Dreams filter through Imagination

I like the word "dreamer" it conjures up images of a Victorian romantic clad in silk and lace, who glides instead of walks, whispers instead of talks, and is easy on the eyes.


However, for many a dreamer denotes another image altogether- not solely an adventurer who nightly checks into the land of dreams but as someone with a weak mental alignment. They are incorrectly labeled as escapists, immature, irresponsible, seekers of unobtainable wishes. The assumption is that today’s dreamers can be cured from fantasies by returning to the mundane reality of life.

In the past, the dreamer had an entirely different status, they had a gift and were encouraged to investigate the hidden meaning and significance of their dreams, as opposed to rid themselves from them. They received approval and credibility of their dreams as a hidden panacea through a dream interpreter. The role of the interpreter was to decipher the symbols and facilitate their understanding. Unfortunately, the dream interpreter is now extinct and our appetite for dreaming has been curtailed.


I can’t begin my day until I journal my dreams and interpret their symbolic meanings. In my dreams, I encounter the collective consciousness of yesteryear and venture into the magnificence of tomorrow land. They are ever so powerful that in my waking state I have to ask myself, is this happening now or did I dream it into being?


One of my earliest dream memories took place at the age of four. Realizing I was a child with limitations, I became terrified, so petrified I could not cry. The shocking dream made me feel that I had uncovered a secret, and the mystery shook my foundation. My small body immobilized; my eyes wide open. With my imagination playing tricks on me, I saw configurations emanating from the knotty pine wood closet doors. They tore at my being. My world in jeopardy; I was numb by keeping the dream to myself, but was jolted each time the dream returned. And for years, it recurred without an explanation.


During my years in Berlin, I was drawn to paint.  After years of absence from the canvas, between states of consciousness, I would view joyful symmetrical compositions. I took out my oils and a 4x5 canvas not knowing what to paint. When I finished my work my painting was a depiction of physical torture, bodies flying into ditches, while fire blazes culminating in a zenith of destruction. One central figure kneels with arms out-stretched to the heavens asking “why.”


Unconsciously, I had unraveled the mystery and painted what I had been shown for decades, in doing so I concluded my haunting dream. By tapping into the inherent wisdom and power of dreaming I laid my turmoil to rest.

Narratives- Lost and Found

As my audience listened to some of my longer stories, the more meandering ones, those more liberally punctuated by tangents, and tantalizing asides about others, and other times, I sensed trust, the same kind of trust I put into a good writer. Trusting that no matter how disjoining the stories might seem in the telling, still they might amount to something in the end. And, I found delight in the impossibility of telling one story, without telling all the others, of leaving something behind. As a writer, I know there is no such thing as a simple story.

Now I cannot resist my own inclination to elaborate, embroider and explain.

A story is subject to a centrifugal force, radiating outward from the center in all directions. But remember, when marveling at how much light a story can shed, it can also be mysterious, ambiguous, a wonder and a weapon. It can become a vortex, spiraling inward, and turning on itself, like a serpent swallowing its own tail.

Much of our stories exist beyond the usual time and space that a life inhabits. Nevertheless, our life stories are not in a vacuum, they happened in the real world, in our lives, which is why certain aspects of reality can best be captured in narrative.

Everything has a history and you cannot follow someone’s life story without examining the thread. Life is ever moving forward, both with and without us. Did you ever wonder when they took the story out of history?

Putting our history or stories into a memoir requires courage, honesty and the determination to visit and reenact the past. And, anyone can live without writing one. When you’re your gone, those who knew you will remember you for awhile. A friend or family member may admire you through a photograph; however, the essence of your character set down in a book, written as only you can tell it, will let your spirit thrive well beyond the fading of a once glossy image.

You might say, “I don’t have what it takes, to make a story sizzle.” “Nonsense,” I answer. What’s more, I guarantee, once you search those hard to reach, dusty corners of the mind seeking memories that reside in your heart, you will burn with the desire to write, which is exactly what will make your story sizzle.

Forgive me if I digress but I already know how stories are made.

For years I had been told that I had many stories living inside me, but it wasn’t so apparent to me until I began gathering my diaries that I had amassed for two decades. I couldn’t and still don’t begin my day until I journal. This act of faith has been my salvation.

A memoir is not just about the events of a life, it’s about the journey. Write and salvage memories while you relive your life in possibly a more meaningful way than ever before. Everyone loves a good story, especially since you lived to tell it!