Lucid Dreaming

I'm at my grandparent's farmhouse and the whole family is there, including a bunch of other people and children that I don't know. My husband and cousin are outside playing football with some kids, my aunts are inside busily cleaning and preparing a large meal. I find myself bonding and playing with a child that looks like my best friend's son, only she's a girl. I love this little girl. I want to go outside but my aunt stops me and wants me to sweep the porch. I act like a baby about it, "but I wanted to go outside!" and she lets me. (I can be pretty stubborn and hot headed in my dreams). Once outside, a little mean boy pours water over my mother's head. She stands up and it has somehow affected her leg brace. I'm so angry at this kid I want to smash him to the ground. I help my mother up and lead her into the house.

Then I'm standing in the porch looking out. A great rumbling in the distance gets closer and closer like a hurricane of destruction. The otherwise natural surroundings turn more urban and it's like a giant plane or train crash with debris rumbling closer and closer to the windowpane I'm standing in awe in front of. As it comes rushing towards me, I realize I'm just dreaming and challenge myself to keep my eyes open - nothing's going to happen to me. In this moment I am aware, I am lucid, as soon as it hits I once again forget I'm in a dream. "It" - this rumbling pile of gray - hits the house like a tidal wave and then the house feels like it's floating and bobbing on water.

I am lifted up and out of the scene and fly over city streets, parks, people walking and cars. Little shifting clips of scenes from above. The last scene I see is a disturbing funeral group hovering over a casket out in the clear sunny day. It's not really sad, it just sort of... is what it is.

My flying adventure ends at a stairway into a building which I enter. Inside is an art and craft show. I'm dizzy from my "flight" and have to gain my footing before back tracking to the first artisan, I want to visit every booth. She is a kind woman selling silver jewelry with sparkling gems - my favorite kind of jewelry. I pick out a pin and buy it for $8. She says "remember to keep this away from children" and I say I plan on giving it to one of my aunt's that don't have children for Christmas (Jo or Jan if you're reading this, I'm already thinking of presents for you!). She packages it up with a smile and I continue on.

I find myself in a room with antique dealers and I'm carrying a chair on my behind. Yes, as strange as that is, a folding chair is awkwardly being carried along with my purse stuffed with paper work and other random clutter and my new purchase in a bag. It's too much to carry. I ask the vendors if they mind me putting down the chair and one says it's fine, another gives me quite the attitude - "Why do you have a chair with you?" and I snap back, "Because if there's MUSIC or some kind of PERFORMANCE I want to SIT DOWN, OKAY!??" and I've crossed a line, made a spectacle of myself and feel ashamed.

I pick up my chair and exit that room into another that's very cluttered with antiques and some seriously amazing paintings. The artists don't seem to care that their work is strewn everywhere and I find it hard to step around things but I want to take it all in. I put down my things and realize after my little scene in the other room, I somehow managed to pick up one of the antique dealers displays - like a washboard with little nick-nacks on it. Sneakily, I just stick it behind some old chest hoping they find it, too embarrassed to return it myself. The artist looks at me like "oh sure, you'll spend your money on that crap but not on art?" and I tell him I'm an artist too and that I collect plenty of art.

Then my dog woke me up.

I laid in bed for a bit, remembering the artwork I had seen, the images swirling around in my mind and then began to see images that I want to paint. Abstract figurative paintings, big and bold, paintings that say something. That's what's sticking with me and I feel like I have something new to say in painting. After this time away from making art, something has struck me. Inspiration has struck me and now I must take it to heart and do some sketching and planning for new work.

I don't know what the totality of the dream is saying but I thought I'd share it since it was so crystal clear to me when I woke up. (I also find it hilarious what a brat I can be in my dreamstate!). I'm entering the season when my dreams are WILD adventures, sometimes scary, sometimes thrilling. I think on the whole I'm getting better at realizing not to be afraid when danger threatens me. That lucidity clicks in at the key moments and I'm whisked away from danger at the last minute. Like a car headed towards a tree that somehow magically lifts up and off the ground just before the strike. Most importantly though, is seeing art in my dreams. I love when I have art dreams and I wish I could just wake up and paint everything I've seen but already the images are lost to me. What is not lost however, are the images that I "dreamed" when I woke up. These paintings will become a reality. I don't know when, but they will. Stay tuned...

If you like to interpret dreams - have at it! Have you ever had a lucid dreaming experience? Do you ever dream about art?

