An Explanation - 25 Dreams

An explanation - 25 dreams

One dream a day for 25 days.

BEFORE

Many psychologists, including Jung and Freud, have explored dreams and
what they have to say about the dreamer. 'Dream dictionaries' allow you
to look up objects and events that occurred in your dreams and find out
what they say about your true state of mind and, apparently, your
future.

In 'Becoming a Writer', Dorothea Brande talks about the two halves of
the brain, the left (logical and analytical) and the right (intuitive
and creative). She suggests authors be aware of this duality in
themselves.

In writing my dreams I intend to explore all of these things.

I expect this exercise will also assist me in writing everyday,
promoting good writing habits and improving discipline, which is good
for anyone who wishes to become a full time writer. Writing dreams also
provides me with a new story every time I wake up, which reduces time
spent staring at a blank page. By turning the details of my dreams into
stories and poems I hope to activate my imagination and explore that
concept of the subconscious feeding the conscious mind.

The stories will appear in the order in which I dreamt them i.e. 'B' is
Day 1 and 'Z' is Day 25.

I hope you enjoy reading (and reading into) them half as much as much
as I hated shrugging off sleep to write them down.

AFTER

I have found the experience of writing my dreams more interesting and
more revealing than I imagined, and I have since actively encouraged
others to do similar exercises. I am someone who has never had the
particular brand of patience it takes to maintain a diary for more than
three weeks, but I am now writing down my dreams everyday (if not every
morning), turning every one into a poem or short story.

One of the things I have gained from this exercise is an insight into
my subconscious. I didn't have recurring dreams, but my dreams had
recurring themes, something I hadn't realised until I started
this.

In my dreams I am an actor, or a director, performing and watching
scenes over and over again, from different perspectives, from the eyes
of different people. I think this comes from my work as a writer, where
I do much the same thing.

In my dreams I am vast, like a God, with a reach stretching across the
galaxy. I burn down buildings. I destroy planets. Again, I think this
may come from my hours of writing, where I am a sort of God: creating
people in my image, erasing worlds.

I think my writing has improved greatly. In two ways. First of all, my
power of description has been stretched further than ever before. I
have had to search my mind for ways of describing some very strange and
difficult objects, characters and concepts. But after a while I no
longer had to search, the words would suggest themselves, even within
the dream, which leads me on to the second way in which my writing has
improved.

I have been able to clearly remember my dreams, not by replaying them
over and over in my head, but by immediately creating the metaphors and
similes I will use later. I found that the phrases and ideas I created
stayed with me until I wrote them down, whereas trying to remember
images from the dream usually resulted in losing them completely.

I have since used this method to remember all story ideas I have had
when away from pen and paper.

From the people from the past who wander in and say the most ridiculous
things, to the obsessive fascination with things that you realise don't
matter or don't even exist upon waking, I continue to be amazed by the
rich variety and 'craziness' of dreams.

Ed.

for links and more info about dreams go to
http://edclayton.com/dreams

for excerpts from my book, '100 Dreams: Stories and Poems Based on
Dreams', or for ordering details please go to
http://edclayton.com/books