Dreams and Creativity

I was excited to hear one of this week’s speakers, Veronica Tonay, Ph.D. talking about dreaming; why we dream, what they mean and how we can utilize them for creativity and ideas.  According to Dr. Tonay, “The dream is the purest reflection of who you are.”  Personally, I have vivid dreams that I can usually remember.  I don’t know if this is a gift or a curse. Sometimes I feel like I can’t get a good night’s sleep because my dreams seem so real, but on the other hand I get some of my best creative ideas from my dreams.

I’ve always been intrigued by dreams, so this class was interesting to me, especially learning about some of the random facts about dreams. You might also find interesting that:

• Each of us has around five dreams per night
• Two-thirds of our dreams have some sort of misfortune in them.
• While we’re dreaming during REM sleep, our major muscle groups are paralyzed, so we don’t get up and physically act out our dreams.
• Dreams are about six months ahead of us in time, that is if we get a great idea from one of our dreams, it usually takes us about six months to take action and make it come true.
• Lucid dreaming (which is being able to know that you are dreaming while in a dream) and dream control (being able to control what happens in the dream) happens between REM sleep and waking up.
• We also have our most intense dreams towards the end of our sleep period right before we wake up.

According to Veronica, dreams are metaphorical.  For example, what happens to many creative people is that they meet some sort of obstacle in their dreams (usually in nature) such as a boulder in the middle of the road.  Usually the boulder represents something else such as a block in creativity.  She suggests when you have a dream like this  to be aware of how you interact with that obstacle. It might tell you how you’re dealing with certain issues in your own life.  She also says to write down the images in your dreams in any order or even paint and draw them.  This is great for kick starting a creative project.

To learn more about dreaming facts and how to utilize your dreams for creativity, visit Veronica Tonay at drtonay.com.