THE STRANGE POWER OF DREAMS

We all dream, whether we remember them or not. Most are pleasant, others sometimes not so pleasant. Some dreams remain with us for years, still with the power to please or to frighten. But what triggers dreams?

A true nightmare sometimes causes us to cry aloud, and prevent resuming a quiet night’s rest. A sexual dream can be disappointing if, upon awakening, the dream prince or princess is not a reality.
But what triggers a dream? There have been numerous studies made of our nightime experiences, but it’s still a mystery.

I can still remember a dream I had when I was 11 years old, which encouraged me to jump off the roof with the expectation of flight. Flight dreams are really pretty common, and given our prehistoric beginnings when we either fought or fled, are understandable, but disturbing in a child for obvious reasons.

A long-standing dream of mine which I file under the title “Dog Dreams” in my memory file, was one where I had been kidnapped, and actually turned into a dog who bit my kidnapper, complete with snarling et al. I had this same dream repeatedly for several years. I’m not proud of it, but that’s the way it is.

In a too-vivid dream I had when my youngest daughter was a toddler, she climbed up onto the railing of a bridge in Ireland, and tumbled off before I could catch and save her. At that time, we had never been to Ireland, with no expectation of ever going there. When we eventually did go, I found myself on the very same bridge I had dreamed. It was a terrifying deja vu moment, though my daughter at that time was grown and married.

Another vivid dream which turned out to be delusory, involved two paintings of mine which I hung on someone’s wall, I don’t know whose. I felt they were some of my best work. I actually searched for those two paintings for days before I was convinced that they had merely been a colorful dream. I sometimes think I may find them again.

Are our dreams just the result of a vivid imagination? I doubt that the mystery will ever be solved, but in the meantime, “pleasant dreams”.

GO WITH THE FLOW

I love the watercolor medium.  The look of color flowing over damp pristine white paper to become another color as it blends with a neighboring hue is so exciting to me.  Oil painting of course has its own virtues, but to watch one color flowing into a shadow on the paper and bringing a sort of mystery to a dark fold in a garment, or the bark of a tree, is a delight which can never be repeated.  That is what makes watercolor by far the most difficult of the paint mediums.  It cannot be copied, nor can that particular flow happen again.  It has a sensual quality to it.

Great oil paintings command great price.  Far more than a watercolor, as they should.  The simple watercolor never claims to be great art.  But the sometimes astonishing movement of colors mixing on the paper makes it all worthwhile.   Just go with the flow.

It’s a good motto for life too.  Rivers flow, and if there are no reasons to divert them, then let them flow.  They know where they’re going.   There are a lot of occasions when the best path is to do nothing.  In the sixty’s someone came up with a great catch phrase:  “Don’t sweat the small stuff; and it’s all small stuff.”

So when you find your knickers getting into a twist over nothing, just go with the flow.