The endless creativity inside each of us.

Dreams are so wild.

Last night I dreamt I had a bookstore in Maine in a small town along the coast and that I had not visited it for three years. I was there because it had to move to another town. But when I got there, I decided it was best to close it because I was never there. Then I went shopping at another bookstore looking for novels set in Maine and the shopkeeper was Anne Patchett, the author. There were hardly any books but the store was full of interesting things. One of her customers asked me if I knew Micheal Buble.

Well I can tell you one thing, I could analyze that dream til the cows came home and in that analysis I could go in a million different directions. I could think I should open a bookstore (maybe not in Maine) or that I am not spending enough time at the studio (never true) Or I could think I should go visit Anne Patchett's real life bookstore in Nashville.  

Or, I could do as I usually do, and let a dream be a dream and get on with things. I love that I have this imaginary life as I sleep. That pictures come and go in my head. That ideas swim around in there and stories form and I meet new people. It is otherworldly. Dreams are solid proof of the power of our imagination. We can even make up new people in them with faces and voices we never saw before. They are magical things. A little magic within us.

I woke this morning swirling in ideas and story, wading my way back into the real world. I was back in Amherst. In my dream I was worried about driving back in case I did not sleep well. But in reality, I was well rested and did not need to drive. I was planning to write, to walk, to hook. My day was just my own. It took me a few minutes to reclaim my life, as I was still carrying the responsibilities of my dream life with me as I re-entered the morning.

Our imagination is powerful and deep. It synthesizes everything we have been seeing, feeling, doing, and brings it together in ways we could never have fathomed. We all have this. Each of little humans. We have a well of creativity in us, our dreams are just one example of this. We have the power to conjure up ideas, places, people, that do not even exist in real life. Dreams, even day dreams, are proof of our imagination.

They show me that there is an inner world going on inside of me that I can tap into. I don't have to fully understand it. I don't have to translate it or interpret it. I can just let it live and let it be. But it is there. This wild rich full other life that I am not totally aware of. It is no doubt where some of my ideas come from. Where some of my thoughts are resolved. I respect my unconscious, that wild place full of ideas, pictures, words that are all jumbled together in a beautiful dreamlike state. It is a place inside of me that reminds me that creativity is endless.