I learned early in life how to escape from stress, hurt, anger... the world. It was a simple yet effective coping mechanism called sleep. It amazed me that no matter how upset I was falling asleep, I always woke up feeling good again. All the tears had dried, any misgivings I had of my sister, forgiven, and any turbulence I felt from my parents fighting, relieved. Not only did it release the upsets, I also discovered my own world in which I could play freely and have amazing, albeit weird, adventures. Dreams didn't make sense, but neither did the waking world and at least in my dreams I felt content.
I began to build stories in my dreams. It got to the point where I went to bed early just so I could think out the stories I had started the night before and tried to finish them. As childhood gave away to adolescence, I let go of creating the stories in dreams to put them on paper. I used the whirlwind of emotions to paint dark poetry and the story of my childhood dreams. When life took an unexpected turn and I found myself pregnant at 16, I retreated once again to my make-believe world whenever possible. Perhaps the most stressful time in my entire life thus far and I needed that escape in ways I could never fully explain. I even read about lucid dreaming and learned to control my dreams. It was amazing to realize I was in a dream and then jump off a mountain to soar across the sky.
Fast forward to the present. I have accomplished much through the years - pulled myself out of a broken family and raised three daughters on my own, have a successful job, my own home and I'm in good health and great spirits. I no longer live to dream, but dream to live. I want to experience and touch and feel and learn as much as I can. And I want to take the passion for stories out of my head and put them on paper.
Yet, often when I try to take my stories out of my head and out of my dreams and put them on paper, I find I freeze up. I can't give them the proper words or sequence. I can lie down with it and play it out as I drift off to sleep, but on paper I often get blocked. It has been said that God is so awesome that humankind could not possibly fathom his very voice, hence we are unable to hear him. Are those stories deepest within me meant to stay buried for I fear the world could not understand them? Perhaps my childhood tendencies to entertain myself has outgrown it's boundaries. Perhaps now is a good time to find a new muse.
"Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?"
~Edgar Allan Poe
4 comments:
Sam - that was good! Where you have always loved to sleep you know that I always love to stay awake. However too often due to my lack of sleep I find myself in odd worlds while awake...I just drift into that Neverland only to awake to my working world, trapped under a curtain of stress and hopeless expectations.
Don't give up your muse just yet. Jot down the things that you can and keep compiling them. Eventually, you will find a way to make it all make as much sense and flow on paper as it does in your dreams. I still struggle with finding the exact words that I want to use to get things out, but I just keep journaling them and hold on to them until I can put them in their places and make sense of them. You have an amazing gift in transforming your dreams into stories as you sleep. I believe that anything is possible. Look what you have accomplished thus far. A wonderful mother of three, successful and gifted with words. Freezing up is the test we are put through to see if we can push through. I think that you can!!
Is there a such thing as "Dreamer's Block"? Perhaps instead of writing down entire dreams write down specific images or descriptive words/phrases. Don't push for everything, work with some. And what you can produce could be the foundation for your next writing venture.
Maybe you just need a different approach to keep things fresh. Hope I made sense.
sleeping (too much) really was a way for me to cope and not needed now- so I am ok with letting that go. I am exploring photography more and really just enjoying nature. Keeping it fresh is right at the top of the priority list! Thanks for the feedback :)
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