Socially Creative challenges are invitations to engage different art forms to access intelligence beyond intellect. They are designed to be short, accessible, and fun. You don’t have to be a professional artist to play. Leave the voice aside that says you’re not good enough to make art or to play. Dreams have secrets to tell!
Follow Your Dreams
Time: 20 minutes
Preparation:
- Paper
- Writing Implement
John O'donohue speaks brilliantly about dreams, imagination, and connection to life and spirit. (
) Something he says is that while human lives sometimes might look extraordinarily boring or mundane everyone's life is actually quite the opposite. He says to look to our dreams to see just ow strange and creative we are.
This following activity can be adapted in any way to suit you. The primary practice is to follow the imagination and see what the imaginal realm has to reveal.
1 ) Close your eyes and take a minute or two to breath and relax
2 ) What do you see? Ask this question to yourself until something emerges. If nothing, make something up. Do you see mountains, a lake, a merry-go-round. Bring up anything to get an image. It doesn't need to be perfectly drawn out.
3 ) Continue to change your orientation to explore more of what's there. If it's a merry-go-round, see the color. Which direction is it moving? Who is on it? What's the emotional quality. Look behind you. Look above you.
4 ) Continue to follow the dream and use the creativity of your mind and thinking to help you to explore. If it's a rope, grab hold of it. What does your hand or body want to do? Does it pull you to something what's it attached to?
5 ) As you continue to practice this you will find that the imagination can take over. From there, you might narrate what naturally unfolds in your vision. You might write a song or a poem meanwhile narrating or describing what unfolds. And, it doesn't need to be poetic. The purpose is to engage int he interplay of the unconscious and conscious mind.
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