While studying to become a Creative Arts Therapist at Lesley University, I took a course called Art Therapy and Dreams. It sounded fascinating to me. We would learn how to ask patients that we were treating to recall their dreams by painting them. This was a weekend long class in an old carriage house. It was packed full of students from the Art Therapy core group. I was in a core group called Intermodal since there was no Drama group at Lesley at that time. Drama was my primary field of training.
It was a sunny Sunday morning. We were all painting in our own chosen space with plenty of room to stretch out and paint big. Instead of feeling isolated the students in the Art Therapy group welcomed me, included me and encouraged my creative process. I had not painted since kindergarten. I found myself using large oil sticks to paint across a huge piece of paper. In grammar school our art was graded. Here I found a new freedom among people who, for the most part, had art training but were caught up in this wonderful feeling of creating art in a community setting. It was a life changing experience that I will never forget. The painting surprised me. I had no idea where it came from until later on when I remembered a recurring dream that I had as a little child. It was all there in my unconscious mind until I gave birth to it that day. My painting became part of my Master’s thesis and later on the name of my non-profit organization.
“The creative process is not controlled by a switch you can simply turn on or off, it is with you all the time” -Alvin Ailey
Have you ever kept a dream journal? Have you ever tried drawing or painting a dream? Try keeping a book by your bed. Most of our most vivid dreams occur right before we wake. Try writing down what you remember. You will be amazed at what you feel.
To read more about my dream painting and the creative process go to: starhousetreasures@instagram.com