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One morning, earlier this week, I woke up from a deep, dreamy sleep to the sound of my alarm. Before the alarm went off I was dreaming that I was trying to write a text on my phone, when suddenly it started to ring. I immediately pressed the green telephone symbol on the keypad to answer the call, but to my frustration my phone just kept ringing. And that's when I woke up realizing that my morning phone alarm had gone off. When I checked the time, I was horrified to discover that it was an hour later than I had expected. I had incorrectly set the alarm before going to sleep. I began frantically rushing around trying to get myself dressed and ready for an appointment that I was now going to be late for. As I headed towards the bathroom to take a shower I became aware that my legs felt heavier than usual. In fact they felt like ten-ton weights. As a result I seemed to be moving in slow motion. The effort of trying to heave my body towards the bathroom door caused me to yell out and just at that moment I heard my phone alarm go off yet again.
It was at that point that I actually woke up. Thankfully it was all just a dream and I made my business appointment on time. Since that experience I've been thinking about consciousness and how we really know the difference between when we are awake and when we are asleep, dreaming. In the film 'Inception' Leonardo Di Caprio plays a thief who specializes in stealing information. As he is the best in the business 'the men in black' enlist him to enter people's dreams and steal information from their minds. Of course Leonardo's character has to go into a dream himself in order to join other people's dream worlds. However he has a handy little spinning top to let him know the difference between when he is dreaming and when he is awake. I don't have one of those, so that got me thinking more deeply about what dreaming actually is and how we might tell the difference between dreams and reality. There are many theories that suggest that dreaming at night is our way of sorting out the previous days events. Some say it is a creative time when we find solutions to life's challenges. Others have suggested it is our minds taking time out to face our deepest fears and desires, and rehearse our responses should these things ever become a reality. One thing is clear once you start to research the subject of dreams and dreaming, no-one really knows for sure what they are, or why we have them. Apparently. there are certain dreams that we all share. Common, universal dreams. For example - dreaming that you are walking around a house that you are very familiar with and yet you discover extra rooms that you never knew existed in the house. Another commonly reported dream is being in a small lift in which you are the only, tightly packed occupant. The lift not only moves up and down but also outside and around a large building. Much like being on a roller coaster ride. I have actually experienced both of these and I've also met other people who've had one or both of the same dreams. Weird!
I did the same thing for years, until I could not live like this anymore. So just talking about creative projects, collecting a bunch of magazines and sitting down together, chatting and ripping out inspiring pages, looking at each other's bounty and getting inspired by watching each other got us into the creative flow. My friend stayed up until late that night, because she could not stop. I went to bed earlier, my board was half the size of hers and by now I am pretty fast, I am not methodical creative, and I am impulsive and fast.
Image Streaming This exercise is to be carried out in pairs or individually. The exercising student closes her eyes and asks herself a question. The exercising student then describes out loud her mental visual imagery either to another student or to a tape recorder. Describing of the mental images should be flowing and streaming. In the process of describing the images she sees in her mind, the student should concentrate on sensory details. For example, "I feel the softness of the fresh laundry", "my feet are pressed against the cold tiles", "I smell the rain-soaked air." The student should aim to make her live or potential listener vividly experience what she sees. In order to develop and maintain the flow of streaming imagery, the student should ask herself new questions as to the nature of objects she sees in her mind and explore them in detail. Relaying the mental images should be done in a hastened pace to avoid judgment and critical thinking. Image streaming is to be exercised for at least 10 minutes each time. Over time, this exercise improves creativity and intelligence.
We kept admiring each other's work and came up with numerous ideas on how we will continue these creative get-togethers and expand to other friends and community.
The Gods Must Be Crazy An African Bushman, unaware of white culture, discovers an empty Coca Cola bottle in the Kalahari Desert. The bushman closely examines this mystical object (casually dropped by a passing pilot), wondering what it is good for. He then tries blowing into it, and is very pleased to learn that it makes a noise. In this creativity exercise you encourage your students to become Bushmen. I mean it. You need to collect 5 to 10 props. You display a prop to your students and ask them to find a new use for it. This exercise encourages creativity since it forces the thinking process to erase or ignore what is known and come up with fresh ways of looking at something familiar.
