Saturday, April 12, 2008

Perchance to Dream, Perchance to Write

I love to sleep because I am mesmerized by my own dreams. I don’t like leaving the dream world where everything is so vivid and seems so real. Memorable people bubble up to the surface from hidden deep pools only to be forgotten by noon. The dream world seems more real and makes more sense to me than the waking one some times.

I think that writing is a world that touches the same place as dreams. Sometimes when I am unable to write, when I feel blocked, I think that it is because the similarity between writing, really going into that zone and dreaming are so close. But going there while awake feels like losing some kind of control over wakefulness. When we sleep, we’re not self-conscious about our dreams. We don’t say, it’s okay to lose control and drop our guard because we’re asleep and this is a dream. Yet we do let go in order to sleep. Somewhere in me, I trust that I will wake if danger comes my way. After all, we don’t have any choice about sleep. We must do it. And to sleep means to dream. Perchance. So, dreaming doesn’t have the same thing to overcome. We don’t say, I’m having dreamer’s block. But with writing, it really depends on what’s going on in my waking world. When I’m stressed about money or work, it’s a supreme challenge for me to let go of the conscious world and go into the zone. In the zone, I don’t see what’s around me anymore. I see the story. So on days when going to the zone would be the greatest relief, it becomes a big challenge.

It’s the most wonderful place in the world when I can let go and enter it. But it’s also a great risk to enter this place. I do not have any control in there. Anything could happen. What if I’m in there with my subconscious, and it indiscreetly blurts out something I’m not supposed to know? There’s no turning back from knowing. Yes. There’s great danger and great pleasure in the zone.

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