How Drawing Helped Me Remember My Dreams. No, Not GOALS. DREAMS! (YOU know — Dreams? Those Free Movies You Keep Sleeping Through?)
After years of doing this doodle-fueled dream-recall ritual first thing in the morning, I can now remember as many as five or six different dreams from one night’s sleep, in great detail.
How?
I start every day w/a big pot of tea, a sketchbook, and a felt-tip pen. Then I draw whatever it is I dreamt the night before.
Easier said than done.
People who know me profess jealousy of this daily “discipline” I’ve stumbled into. It’s not discipline at all. What would be DISCIPLINED is if I DIDN’T do it. THAT would be tough. THAT would cause pain and frustration, for sure. I’m cranky as hell if I don’t get that two hours in before starting the day that actually pays me money.
Why, oh why, can’t I be one of those people who feels incomplete unless they ride a BIKE for two hours every morning or climbs a small MOUNTAIN before breakfast? Just think of the nickel-bouncing buns I’d be rocking! Sigh.
True, drawing my dreams for two to three hours every morning isn’t EASY…
After all, I’m not a morning person (not by a long shot), and maintaining this habit means getting up at least two hours earlier than I normally would, every day, no matter WHAT. (Keep in mind, too, that I’m an actress by trade, so I’m often subject to 5am call times. Factor in the travel time and that means waking up at at 2:30am at the latest if I want to get my drawing done. And I DO.)
So it’s definitely work, in a sense, but only the most joyous, effortless kind.
The storylines and images of my dreams don’t just come out automatically, either. Not at all. Not at first. They need coaxing. They need foreplay. Some days they need death threats. But even on those days when all I can draw is a blank, something mysterious (but reliable) happens.
After sitting at my desk, pen in hand, something about the physical activity of drawing and writing definitely TRIGGER something in my brain that would normally be way beyond my reach. It must be some sort of muscle memory that gets stirred up by simply... moving.
MOVE 1st, THINK 2nd?
(I have no idea what I’m talking about here, mind you, but…) I’m reminded of some Nova-esque nuggets I’ve gleaned from the gritty streets of KCET, or PBS, or NPR about —
Alzheimer’s patients who can’t remember their own children but can play a piano concerto they haven’t played in twenty years note for note, with great ease.
It seems so counterintuitive to think that moving a muscle can trigger a thought. I mean, isn’t it supposed to be the other way around?
Comme ca:
THOUGHT “A”: I’m thirsty. I want that glass of water on the table. I think I’ll move my arm toward it.
MUSCLE MOVEMENT “A”: Muscles in the arm and hand do what they’re told and move toward the glass.
THOUGHT “B”: Hmmm. Still thirsty. Think I’ll pick that glass up now and tilt it towards my open mouth. See if that helps.
MUSCLE MOVEMENT “B”: Muscles follow orders again. Mission accomplished.
To think it could work the other way around is creepy, right — horror movie plots about a dude who gets a donated forearm sewn to his elbow and starts strangling people he loves. That’s what it conjures in me when I think of “Move first, think second.”
Luckily, my muscles carry thoughts which are, for the most part, good, wholesome, innocuous little thoughts, like “draw a whale with eyeglasses and a top hat in a dentist’s chair.”
That kind of thing.
However it ACTUALLY works, my wrist muscles and finger muscles arm muscles (after moving around aimlessly on the pages of a sketchbook) will eventually interrogate the deeper recesses of my sluggish brain. Something in the cliquish pact between fingers & pen & paper start to whisper amongst each other, and ultimately agree to…
Release the sleeping kraken!!
Fingers clutching the pen, the wrist beginning it’s slow, stumbling waltz, the pen releasing its reluctant ink, soaking the paper in symbols I don’t understand (and don’t need to)… all of it unfolds as if by magic, leaving a record of my wrist’s little flat, circular dance. The images & storylines are pulllllled out of my subconscious before the pot of tea has been drained, and before my brain has had a chance to begin any of its pesky “thinking.”
Bliss. Sweaty, aching bliss.
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