But this time, there is no one else but you. This time you wake up bathed in a gentle, bright light, feeling perfectly at one with yourself. You sense a slight feeling of anxiety that quickly shifts to excitement as you suspect that you are the dreamer of all dreams. The timeless, spaceless, infinite consciousness that is dreaming itself and everything and everyone that has ever existed and that ever will exist. Finally you realize that you are fully awake. You still feel just like yourself. Just like you've always felt, but this time you know the truth. You know that the creative dreamer behind all dreams was you all along. All the stories and myths of Gods, Goddesses, telepathy, ghosts, astral planes, the paranormal, heavens and hells, far off kingdoms and magical elves. All just dreams in the infinite, eternal, connected and creative mind of the One Cosmic dreamer. You.
It was at that point that I actually woke up. Thankfully it was all just a dream and I made my business appointment on time. Since that experience I've been thinking about consciousness and how we really know the difference between when we are awake and when we are asleep, dreaming. In the film 'Inception' Leonardo Di Caprio plays a thief who specializes in stealing information. As he is the best in the business 'the men in black' enlist him to enter people's dreams and steal information from their minds. Of course Leonardo's character has to go into a dream himself in order to join other people's dream worlds. However he has a handy little spinning top to let him know the difference between when he is dreaming and when he is awake. I don't have one of those, so that got me thinking more deeply about what dreaming actually is and how we might tell the difference between dreams and reality. There are many theories that suggest that dreaming at night is our way of sorting out the previous days events. Some say it is a creative time when we find solutions to life's challenges. Others have suggested it is our minds taking time out to face our deepest fears and desires, and rehearse our responses should these things ever become a reality. One thing is clear once you start to research the subject of dreams and dreaming, no-one really knows for sure what they are, or why we have them. Apparently. there are certain dreams that we all share. Common, universal dreams. For example - dreaming that you are walking around a house that you are very familiar with and yet you discover extra rooms that you never knew existed in the house. Another commonly reported dream is being in a small lift in which you are the only, tightly packed occupant. The lift not only moves up and down but also outside and around a large building. Much like being on a roller coaster ride. I have actually experienced both of these and I've also met other people who've had one or both of the same dreams. Weird!
I did the same thing for years, until I could not live like this anymore. So just talking about creative projects, collecting a bunch of magazines and sitting down together, chatting and ripping out inspiring pages, looking at each other's bounty and getting inspired by watching each other got us into the creative flow. My friend stayed up until late that night, because she could not stop. I went to bed earlier, my board was half the size of hers and by now I am pretty fast, I am not methodical creative, and I am impulsive and fast.
Image Streaming This exercise is to be carried out in pairs or individually. The exercising student closes her eyes and asks herself a question. The exercising student then describes out loud her mental visual imagery either to another student or to a tape recorder. Describing of the mental images should be flowing and streaming. In the process of describing the images she sees in her mind, the student should concentrate on sensory details. For example, "I feel the softness of the fresh laundry", "my feet are pressed against the cold tiles", "I smell the rain-soaked air." The student should aim to make her live or potential listener vividly experience what she sees. In order to develop and maintain the flow of streaming imagery, the student should ask herself new questions as to the nature of objects she sees in her mind and explore them in detail. Relaying the mental images should be done in a hastened pace to avoid judgment and critical thinking. Image streaming is to be exercised for at least 10 minutes each time. Over time, this exercise improves creativity and intelligence.
We kept admiring each other's work and came up with numerous ideas on how we will continue these creative get-togethers and expand to other friends and community.
The Gods Must Be Crazy An African Bushman, unaware of white culture, discovers an empty Coca Cola bottle in the Kalahari Desert. The bushman closely examines this mystical object (casually dropped by a passing pilot), wondering what it is good for. He then tries blowing into it, and is very pleased to learn that it makes a noise. In this creativity exercise you encourage your students to become Bushmen. I mean it. You need to collect 5 to 10 props. You display a prop to your students and ask them to find a new use for it. This exercise encourages creativity since it forces the thinking process to erase or ignore what is known and come up with fresh ways of looking at something familiar.
But this time, there is no one else but you. This time you wake up bathed in a gentle, bright light, feeling perfectly at one with yourself. You sense a slight feeling of anxiety that quickly shifts to excitement as you suspect that you are the dreamer of all dreams. The timeless, spaceless, infinite consciousness that is dreaming itself and everything and everyone that has ever existed and that ever will exist. Finally you realize that you are fully awake. You still feel just like yourself. Just like you've always felt, but this time you know the truth. You know that the creative dreamer behind all dreams was you all along. All the stories and myths of Gods, Goddesses, telepathy, ghosts, astral planes, the paranormal, heavens and hells, far off kingdoms and magical elves. All just dreams in the infinite, eternal, connected and creative mind of the One Cosmic dreamer. You.
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