Most of us spend about a third of our lives sleeping – and dreaming. Sometimes our dreaming lives seem whimsical, silly, outrageous. But more often than we realize, our dreams can provide insights into concerns in our waking lives and can also offer creative ideas.
Brahms, Puccini, and Wagner, for instance, all claimed that their musical ideas often were born during hypnogogic states of consciousness, that strange netherworld we enter as we’re falling asleep. Mary Shelley said her idea for Frankenstein came about as a result of horrifying hypnogogic images. It makes sense.
As we’re falling asleep, we’re entering another state of consciousness, where our logical left brain goes dormant and our right brain, that creative side of the brain, comes awake.
Stephen King refers to the writing of a novel as “dreaming awake,” and I know what he means. When you’re plugged into a story, the rest of the world vanishes. It’s just you – and the characters, the story, all of it unfolding in a kind of dreamlike state.
Thomas Edison used to take catnaps when he was stuck on a particular problem. When Einstein was stuck in his formulation about the theory of relativity, he supposedly took a nap and woke up with the answer. It’s as if intense left-brain activity needs to take a break at some point. It needs help from the right brain, and despite its resistance to that help, physical exhaustion takes over and the right brain rises to do its thing.
Creativity is an innate ability in all of us and one way or another, finds expression in our lives. Some years ago, an old friend of mine from my childhood in Caracas visited us and remarked how she didn’t feel creative at all. I was shocked. She’s a Sagittarius, and one of the things this sign is known for is its nomadic tendencies, its love of travel. She had spent nearly 20 years as flight attendant for Pan American Airways and has probably traveled to every continent except Antarctica. Travel is your creative outlet, I told her, and her eyes lit up and I knew she suddenly understood that creativity isn’t just about a physical product.
Creativity is an inner journey, a spiritual journey. It might be who we are when we aren’t resisting who we are. Maybe it’s one of the most direct routes to experiencing synchronicity, which tends to occur more frequently when we’re in an intensely creative period in our lives. In 7 Secrets of Synchronicity, creativity is one of the secrets.
During this hypnogogic period of sleep, our physical bodies undergo big changes – intense relaxation, a drop in blood pressure, a slowing of heart and breathing rates. We let go of our conscious lives. And by doing so, we sink into what Carl Jung called the collective unconscious, what physicist David Bohm called the implicate or enfolded order of the universe, a primordial soup that births everything, perhaps even space and time.
Pretty cool. Is it possible to dream a better world into existence? A more equitable world where no one goes to sleep hungry? Where war is a tragic anachronism of a prehistoric past?
May the creative flame burn in all of us. Dream on!
Very interesting post. Not sure if we can dream a ‘better world into existence’ though, will give that some thought.
Thank you for this thoughtful piece. I do agree that creativity is like “a waking dream” sometimes, the threads seem to weave together. There is that saying “the World is made of stories”, and I believe it is true.
The world really IS made of stories!
I may not always remember my hypnogogic dreams (didn’t quite know the term for it either until now, thank you) but I certainly ‘feel’ it the next day. Enlightening read, thanks for that!
I’ve heard Robert Moss refer to the hypnagogia portals as the “twilight zone,” a time of great conscious dreaming and creative opportunity, as you say. You probably know this poem by Rumi:
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.
Love this poem by Rumi! It pretty much says it all!
Dreams are the inner vision which is equal or more to what we see outside. People who don’t remember their dreams, feels to me, like they are missing out on a lot of living and knowledge. I wonder what Hitler dreamed. And I would love to know what the Dali Lama dreams.
I’d love to know about the dali lama’s dreams, too!
Well said.