“I have dreamt in my life, dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they have gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the color of my mind. And this is one: I'm going to tell it - but take care not to smile at any part of it.”
― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
Before having my first baby, the one piece of advice that was always given to me was that I better get some sleep because once the baby arrives I wouldn't be getting any sleep at all! I didn't anticipate how challenging a newborn baby's sleep really was and how little rest that I actually got. Nora was up every 2 to 3 hours to eat and I don't even think I got 5 hours of sleep in a row until maybe she was around 3 months old.
Having little sleep, I realized I was able to catch my dreams easier or at least I was able to remember my dreams. This is when I started keeping a dream journal because I was having some really odd dreams like dreams when Nora was around 1 month old. She would sit up and talk to me in complete sentences. Sort of like one of those E-trade babies, if you have seen the commercial.
A dream journal is a little notebook and pen that you keep beside your bed and when you wake up during the night or in the morning you immediately write it down. It's not always about tracking your dreams but sometimes it's an emotion, a feeling, an image or even something completely abstract like a shade of color. It's important to not let your brain think yet but just write and be present in the moment like stream of consciousness. It also doesn't have to be long or lengthy, just semi legible and it can even be a quick drawing. It's more about whatever is supposed to come out. It's the time when you can capture your unconscious mind.
The last year or so, before I go to sleep I have been either looking at art, listening to music or reading different things that I want to be inspired by. It's been an experiment to see if it will inspire my dreams and put my brain where it needs to be.
This is a great source of inspiration and finding new ideas to incorporate in my work because I am always curious about my subconscious layer and what I should be instinctively creating especially in making art.
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