Melting Snow

Midweek Reflections on Dreams, Poetry, and Writing

Wednesday, May 2, 2018

"Now there are many wisdoms to ponder in the dream…"
Baha’u’llah 12

The "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise"  prompt for DAY 1597
Zachary Schomburg's poetry collection Fjords Vol. 1 (Black Ocean, 2012) was inspired by his desire to write poems based on the dreams his friends had shared with him. In an interview for the Pleistocene, he explained that part of his process was "e-mailing my friends or having a beer and talking to them about their most interesting dreams or their most recent dreams, and trying to make poems out of them." The resulting poems have the odd clarity of dream logic.

Have you ever written poetry or stories based on your dreams either your own or friends? Let's discuss dreams a bit. Do you believe writing about yours or someone else's dreams can be beneficial? How reliable do you think dream recall is?

Dreams and Poetry

I have written poems about several of my dreams, which I remember. I know that I have more dreams than those I remember, because--according to scientific dream research--everyone dreams whether or not they remember their dreams. I believe dreams are important for several reasons, the main one being that they assist the individual--who is willing to decipher them--to grow spiritually. Dreams also help an individual deal with the stresses and strife of daily life by helping us sort out what is happening and find a way to deal with it.

I think that the dreams I remember are important, because they stick with me. In fact, some of the dreams have remained clear after several years. I write about two of them in "A Transformative Experience" , which I didn't go into enough detail about (I didn't explain the symbols and why they lead me to Baha'u'llah). I'll write another entry about the symbols and what, I believe, they mean. I have copied three poem, written several years ago, about dreams into "Two Poems: Perchance To Dream and To Sleep" , "Repentance Dream" , and "Dream Journey" . Please read the Poet's Notes about the dreams.

The "Blogging Circle of Friends "  prompt for DAY 1994
In The Curse of the Boyfriend Sweater (Flatiron Books, 2018), Alanna Okun explores her practices of knitting and crafting, and how they interact with her writing life and overall well-being. In today's post, try writing about an interest of your own that runs parallel to, or perhaps even informs, your identity as a writer.

Writing and Personal Interest

Everything that effects on a physical, emotional, or spiritual level eventually ends up as a poem, part of a short story or novel, or as an essay. I have come to the conclusion, after numerous attempts at writing stories without using personal experience, that an author can't write anything that doesn't in someway relate to a personal experience or belief. The cliche, "Write what you know", is a good start. You start with what you know or believe and work from there. Sometimes you have to do research when you encounter something you don't know, but that alright because research is a part of a person's search for truth.

Footnotes
1  The Seven Valleys, pp. 32-33.
2  Quoted in "Mystical Dimensions of Our Dreams" by Paul Mantle http://bahaiteachings.org/mystical-dimensions-dreams.