As I slid out of bed to record these shimmering dream bubbles in my journal, I recalled an event related to these dreams, and then a few others. I jotted all these thoughts in my journal as fast as I could, in highly condensed form. Related thoughts and insights tumbled out.
The result is rather like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle scattered on a table, without a cover picture to guide the assembly. I don’t yet know what it all means.
I find great value in dreams for uncovering hidden thoughts and beliefs that wouldn’t occur to me other ways, and discerning Truth. Capturing these fragments on paper serves an important purpose. It cements them in my waking reality, and gives me a way to return to ponder them at greater length and find connections among them.
This is not the first time I’ve had an experience like this. I don’t regularly remember dreams, but as I do, as I consider their implications, small changes in my understanding are growing into larger ones. Fragments are coalescing into a developing story. Ultimately I suspect they will form a new “Story of Everything.”
In a real sense, I am “restorying” my life, one dream, one fragment at a time.
What does this mean, to have a restoryed life? A few months ago I gazed at my knee, amazed to realize a scar formed there when I was eight years old has completely disappeared. I began searching for other scars. A couple are still visible, but over the years, while I was not looking, most have faded and healed over. I still remember picking scabs from that knee, but the visible evidence is gone. Even my body is telling a different story these days. This restorying process is healing scars on the inside. Perceptions and memories have taken on new slants and shimmer.
I have no formula for this process and haven’t read one. It’s intuitive. All I know for sure is the value of dreaming and writing pieces of those dreams to fit together as they will.
Write now: think of a dream you’ve recently had. Write about it in your journal or ordinary paper. Record the dream, then ask yourself some questions, such as “What do you think this means? What is this dream telling me? Write the questions on your paper, then start writing the answers without specific conscious thought. You may be amazed at the answers that bubble forth.
8 comments :
Sharon,
I feel like I am living this journey right along with you! It all makes so much sense..all these little fragments and snippets of our lives do add up to something as long as we pay attention to them.Recording dreams and their meanings can be very powerful. I love your analogy about the healing scars. Great post!
Kathy
http://krpooler.wordpress.com
Thanks Kathleen, I hope you are not only living this journey, but writing along with me!
Hello Sharon, you might find the work of the late Michael White useful to give you a framework for the concept of 'restorying'. I believe restorying drives the memoir writing process, even when we are not consciously aware of that. Would be happy to discuss this further with you.
Elly
Marion, glad to have you aboard.
Elly, thanks for mentioning Michael White. I'll look for more info.
Karen, you are an inspiration to all of us. You did select enough of your pieces to complete a finished volume. The extra challenge in working this sort of puzzle is that you never use all the pieces. There are lots of extras.
I tend not to remember my dreams, either. But the thoughts that come in the middle of the night and those few dreams I do remember, usually turn out to be invaluable to me in life and in writing. Good luck "restorying" your life.
Wonderful way to put it! I'm experiencing a major shift in life right now that will become part of a restorying, I'm sure.
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