fly, fall, or any of that sort of thing. I go to sleep and next thing you know, I am waking up. It may be do to the fact that I had night terrors as a child and would apparently scream and thrash in my sleep, though I never remembered the next morning. I have not had those since I was little, but I may still be repressing what happens in my dreams.

I do have lucid dreams, I think. When going to sleep and just when waking up, I can create a dream on my own and control it, but am also aware of the world outside the dream (I don’t know if you can call it dreaming or just fantasizing). Sleep isn’t something that comes easy to me, when I lay down to sleep, I takes me literally hours to fall asleep no matter how tired I am. (Quite annoying to be honest).

I don’t know about dreams giving me creative thoughts, but fantasizing sure does. I love to write; I am always jotting down book/story ideas that I gain from random day dreaming and fantasizing.

I found the section taken from Nietzsche’s Zarathustra to be very interesting. (If you haven’t read it any of his works yet, you should, very interesting ideas). “A thought flashes out like lightning.” I agree, though I don’t think it is as dramatic as he makes it sounds, but that is exactly what inspiration feels like. I know I’ll often be sitting in class or doing anything and either by a stimulus or out of no where I’ll have an idea for a story, and then begin rummaging for somewhere to write it down before I forget it. The “aha” moment as the book puts it. This moment seems to happen most when my mind is drifting: such as taking a shower with the water blocking out all sounds, but my own thoughts and driving with the radio on, not paying attention to where I’m going, but getting there. In class, I hear the professor and take the notes, but my “real” mind is off somewhere else. (I call it multi-tasking.) The moments usually present a theme for a total story and/or certain climatic scenes for that story, the rest as Housman put it is “brain work.”

These have been a few of my experiences with dreams and creativity; it seems the book matches up pretty well with me on some points.

Blog 2 or Dreams . . . Dreams are my speciality. Part 1

I attended a session a few years back on dream interpretation. The class was from a "religious" perspective so the dreams were interpreted as messages from God, much like Joseph or Daniel experienced. It is always fascinating how we interpret, well, anything. If we are religious that will dictate how we see, if secular, if angry, if sad and so on. This happens all the time in the waking state no reason to assume we do not interpret dreams the same way. I wonder, though, do we carry those "biases" into our dreams? Do the things we espouse to in our waking life stay as strong in the dream state or does our "natural man" take over and flow.

It has been quite a while since I recall a dream upon waking. At least for more than a few seconds or maybe a minute. At the time of that class I was in a different state (not US) and made a point of writing down what I remembered. I have not done that in a while. I do recall a dream from at least 30 years ago, maybe more. Anybody see the movie, The Great Train Robbery? In the dream I was on top of the train, running along after someone, the train was going very fast around a curve and somehow I fell off. I can still recall the sensation of the falling. I woke just before hitting the ground. If I close my eyes and think about the dream I can get to that sensation of falling. A lot different than flying I can assure you.

As for the creativity that comes from dreams, that too has been a while. I think I may be too stressed. Mostly self induced, and I believe our waking situations effect our dream state.

WE INTERRUPT THIS BLOG TO INDUCE STRESS! GO TO WORK, slacker!

Chapters 4 and 5

I definitely believe in dreams. They are simply fascinating to me. I don't neccesarily agree with Freud but I do believe dreams mean something and can be interpreted in various ways. I think we dream about what's on our mind be it happiness or sadness. A lot of times I dream about a fear or anxiety that I have. Lately I have not been remembering any of my dreams, even though I know that we dream every time we go to sleep.

I don't know if I believe the psychotic aspect of dreaming. I would think a person would have to be taking a psychotic drug to get that particular effect. I think it would be neat to study dreams. Imagine if you could get into a person's mind when they were sleeping. I think that would be awesome! Sometimes I'm in dreamland myself! I'm just amazed by the powers dreams can have. I liked the part in Chapter 4 about how a dream can come true. It was mentioned about how someone might dream about a car accident and it might actually happen in really life. If the person would have seen signs of a faulty car for example it might have been prevented. I think God plays a big role in dreams warning us about something bad that may happen. What an exciting subject!

Dreams and creativity

We do not always remember a dream we have while others, especially if it is a recurring dream do tend to stand out. It is said that we need to dream and that it ''probably promotes mental health". Vissions we have in our dreams can be a way of sorting out thoughts and things that have happened. It also leads to imagination and creativity. Bassically, what we dream about can be created by previous events; it can also be an inspiration for a person to create something in reality. The process of creativity can come naturally or in some cases it can helped along with the use of drugs or a traumatic experience such as near-death. When a person uses their imagination they can create something whether it be a good story, a popular piece of music, or even challenge themselve's to invent something new or improve another person's creation.

