Class Reflection
Last night I dreamed that I lost my shoe. I was walking through church and realized that my feet were bare, so I started looking around. I backtracked my steps and remembered that I’d grabbed a coke from the vending machine, so I reached inside wondering if that’s where I’d left my shoe, but then something grabbed my hand and pulled me inside the vending machine!!! It was beautiful inside — I was surrounded by a garden of red roses. When I tried to pick one, though, it pricked me. I started bleeding to death … and then I woke up.
I lied. I didn’t really dream this. This little story is actually the product of a sleeping and dreaming workshop from our last class period. We were prompted to write down words and memories from our previous dreams as well as random adjectives and nouns that came to mind when the instructor asked us questions like, “What are your three favorite plants?” We then put slips of paper with these words into a paper bag, and when it was time to write, we had to pull out three random words or phrases and string these together in a creative story.
This exercise was so much fun, and I can see how it could be used effectively to cure writers’ block and stimulate creative ideas. I loved the randomness to this activity. You never knew what words you would pull from the bag, but you had to make them connect. The fun part is that the story didn’t have to make any sense (just like our dreams) even though they are built from real things.
Here’s another one using words that describe the things in front of me right now:
Jimmy John’s
Mouse
Ocean
::
Last night I dreamed that I was walking along the ocean. Kids were playing in the water with their little Mickey Mouse inner tubes. Everything was beautiful until the waves started growing… they got bigger and bigger, so I started to run toward shore. People were getting swept up by the water, and the sand was slowing me down. I kept running until I saw Jimmy John’s being served out of the beach house. I bought a sandwich and all of a sudden, I had superpowers. I ran to safety, bought a helicopter and saved the rest of the people before the ocean sucked them in. The End.
Creative Idea
In continuation with my independent creative project (using music to inspire photography), I decided to take photos while listening to hard rock. I chose the song World So Cold by Three Days Grace. Despite my general dislike for this genre of music, I found that the music challenged me to try new techniques with the camera, resulting in darker, more abstract images. The pounding bass lines, dramatic melodies and complex textures of electronic elements inspired the following photos:
Nicole Lunger 
The dream-inspired stories are great fun, and I’m glad you’re enjoying exploring this approach to creativity. Come to think of it, I had a peculiar dream last night. Hmm. I wonder what kind of story might emerge from that strangeness . . .
I really like the music-inspired photos, and the wilder they get, the more intriguing they become. In the two bottom photos on the left, i can see how blurring leads to abstraction with a fierce sense of fast motion, like the crashing and clashing rhythms in the music. The one at the bottom right also catches my eye by its contrasts between movement and stillness, blurring and clarity.