Dearest Dreamers,
In our waking lives, we sometimes find ourselves
slogging away, working through the ups, downs and often tricky ground of
personalities, politics and problems. We
may feel as though we are making headway, only to discover that we’ve worked
our way around a circle and made no progress at all.
Our Dreaming Selves offer us a higher perspective,
almost as though that part of ourselves sees the lay of the land around us from
a helicopter’s vantage point. Using the
beautiful language of metaphor, our dreams sum up confounding situations and
direct us to openings and inroads we simply cannot see from ground level.
People from all walks of life have relied upon their
dreams when in need of inspiration for solving problems with inventions, innovations
or when in need of creative impetus. Movie
makers, songwriters, visual artists and scientists are among the most notable:
John Lennon and Paul McCartney attribute some of
their iconic music and song lyrics to the stuff of their dreams. These include McCartney’s “Yesterday,” the
most covered song in music history and Lennon’s “#9 Dream.” Keith Richards tells of dreaming the riff to
the Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.”
Surrealist painter Salvador Dali called many of his
works "hand-painted dream photographs." With images of melting clocks
in his "Persistence of Memory," Dali illustrates his idea that our
concept of time becomes arbitrary when we're in a dream state.
Movie maker Richard Linklater of “Boyhood” fame
credits his dreams for a previous, well-received animated feature “Waking Life.” And Director Christopher Nolan took the
inspiration for his 2010 psychological thriller “Inception” from his own lucid
dreams.
Some of our most famous and acclaimed authors,
including Maurice Sendak, perhaps best known for his children’s book Where the Wild Things Are and SueGrafton of the alphabet mystery series A
Is for Alibi, B Is for Burglar, C Is for Corpse…H Is for Homicide speak
about their dreams’ influence on their work.
Nobel laureate James Watson reported stumbling upon
the double helix image for the DNA chain through his dream of a spiral
staircase.
Our dreams are not only beautiful and lyrical, but
their practical use for problem solving and creative generation of solutions ranges
across art, science and literature. It
doesn’t take a giant leap of faith to know that productive and accomplished
people across all endeavors can and do employ their dreams, tapping depths of
creativity and insight into their work.
Why not you, Dear Dreamer? No doubt you have faced or are facing a
challenge in your life. Consider that
your Dreaming Self can be helpful in giving you perspective on the
problem. As Stephen King says, a dream
may offer an angle on the issue that you just cannot see without it!
If these talented and noteworthy persons rely on
their dreams for insights and assistance, we too can add them to our toolbox of
methods for working resourcefully on the perplexing problems of our daily
lives.
Sweet Dreams to You!
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