Lucid Dreaming: the heart and soul of writing.

Dreams (our indestructible desire to do, or be, something we find important), I think, emanate from our fantasies. The question then becomes, from whence come our fantasies? One of the definitions of fantasy is illusion, illusion being a mistaken idea, a misconception, a misleading visual image; hallucination. These definitions suggest a negative connotation. Yet, there seems to be nothing negative about my dreams. They seem positive and encourage me to act on them. So, perhaps, our dreams do not emanate from our fantasies.

If they do not originate in our fantasies, from where do they come? Maybe I should ask, which comes first, the vision or the dream? I have a vision of a scene and feel thrilled by it; it calls to me to save it. Don't let it die, because it has a life of its own. Does that vision morph into a dream and I act on it? I, therefore, start writing and fulfilling my dream. Is it the vision of the scene or the resulting dream that leads me to write?

Writing scenes is a pretty elemental part of writing fiction. In many ways, scenes are the heart and soul of fiction. They are the life of the story, the reason for everything. Everything the writer does is to make the scene come alive to the best of his ability. How does this relate to dreams? Visualizing scenes is a form of dreaming: lucid dreaming. Lucid dreaming is a positive form of fantasizing. For me, lucid dreaming is the thrill of writing. How does this form of dreaming relate to the big dream, the dream of being a writer? I think it's pretty obvious, the one flows from the other. The dream of being a writer is birthed in our lucid dreaming, in the satisfaction, should I say joy?, of lucid dreaming.

Is it a form of wish fulfillment? Another question for another time.

Growing Old: Growing Young

The Baby Boom generation is now entering its retirement years.

Having been born in 1946, I'm among the first of the baby boomers to retire, which I've done. I actually retired at age 63; I'm now 66. One of my reasons for retiring was not one of the normal ones: to help raise my grandson, who is now four years old. Yes, I'm raising another generation. But, I well know that most baby boomers will not be retiring and raising a young child at the same time. Many will be retiring to a life of leisure, travel, and to looking for ways to remain relevant to the world.

This is one of the directions my blog will now take: how do we retirees remain relevant to the world?

This is certainly not a new problem, if indeed it is a problem, beginning with my generation. It's probably been an issue for many retirees in the industrialized civilization. Living on the farms, I imagine, kept one busy and relevant right to the day of death. I'm sure a farmer's work is never done. But when accountants, doctors, lawyers, bus drivers, police persons, teachers, garbage workers, real estate agents, sales people, truck drivers, etc., retire, they are often possibly confronted with another lifetime to live. It begs the question, what do I do now?

I certainly cannot tell someone else how to live his or her life in retirement or during any other time period. I can only relate my own experiences and what I learn from others and from research. And there's a lot of research from which to learn. Learning is nice and suffices for its own sake, but doing (being, in the philosophical sense) is the essence of life. What we believe and what we do from day-to-day is important. How we live is perhaps the most important component of living. That's what I hope to explore on my blog in the future. It's a vast territory with many theories and possible answers, and that's part of the beauty of retirement, I can begin a new journey, and perhaps fulfill some of my unfulfilled dreams. I suppose there are others like me.

So, I hope you join me on my new journey: to remain relevant to the world.

Following Your Dreams

I'm beginning a new adventure in August. I've wanted to be a painter off-and-on for years. While I've practiced drawing, I've never attempted a painting. Now I'm going to start on my artistic adventure. I'm signing up for the classes that senior citizens can audit at the University of North Florida. Classes start in August. I intend to take drawing and painting--the basic level courses.

I've always been reticent about drawing and painting. I'm such a dedicated writer that I've been afraid that painting would take over my mind so that I would stop writing. I've been afraid I'd stop writing and be a poor painter. I know that many writers have also been painters. And vice versa. But the time is right to try doing both.

My plan is to continue writing as I have in the past, but to add in drawing and painting in odd hours. Maybe I'll give x number of hours a day to writing and x number to painting.

I love looking at art books and visiting art galleries. My imagination races when I go into an art supply store. It's almost overwhelming, but I feel a connection with what I see. I want that connection to come alive.

I like reading about painters' lives. I enjoy fictional versions of their lives, too. They seem to have the most interesting of lives. Right now I'm reading The Bauhaus Group. I've enjoyed reading about the impressionists and many of the modern painters. I find Kandinsky fascinating, as well as Jackson Pollock, and many others.

I'm a dreamer. Always have been. I'll continue to dream for as long as I can.

I had a dream about William Butler Yeats

I had a dream last night. I was in William Butler Yeats' house in Ireland. It was amazing. His living room was sunken and lined with books and it had the quality of an amphitheater. He sat there reading his poetry and his voice boomed through the amphitheater, his words resonnating. I thought, this is how a poet should live.

Dreams

We've probably all written stories in which a character has a dream. Dreams are often crazy and difficult to understand. But dreams in stories have to relate to the story, perhaps to the plot or to a character's self-understanding. There's no revelation in this. We all know that.

We all know that dreams are a part of our sleeping life. Here's really what this post is about. Have you ever had a 'sweet' dream? I have never had a sweet dream. I don't know what one is. Each and every dream I remember ever having is full of frustration, incompetence, failure, and many other negative emotions or non-accomplishments. So, my question again is: have you ever had a sweet dream and, if you have, can you tell me about it. I'd like to know what a sweet dream is like.