Yep, I must be psychotic

I agree with the fact that we are all (medically) psychotic, delirious, or demented while we are dreaming. While I will argue to the fact that for some people, this doesn't only happen in their dreams, it makes more sense when I think back over some of the really random dreams that I've had. A teenage guy in a big bunny suit who jumped off a third story balcony of some apartment building at me. I once looked in on a school like it was a dollhouse, and then I walked through it with my friends just like we were those Playschool Little People. The fact that dreaming supposedly takes up as much mental energy as the waking state was incredibly interesting. The details in the two dreams I had mentioned were quite vivid, like my imagination and creativity were working over time, even while I was asleep. This attributes to my lack of energy after waking up from a full night's sleep fraught with dreams.



And the conditions of dreaming being the same as psychotic symptoms... I believe it. How many people have been locked away in an asylum because that bunny costume in my dreams escaped from their imagination and transcended some boundary into their waking state?


I still maintain that we are all just characters in some infinite creator's dream. Watch "The Waking Life." Or read The Midnight Club or The Star Group by Christopher Pike. You know, in case all of your schoolwork and jobs don't take up enough time already.


"What kind of people don't dream, don't wish, don't live in fantasy at least once in a while? How drole and dreary their lives must be." -Cat, from Into the Garden by V.C. Andrews

"Suppose I build castles in the air. Suppose my dreams never come true. But still I dream, 'cause dreams are brighter." -prisoner at Auschwitz

The creative process

The act of creating anything,whether it is art, music or pancakes must be inspired by something. I enjoy sketching and painting.I do paint quite often,but sometimes I can go for months without creating anything. When ever this happens my wife usually asks me what's wrong and if I'm having creativity issues? Quite often she refers to these spells as an artists equivalent to writers block, but I never agree. When writers suffer from writers block they are usually at some sort of loss for words or ideas. When ever I stop painting, there is always an idea or concept in my head that I like but just not inspired enough to put the paint on the canvas. I never thought about it like this before but I guess these months of not painting the ideas in my head could be considered a time of gestation.

Chapters 4 & 5

According to the book, it states that dreams happen three or four times during the night. Wow! I can’t even tell you the last time I remember having a dream. I think it has been months. Why is it that when I do dream, I dream of random things, like random people, me on my way to my wedding (keep in mind I’m not even engaged), and the worst dream I have ever had was when one of my family members died. So, reading chapter 4 was very interesting. After doing some of my reading last night about Lucid dreams I had all intentions on trying to concentrate on something that I wanted to dream about and finding it again in the dream, but I was so tired that I forgot. I will try to do that again tonight so I can perhaps have a Lucid dream! Freud stated that dreams, “represented unacceptable sexual and aggressive desires repressed in the unconscious.” Carl Jung stated that dreams, “emerged from a nonsexual level of meaning.” I tend to agree with Jung’s idea. I think that sexual and aggressive desires are more of a fantasy. As far as dreaming of having a near death experience, my heart goes out to any of you that have had one of those dreams. I think that would really make you look at life in a different perspective. That would be one dream I would not want to come true!

After reading about Blake and A. E. Housman, school work would be so much easier if I had dreams like Blake who stated that, “an entire poem came to him word for word in a dream” and A. E. Housman who also had dreams that lines and verses would could to him so that he could write his poems.

I like the book’s description about “daydreaming”. It associated daydreaming to wish fulfillment. I can relay with the statement that daydreaming involves, “turning away from the external world and tuning in to the inner world, and occurs when there is an absence of pressing outside events demanding conscious attention and that is can also be used as a means of escape from unpleasant reality.”

Posted for Erik - Blog 2

I am very interested in the angle that Carl Jung proposed dealing with dreams. I always had a tough time accepting Freud's analysis that dreams were based in a sexual nature. Yes, I will agree that the sexual angle is deeply rooted in our nature as humans, however, there is more to us humans than the desire to procreate. Jung's position that dreams are a gateway into a collective world that people from all over the world share and can tap is fascinating. Looking back at ancient cave paintings, you can see similarities that are hard to explain, unless there was a commonality that these ancient humans were exploiting. There is a huge portion of the human brain, that has been said, to be unused. Scientists say that humans use a mere fraction of our brains functional capacity. On the same token these same scientists admit that they know very little about how the brain works. So, are we, as humans, really NOT using the majority of our brains? I am not a scientist, but I highly doubt it. I think that humans are using all of their brains, but individually at different capacities. Perhaps dreaming and the construct of altered states take up a great deal of brain "space". Perhaps the supposedly "unused" areas of our brains is actually there for random access, much like the ram of a computer. I think Jung and Freud have both made compelling attempts to unravel and explain the highly complex subject and tangibility of dreams, their function, purpose, and meaning.

