Storytime Tapestry Newsletter

The newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness around the world.

All About Dreams – A Martha Jette Column

May 8, 2007

Martha Jette, friend and author will now be taking over the dreams column formerly presented by Parthena Black of Bella Online.  Many of you know Martha and will agree that her columns are always fresh and exciting.  Martha explains the unexplainable with style and grace.

Martha Jette

marthajette@yahoo.com

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Martha Jette, Editor & Author

Please take the time to visit my site!

http://www.freewebs.com/paranormalbooks

P.S. - If you take my advice only 1 time this year, take
it now... I just picked up $397 package at no cost! You
need to see this right away:

http://www.intensivegiveaway.com/thank-you.php?id=3813

Martha Jette, Editor & Author

Please take the time to visit my site!

http://www.freewebs.com/paranormalbooks

Dreams can bring amazing new insights and ideas

I don’t know about you, but I’ve found that dreams can often bring me amazing new insights, not just about my writing but about life in general. I view many of my dreams as virtual gold mines of new ideas.

Throughout history, many people have found that this is true. For instance, the famous singer/songwriter, Billy Joel notes that he often “dreams up” his musical arrangements.

"I know all the music I've composed has come from a dream," he says.

Potter, Annamaria Gundlach says she designs pots she sees in her dreams. In fact, her major traveling show is called: Dreams in Clay.

Other examples include Harvard physics professor, Paul Horowitz, who was designing a special telescope to track the skies for extraterrestrials. He says he got stuck on a technical glitch, but dreamt about how to solve it. Canadian Dr. Frederick Banting dreamt of a way to isolate insulin and, therefore, make diabetes treatable. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, when challenged by Lord Byron in 1816 to write a horror story, dreamt about what would become her best-selling novel, "Frankenstein."

Even Paul McCartney had such an experience. In 1965, the then-22-year-old Beatle dreamt about the melody for the song "Yesterday." Upon waking, he immediately sat down and played it on the piano. Stephen King also admits that he's reaped images from his dreams for his novels and short stories, including Salem's Lot and It.

You can do the same type of thing. Here are some tips to help you mine your dreams for insights and new ideas.

1)      State your intention: Before you fall asleep, tell yourself that your dreams matter and you want to remember them. In the twilight time between waking and sleep, your mind is most suggestible, so make the most of it.

2)      Recall: Begin on a night when you don’t have to wake up to an alarm, because this will likely affect your memory of a dream.

3)      Problem: Begin with a simple problem such as how to operate a new appliance or what color paint would look best in your living room. Focus on this problem and within a week or so, you should have the solution. Then move on to bigger problems in your life.

4)      As soon as you awaken, lie still for a moment to bring any dream to the surface. Think about the dream and retrace its story line.

And here are a few more dream symbols for you to consider when analyzing your dreams.

a)      Prison: To dream you are confined in a prison suggests beliefs and behaviors that are restricting you from moving toward personal development. You may be in a mental prison by your own restrictive modes of thought.

b)      Breaking out: To dream you’re breaking out of jail represents your own determination to overcome present difficulties.

c)      Cage: To dream you are in a cage represents frustration with home, marriage or job.

d)      Tied up: If you dream you are tied up, it may represent someone having control over you in some way. If someone else is tied up, it may express your own desire to control them.

e)      Breaking free: This type of dream represents a desire to be released from some situation or relationship that is causing you stress.

f)       Kidnapping: If you are the kidnapper, it represents a desire to dominate someone  and vice versa.

Source: 1001 Dreams by Jack Altman