Awakening

Awakening
Acrylic on 16 x 20 gallery wrapped canvas, 2009

Available at www.livefunky.etsy.com

As I've probably already mentioned, I'm a real hermit in the winter months. I think my totem animal is a bear and like bears, I hibernate. I can't sleep all winter long, but I do sleep much longer hours in the winter. I end up having the deepest and most dazzling dream world during this time that I really enjoy. The other night I was roaming around this place that reminded me of South Beach. Clubs/hotels right up against the ocean - I was walking on the beach, hanging out poolside, meeting new people - it was a blast! Last night I saw my grandmother playing cards. She passed away when I was ten and it was so amazing to feel like I really SAW her (my memories of her have been replaced with photographs of her so it felt so real to "see" her in 3 dimensions). When I wake up the dreams stay with me. I've been lucky to have such positive dreams lately, the worst is when a bad dream sticks with you throughout the day (stay away nightmares!). So this dreamy state of mind led me to name this new painting Awakening. The hazy colors and composition remind me of slowly coming back to the "real" world from another dream dimension. Sometimes I wonder if it's just my imagination or if I'm really experiencing these things somewhere...else. What are dreams? They feel like so much more than just neurons firing.

I really do believe that there are several types of dreams.

1. Regular old dreams - These are quite simply a mix and match of memories, things picked up from the day - a conversation, a scene from a movie or a book, a thought process, whatever. They jumble around to form a scene that can make sense or not, either way, it doesn't really matter or mean anything in particular.

2. Regular dreams with substance - These come about the same way as regular dreams, but things are arranged to actually tell/teach you something. It's like your subconscious gathers the stuff in your head like art materials to paint you a picture that your conscious mind needs to see. It could be about your job, your relationships, your health. Sometimes you wake up and think "well that was random" and then it dawns on you that there was a message in there.

3. Visitations - I honestly believe that our loved ones that have passed can and do visit us in our sleep. I'm not sure if my grandmother actually came to me last night, but I know without a doubt that my uncle has before. Those dreams knock my socks off and make me believe with all my heart that we go on.

4. Time travel - Yes, you heard me right. When I was a kid, I had dreams of walking around my parent's "neighborhood" which didn't exist then because at that time they were one of only three houses on a long dirt road. Now there is a whole new development that changed the landscape greatly. It looks exactly as I saw it back then in my dreams. And back then, there was a certain style of housing developments much different than today. How could I dream up the McMansion with huge yards look back then? Especially when our little house is just a simple ranch in the woods. Other futuristic dreams I've had include being on a monorail in a city with the monorail cutting through buildings multiple stories up. Lots of underground trains too and in one dream, personal flying machines filling the sky.

5. Other - Who knows what else is possible. Some dream worlds seem so elaborate down to every detail that I wonder if I'm in some other dimension. Like a parallel planet or something. I know, crazy. This could just be my overactive imagination, but who knows? There's so much about our existence that we don't understand so I'm open to possibilities...

Now that you really think I'm nuts may I remind you I'm an artist. It goes with the territory.

Sweet Dreams....

Since I'm starting to share my dreams in this creative way, I thought I'd share a song from Stevie Wonder's The Secret Life of Plants. My parent's had this album on tape and I ended up with it, because I loved all things Stevie Wonder - everything from the hits that he was coming out with in the 80's as I was growing up to the Innervisions record I played from my parent's collection. This album, The Secret Life of Plants, was different.

I couldn't listen to it during the day. I was too busy as a kid to really slow down and groove with it. But I would put it in my walkman and listen to it at night as I was falling asleep. It was so peaceful and otherworldly. Now I share it with you and wish you sweet dreams...

365 Day 7

365 Day 7, originally uploaded by livefunky.

This drawing began on the back of a used envelope. I then scanned the drawing and altered it in Illustrator.

This rough sketch shows a scene from my dream last night. I was standing with my best friend Emily in the middle of one of the fields on my Grandfather's farm. It seemed like it was in another time because the land looked different. Where there is now a tobacco field, there was tall wild grasses and marshland. My friend and I were standing at the edge of a clearing made for camping. We had a fire going and were prepared to spend the night in a tent. But I looked up into the woods on the hill and saw a wild kingdom of animals. Lions and tigers, rhinos, giraffes, zebras - you name it - if it was an animal that wouldn't normally live in New England, it was there. My first reaction was fear - no way were we camping out there! I worried there were lurking predators in the brush surrounding us. But my second feeling was awe at this wild jungle of life before us. How did these animals get here? What happened on Earth to get us to this moment in time?