I have studied Jackson Pollock and his work for many years. I was rather excited to hear him mentioned in this book as he had an interest in the psychology of shamanism and Indian stimuli. Jackson tried with urgency to achieve psychological control. Many of his paintings were, with minimal success, copied from a source of inspiration for him, that of the Cubist master, Picasso, who's work is arguably Freudian. Jackson's work's at attempting the Cubist approach have been said to be unsuccessful because his mind, or creative juices, worked more 'Jungian' in nature. Jackson said that, "When I am in my painting, I'm not always aware of what I am doing" which, is what we can all say, most of the time, about when we are dreaming.

Dreams

"Awake, shake dreams from your hair my child...." those are just a few lines from Jim Morrison. I no longer dream, in fact I can't remember the last time I had a dream. I fear that I may be suffering from dream deprivation. Every once in a while I will be in the middle of doing something and then suddenly think to my self, why does this seem so familiar?. After a few minutes of debating with myself I usually dismiss the idea of De-ja-vu simply because logic holds that you have to dream in order to experience De-ja -vu. Some say that it's "the royal road to the unconscious" others like Blake say there is no road, just a number of risky tracks into the unknown. I particularly like Blake because the way he embraces dreams and the idea of the unconscious.
"If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees things thru' narrow chinks of his cavern"
William Blake.

Dreams

There have been so many times I've been dreaming and thought I was awake, convincing myself I've already taken a shower and I'll be all ready for work but can get just a few more minutes of sleep (only to find out I haven't showered, and I'm already late). I have dreams about my husband and daughter, and when I tell him the next day and wonder why he doesn't remember what we just did the day before, I realize that in my dreams it is really like I am another person. Things come out that I don't even think about during the day. People I haven't seen for years or talked to for longer than I remember show up in my dreams depending on my mood or thoughts before my head hits the pillow. I'm sure I'm not alone in wondering how we dream, what it means, why we only remember it sometimes ... I've considered starting a dream journal, but I think it would be terribly difficult and things would be much easier if I could just wake up and write down what just happened. I do agree with Freud's deterimination that dreams are part of our unconscious desires, often sexual, and usually repressed during our daily lives. A person's mind is a deep pool of ideas and thoughts so complex that not one other person will ever know everything that you do, no matter how close the relationship. It is impossible to do so, and to me, frustrating! We are born thinking, learning, and forging relationships, yet we are at some point always alone, if not in the physical sense, in the sense that our mind is ours alone. I found it very interesting to read Hughes point that recognition of an object will trigger the awareness that you are dreaming, or realizing that things are just a bit off or all too perfect may prove the same. Has anyone else realized this while they are dreaming? An odd feeling, but also pretty amazing considering we are recharging our bodies while we are sleeping, but we still never stop thinking, even at night. This might be an attribute of the human race ... but might be part of any animal's life cycle. Either way, explaining your own dreams and understanding another's can truly be interesting, frustrating, and one more facet contributing to our ever changing thoughts, lives, and therefore society.

Unconsciousness,Dreams and Creativity- Blog 2

It would be very beneficial to train ourselves to jump up from our sleep and quick write everything down that we dreamed about. What creative original stories could be told! Darn, if only I had remembered to write that dream down. I know one morning that was exactly my thoughts! I woke up thinking what a terrific book or movie story my dream could have been. After reading the chapters assigned for this week, my idea was not so original after all. Actually, what I dreamed about was not at all the kind of writing I would pursue at all. It was really quite science fiction and no, I was not taking any kind of drugs...unless you would count eating before bedtime as a drug. I did notice a pattern emerging that anytime eating occurs right before sleep, dreaming is almost a given event. How odd that our text did not mention eating at all, while discussing the unconscious state and dreaming.

When I read about the section called "Brief Encounters with the Reaper", it reminded me about a near-death experience I had about thirteen years ago. It is very true about the sensation of serenity. Looking back to that time, I am very lucky to even be here. Luckily, I only reached the first stage of the near-death experience. It was a very odd peaceful sensation.

One nice thing did happen to me today. I had an “Aha!’ moment. I was taking pictures for my Basic Photography class and I came across a scene that gave me an idea for my Creative paper. Now I need to really think the idea through. Somehow when I am trying to sleep, I usually get my thoughts and ideas together. I will need to make sure pencil and paper are nearby just in case!