FRIDAY PROMPT- DREAM JOURNALING

In my sleep, I dreamt

I held your hand, comforted,

until a small voice down the hall

called me into wakefulness,

and the warm, grey

of a rainy spring morning.

I am home from a fabulous artfest.   My husband left immediately to visit his parents in Florida, as his father was hospitalized while I was away.  More on Artfest soon. Time for a FRIDAY PROMPT!

DREAM JOURNALING

"We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep."   - The Tempest, Shakepeare

While sometimes I can recall my dreams vividly, most often what I am left with of my dreamtime journeys is a snippet, an image and/or a feeling.  Dreams, it goes without saying, make wonderful content for art journal pages.  While transcribing your dreams can be interesting, examining them can be all the more worthwhile. 

Gestalt theory suggests we are everything in our dreams.  If we dream of an iridescent blue bird circling a sparking pond, located in the middle of a lovely wood, waiting for the right moment to dive in, while bees buzzed in the flowers along the pond's edge- besides the obvious content of the character of the bird waiting to dive in, we should also examine the pond, the wood, the bees and even the flowers, as if we were also those items. Curious stuff, no? This alone could fill a journal, but we are here for prompts!

So, fix it in your mind to recall upon waking at least a glimmer of a dream.  Think of this before falling asleep as a firm request to your subconscious and unconscious minds.  Then, upon waking, hold that glimmer, and turn it over in your mind.  Perhaps write a few words about it, poetry, prose, thoughts... and look for an image that reflects the feeling of that dream snippet. Direct illustration is fun, but trying to capture the feeling may mean we sift through images at our disposal until we can find one that reflects the emotional content. 

If you really think about your dream snippet upon waking, bringing it to mind a few times, you won't forget.  The dream snippet above is mine from last night, and it was two hours before I could jot anything down.  So, I turned it around in my mind, feeling the texture of the memory, touching its edges, considering the content.  Then, when everyone had been settled into their morning off from school, I sat down.

Feel free to do a show and tell, or not, as dream content can be intensely private.

Comments

[Beverly Gilbert]

L.K.
Love your poem and am so intrigued with the prompt. I will make a push to recall some snippets of my dreams and add them to my new journal - that you inspired me to create.

[Meri Arnett-Kremian]

Wonderful challenge. Such a rich vein to tap. By the way, how's the wrist? You were in such misery Saturday that I kept wishing you'd leave us and head to the emergency room.

[judy wise]

I usually remember my dreams vividly and have thought about the emotional residue; I never seem to deal with negative emotions in my waking moments but have often wept tears of loss and fury while asleep. Yes, I know what that means. Great prompt.

[eb]

oh yes LK - my dreams fuel many a page - holding them carefully is a kind of yoga - such a great prompt... sending you love from up here as the green things poke out their little heads at last

xox - eb.

[misty]

i love your poem.
already artfest feels like a dream... i want to go back to sleep! :-)
xo