Dreams, Creativity, and Becoming a Crone

Dreams. They are what creativity is made of, often. A wonderful creative spark in a dream or day-dream, a vision or a meditation can come to life at the artist’s hand, the architect’s drafting table, inventor’s inventory of ephemera, or metalsmith’s hammer, and build something up from the nothing that was there before. Powerful stuff, dreams.
2008 was a banner year for major dreamage, and the dreams have only escalated since. It’s almost like I woke up on New Year’s Day in 2008 and everything forever after would be different (see photo of Pod sculpture for an example of a dream coming to life). This has made me wonder about the power and meaning of dreams. A few months ago, the dreams started getting written down in a new journal, in between marketing ideas and to-do lists. While the other journal items were pretty straight forward, I didn’t know what to make of the dreams. They seemed to command attention on their own.

So I sought out some expert advice, and then attended a dreams workshop at Butler University. A bunch of woo-woo stuff? Maybe. But now that I’m the big 5-0 I don’t give a crap what anyone thinks about that. If it helps me resolve or feel better about whatever, or brings me closer to being a crone, then I’m gonna do whatever.
As a result of the dream lecture, I now own “The Dreamer’s Dictionary” and a proper Dream Journal which was on clearance at Office Max for 99 cents and is actually a bound school notebook with a pink cover. Just the thing. Snugged by my beside with my favorite ultra-fine point micro-pen which makes marks that I can actually read in the dim morning light, I set out to write down my dreams upon awakening.
Surely I could rein in the wispy dreams, interpret them, and reach a higher consciousness and level of wisdom which I had never known before. Ahh, the enlightenment! I could feel it approach, rumbling like a freight train bearing down on my location with railroad cars full of exquisite knowledge that would turn me into the crone I longed to be!
The reality, though, is a slog. A smidgen of knowledge, a dram at a time, each object in the dream one step closer to a full dream interpretation. Someday the dream-meanings would come, but for now they are nowhere NEAR where they should be in order to claim the crown of crone-ness.
Occasionally magnificent dreams with consistently neophyte translations. Visions of stuff (climbing a monumental red sculpture with a massive stone base at the edge of a cliff, for example) that I do not even possess enough skill to draw out on the paper in my little pink journal, let alone interpret fully.
In my heart and in my soul, I know this is special. And I feel lucky that these vivid dreams visit and that I recall them in such detail. It’s just that I want better answers faster than I am able to produce them on my own. I want to become a crone. And some rocking illustration skills would help a heap.
Do you, dear reader, have dreams? If you do, do you bother with interpretations? If so, how do you go about interpreting what they mean? Inquiring minds want to know!