Power Of Dreams And Observation.

In the words of The Cranberries, dreams are impossible to ignore. Sure, we might forget most of them entirely by dinner time , but what about the ones that we can’t shake off? How important are these dreams to a writer? Think about how the drama of a piece can be emphasised when a character steps back into a memory, a dream, or enters the subconscious. For example, the protagonist in Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist is a shepherd named Santiago, who follows the path of a recurring dream. This leads him on a journey of self-discovery and destiny. The Alchemist wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for Santiago’s dream. So if our characters believe strongly in the powers of vision, then we too should embrace our subconscious.

Dreams and observations are so very important when it comes to our writing process, without them there would be no stories, no drama. Cultivating images and vision is an essential part of the initial stage of our writing process. It’s all down to our imagination, which comes from the same place as our dreams do; the unconscious mind. Some of the greatest novels of our time have been born from a dream. For example, many of Stephen King’s concepts and plots were conceived from dreams. In particular, his 1987 psychological thriller ‘Misery’ was derived from a dream while he was asleep on an airplane. He dreamt of a fan kidnapping her favourite author and holding him hostage, Not only was a novel produced but it inspired a successful film, starring Kathy Bates, who went on to receive an Oscar for it. Just goes to show that in the dream world, anything is possible.

The powers of observations are essential when cultivating our visions and images. In The Road To Somewhere; a creative writing companion, Julie Armstrong suggests in order to develop our observation skills, one should “Look at everything from the point of view of a child trying to capture the freshness and innocence, the fascination children have for the world around them. Try and look at things as if it’s for the very first time.” She also states “It’s not what you see but how you see it.” I found this relative to my personal writing process as I have always believed in observing and, knowing I had to start somewhere, the easiest thing to do in order to write, was to simply look around me and delve into the world in which I lived.

Absorbing whatever’s around you is like having your own personal library of writing ideas. Because there is a great variety of places and people in this world, I believe we will never be and could never be short of good stories. Imagine for a second, a world without books or any type of text. I certainly can’t. I have faith in the world around me allowing me to indulge in reading and writing at every possible opportunity. It’s just a case of opening our eyes; everything is waiting to be turned into a story.

Writing is considered to be a form of meditation. I’m almost certain you’ve all sat down, relaxed, and tried to zone out, cleanse your mind, forget about your problems and become receptive to the ideas floating around in your head. I have, and it’s like a starting gun goes off and I set myself free to write. All we need is a prompt and fortunately these are all around us and unlike many other things in life, they can’t be taken away from us. In 2005, Corinne McLaughlin stated that “creative meditation is using the mind to build positive pictures and giving them life and direction with the thought energy of the mind.” Our heightened awareness untangles our mind, allowing us to feel a sense of order and harmony, therefore unlocking our best writing ideas.

Dorothea Brande recommends that we consider the conscious and the unconscious sides of the mind “as two separate personalities.” So when you’re next staring out the window, and those around you think you’re trying to get out of doing the dishes or abusing the phrase “sorry I can’t, I’ve got work to do.” Remind them that a writer is never off duty. We have to treat our own mind well. Some may not fathom that the time we spend ‘daydreaming’ is of course the most important time of all. We need to allow ourselves solitude and headspace. Looking back at a time when I’ve been incredibly receptive to writing ideas and a place where ‘writing meditation’ came alive for me was working in the Alps a few years ago. We know different life experiences, positive or negative, can encourage us to write, but at this particular time in my life, my writing was lacking. Maybe because I had just finished university and had written one too many essays or was drained of words because of my dissertation, I don’t know, but less than a week into my stay in the mountains I was bursting with ideas and the urge to pick up a pen was so prominent that once again, writing became my release. The entire setting was completely idyllic and fortunately I was inspired to write every time I opened my curtains, spoke French, or stepped off the chairlift. I remember lines of poetry popping into my head as I was flying down a red run. It was bliss, and has become a life experience that fed my hunger for inspiration and thankfully re-ignited and developed my love for writing. And thank the lord for photography.

The pictures I took during those five months are now my very own writing prompts, they act as my golden ticket into a story factory. Each time I look through them, I’m right back there, looking around, observing, dreaming, and writing. Relating to this is one of my favourite quotes from the influential thinker, Sigmund Freud. He commented on how creative writing assists in dream analysis and said that “storytellers are valuable allies, and their testimony is to be rated high, for they usually know many things between heaven and earth that our academic wisdom does not even dream of. They draw from sources that we have not yet made accessible to science.” This backs up the notion of the powers of observation because as writers, 99% of the time we see things that others don’t, being why the world around us is a powerful tool. We know dreams and cultivating images work hand in hand with our observations skills, but how I do I use these concepts in my writing process? I remember skiing for the final time during those five months away, treasuring the world around me. I now know it’s ok to treat the unconscious as a valuable tool in my writing abilities. Because without it, my conscious would simply not exist.

To me, writing is who I am, it’s a part of me and I fear I couldn’t express myself without it. The author of Imaginary Girls, Nova Ren Suma, sums it up beautifully. She says:

“I write to make sense of things. To re-imagine. To re-remember. To hold close. To push away. To live again. To invent. To fight, and to win.”