Penny Post #11: Dreams

Hathaway meets DiCaprio in this thrilling love story.

The other night I woke up from the most cinematic dream. The dream woke me with such force that I felt compelled - as I never do - to write it down.

I sheepishly scribbled down several notes from the dream before I turned over, found a cool spot beneath the sheets, and drifted into another dream.

What I remember about that four A.M. wake-up call was that this dream - this story my unconscious had concocted - was revolutionary.

Margot, a blind woman (played by Anne Hathaway), falls in love with a seeing man before regaining her sight and not being able to recognize him (played by Leonardo DiCaprio).

Despite the fact that my unconscious mind made some pretty ambitious casting choices, what was most surprising to me was how idiotic, sparse, and nonsensical this dream appeared to a waking mind. My semi-conscious mid-dream mind recognized the story as ground-breaking, one-of-a-kind, magical. My waking mind crushed those dreams quickly.

When everything else was asleep, including many parts of my brain, the idea was glorious; in the dark hours, the dream shone.

Yet in the light hours, when the rest of the world had woken, the dream was dull.

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Many writers practice what is known as morning pages, three pages of longhand, stream of consciousness writing at the beginning of each day before the critical voices have awoken. Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way, calls this daily practice the “bedrock tool of a creative recovery”.

It is a way both to clarify and calm the tumbling of the mind when awakened. To get it all out there, with zero expectation and zero audience; preempting the critical voice that will soon stir.

I am not a morning page-r myself, yet I feel as if the aims mirror my own.

To a semi-conscious mind my dream made complete sense. In fact, it was bright with potential. So bright that two of the biggest Hollywood actors were cast. Yet once the dust settled and I awoke with the sunlight, the dream dimmed. My critical voice stepped in:

Margot is blind, but doesn’t recognize Sam by touch or smell or sound? How dumb.

Why wouldn’t Sam tell her who he is? Clearly undeveloped.

Who am I to cast Anne Hathaway and Leonardo DiCaprio? Temper your ambition, Kiera.

None of these voices existed in the night, when the dream was wonderfully bright and perfect and untouchable. I can’t rid myself of the critical voices that rise with the sun, yet I embrace the goodness and the rightness of the dream as it first appeared. I embrace my soaked-in-a-dream self; the one that believes Anne Hathaway and Leonardo DiCaprio would want to act in a story of mine, the one that believes there is wholeness in the stories that come from the deep recesses of my mind, and the one that has the foresight (pun intended) to believe that love is much more than what you can or cannot see.

Keep dreaming,

Kiera