Dreaming While I’m Awake
The two prismapictures above were done with Prisma Pens. The largest picture (the woman with wild hair) was evoked by this dream I had Dec 26, 2005:
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The Art Soiree and I Have an Epiphany About Everyone’s Creativity
I dream I’m at a “soiree” with many artists, and a New York art critic. I’m showing a painting and an assemblage. She savages my painting and I actually agree with her: too muddy in color, no texture, no interesting lines or shapes and so little value contrast it all runs together in a muddy mass. I know I’ve painted this to please others.
Two women rush in: one is black with orange hair and emerald green swirls for eyes. She has a 4ft high doll she has made - exquisite. The other woman is dressed in electric blue and she too has a 4ft doll but hers is dressed in a fancy white dress. I think both women and their dolls are wondrous creations.
The critic doesn’t like my assemblage either and this pushes me over the edge to a kind of conscious awareness in the dream. I DO like the assemblage and it is exactly what I wanted it to be. I realize her opinion doesn’t matter to me if I’ve done what I really wanted to do (unlike the painting where I’ve painted to please others).
At the same time I realize I’d rather be at home creating, than talking about it here. I don’t want to be rude and just leave without explanation, because I think this kind of gathering is a good thing; I try to explain this to the people around me.
I have an epiphany: everyone here is deeply creative, including the critic. Each is doing it in his/her own unique way and each person is at his/her unique stage of development. I try to say this without sounding condescending. I tell them I just HAVE to be creating and not talking about it, but I do know it is important to have critics who give language to what is often not speech-ripe in the artist. Y
I wake with a sense of great well-being, as if my cells are lining up in some harmonious way in my body.
I started this picture with a point of focus - the “black” woman with orange hair. Why that image? Just because when I read over the dream and felt for any special thread of excitement, I focused on this character (and I didn’t stop to ask why). I wanted to draw that hair, that doll. Somehow, in the process she didn’t turn out to be a black woman - didn’t matter in terms of making the picture. Had a vague urge to put a necklace on her and it turned into a combination of a turquoise nugget necklace I own, which has, as pendant, part of the Navajo Squash Blossom necklace my mother bought in New Mexico in the 50s and gave to me several years ago.
The doll was a surprise. This looks nothing like the doll in the dream. Dream doll was very elaborate and realistic in form. The orange hair on the woman is true to my dream image.
In the lower left, on the woman’s right shoulder, is an older woman with grey hair done in a chignon, who represents the art critic in the dream.
The picture is divided equally. The left half has most of the woman, plus a moon with moons in it and spiral clouds in the sky, and a shoreline, as well as a tiny bit of the sun rays. The right side has the sun blazing forth, water at a precipice and a tree of life with fruit.
I believe the picture can be read as a dream as easily as the dream itself. All the images in the picture come from my unconscious in the same way the dreams do. I have dreamed the dream on, with the aid of my conscious mind. The dream was about how I viewed art and my life as an artist on that particular day. The picture is about myself as artist the day I made the picture. This image continues to have resonance for me because I have (without intent) captured a “real” snapshot of myself. If asked for a self-portrait I would not feel uncomfortable offering this picture.
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On Sept 1, 2007, I dreamed
The Tippy Boat and Landing on the Seals
In the middle of the dream...I am standing in water up to my knees and I’m in the boiling ocean all at the same time. I’m a giant. My little boat sometimes has water in it but I can pick it up 
and empty it as easily as if it were a teacup. I get in and it is tippy, but OK. I propel it by using my hands as oars and see an outcropping of light colored rocks ahead. I paddle there and beach the boat. Then I notice these are not rocks - they are a bunch of tawny colored seals, heads down in the water and backs rounded like rocks. I push off again, not wanting to sit atop the seals lest I injure them. Y
When I wrote the dream down I knew I wanted to draw the giant’s legs in the water by the boat with the seals in the background. It’s unusual for me to have an image so similar to the dream image, but that’s what came about this time.
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In June, 2006, I dreamed
I Can’t Kill the Gila Monster
I’m involved in a “game” and I’m the leader. There is a large chest with objects in it and I choose one and it’s 
the “answer” (the way Jeopardy is played). A group of us have to come up with the question. Sometimes the question involves making something. I have a live gila monster in my hands. I’m to kill and skin it. I try but can’t do it. I shout out to the unseen “manager” of the game: “I won’t kill an animal; if that means I can’t play the game, so be it.” I wake feeling I’ve escaped making a terrible mistake.
I didn’t try to illustrate the dream but I started with the gila monster and let the waking dream story unfold.
The two prismapictures to the left grew out of dream memories (more on that below).
These are not attempts to literally reproduce (illustrate) the dreams. They are evoked by the dreams. I was thinking about the dreams when drawing them, but felt free to add, subtract, or change, the images.
They are true to the feelings of the dreams and give me an echoing “aha” of recognition.
Dreaming
