Daily Writing Practice: Remembering Dreams

Remembering Dreams

Do you ever wonder how you can remember dreams? Lately, I've been reading Carl Jung's Memories, Dreams, Reflections and attempting to record my dreams every morning. If I can remember my dreams, I will have a view of the hidden me. I want to look into the parts of my personality that I hide from myself - risky business! I consider myself honest about my motives and practice self-witnessing. Maybe that sounds strange but those of you who are in some kind of meditation practice know that witnessing your thoughts and actions (without judging) can yield a tremendous amount of information about yourself. I am looking to find a creative energy source that will bring my writing alive with vitality. I've discovered other techniques to wake up the muse but I would like a more reliable routine that keeps me in touch with my imagination.

The goal is to wake up everyday, notice what in floating around in my mind and then immediately write down everything in my mind - take a "mental picture" as it were. Words, thoughts, images, sensations, songs and so on. I have discovered that I must notice my thoughts before I move from the bed. I cannot allow myself to talk or engage in any preliminary activity before I write or else I lose the thoughts. Some days I'm successful while others (like today) I get caught up in washing dishes, making coffee, preparing for the day and before I know it - the dreams are gone! What did I dream last night? What influenced my subconscious? Blank! My mind is unable to remember my dreams because I had too many intervening thoughts before I recorded my dreams such as - why hasn't anyone done the dishes in two days! It's a good thing I didn't cook dinner last night or else there would be more dishes. How can I get cooperation about cleaning the house? And then my mind goes analytical - Why are we so stuck in these social gender roles that I'm the one who breaks down and does the dishes first? It's enough to wipe out anyone's morning dreams! My thoughts are a giant eraser rubbing out the lightest dream pencil marks first but today, the entire page was all gone.

Mental palaver! Jung uses that word as in to arrange a palaver to mean conversations  he has with the Africans at night. He wants to know if they have dreams and if they provide some kind of insight into their daily lives. He attributes their resistance to sharing their dreams with him as evidence of a lack of trust or "shyness." Jung even offered rewards - cigarettes, matches, and safety pins for sharing dreams but they wouldn't budge. I'm thinking that maybe they didn't remember their dreams because of too much palaver! I have been recording by dreams every morning for two weeks - let's see if some pattern emerges. I have a safety pin in my pocket for good luck.  Do you have any dream wisdom to offer? How do you remember your dreams?

©  Cynthia Pittmann 2013

~Also published in Oasis Writing Link (TM)

365 Lessons-Lesson 303: No Pain, No Gain

My husband Yoon has adopted the English expression "no pain, no gain." His other favorites are "location, location, location," "bundle of joy" and "awesome." He uses words and expressions until he finds new ones. Sometimes, in his yoga class, he says "no pain, no gain." That might sound very against the way of yoga. After all, in yoga you are suppose to tune into your own body and go at your own pace. It's meant to be a journey from within. But when he says these words, I don't think he means for his students to push their limits or suffer a charley horse in class. I think he means something entirely different.

When he says these words I feel love in his voice. I don't feel like he's a drill sergeant up there shouting out commands. When he says these words, it's out of compassion for what each student might individually be experiencing. So much gets released during a yoga session with Yoon. There's a lot of contraction and expansion happening in the class. As we work different groups of muscles, things come out. Every experience we have ever had in life is imprinted on the body. The mind and body are so connected. In meditation, I have often felt a pain somewhere in my body along with a memory. As soon as I witnessed the unpleasant sensation in my body instead of reacting to it, the pain passed away along with the memory. The body says a lot about a person's state. You can't hide how you are feeling, it's written all over you.

So, "no pain, no gain" in Yoon's class means that when we go in and work from within, sometimes we might feel pain or memories. If we stay in our body and work from within, being gentle and kind to ourselves, that which we feel as pain will come to pass, but it might not be a pleasant experience as it is happening.

I'm working on a difficult chapter in my memoir. For those of you who don't know, I have a book contract. My book is called Lessons from the Monk I Married and it will be published by Seal Press/Perseus Books in March 2012. By the first week of December, I have to turn in half the book to my editor in Berkeley, California. It's very different from this blog even though it has the same title. It's about my 14-year journey with my husband, a former Korean Buddhist monk.

The chapter I'm working on was a very painful period in my life. I have found, while writing this book, that my body remembers the experience and as I'm writing it, I go back to that time. Chapter Five has been so painful and slow for me because that's how it was in real life. I read the chapter to my husband and asked him what he thought. He said, "Oh...it's intense. I seriously feel pain."

So I wonder why I am choosing to re-live this experience and my experiences in this memoir. Why am I going through the pain again? It was so hard to go through the first time. I barely made it through and now I'm re-living it again. Why?

Well, it's in the book. I guess you'll have to buy it to get the scoop. No, in all honesty I'm writing it to share my experience. I gained so much through this journey I've been on, but I had to go through some seriously difficult times. I had to follow my heart even though I felt like I might die.

It was a process. Life is a process. We all experience and go through things. What I have found is that its true. No pain, no gain. If you really want to experience life to its fullest, you can't remain stagnant and hide from your fears. Hiding or running from what scares you or what is painful only increases the fear or pain. You have to face life head on. Once you do you will realize that everything comes to pass. That it all changes. Instead of feeling restrictive or holding pain in your body out of fear, when you face life and accept the reality of life as it is, you will find that life becomes more fluid, that you don't feel as much pain, that you are stronger than you think. By facing your life, you become confident. It takes practice, but step by step, it will become so natural. Soon you realize that what you feared or what was painful for you was mostly created by you. By facing yourself and loving yourself as you are through both your fear and your pain, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Also posted on my blog Lessons from the Monk I Married where I have been writing 365 Lessons for 2010.

The Satin Mules

The story is strangely familiar but not often told: a woman falls in love with a shoe. Not a practical shoe of sturdy brown leather, a loafer or a hiking boot, but a beautiful shoe, its heels rising to an uncomfortable height, its fabric delicate and easily soiled, its color evoking feeling--the red flame of a flamenco dance, the pink of dreamy girls dancing the ballet, the sour yellow of hard candies savored in youth.

My friend, Meg, described by her partner as a "feminist fashion plate," has a passion for beautiful shoes. She plays accordion in a punk polka band, writes original music scores, and has her own theater company. Meg's closet is filled with a fantastic collection of shoes, many of them stiletto heeled in Mexican turquoise, Chinese red, silver sequins, kelly green patent leather, leopard spotted fake fur, to name a few. She has strappy sandals, iridescent tennis shoes, and boots that rise up the length of her thighs. Meg has even written a musical with a tap dance number in which the dancers perform in front of flashing projections of shoes singing "shoe box, shoe box" instead of "shoo bop, shoo bop."

For a long time I didn't understand Meg's shoe fetish. I'd heard of women going crazy for shoes a la Imelda Marcos but I had never, until recently, felt my own passion surge for a shoe. I have always chosen my shoes thoughtfully, buying well-made brands to support my back. In matters of style I've paid attention to current shapes and textures--pointed or square toes, shiny or matte--acquiring perhaps one or two pairs a year to update my wardrobe but keeping my purchases on the sensible, versatile side. My shoes are inevitably black or brown, low-heeled, tailored.

But last week I spotted a pair of red mules--backless high heeled slippers made of richly embroidered satin. Perhaps it was the generous cut of the fabric over the top of the foot or the slight point of the toe, but as I slipped the mules onto my feet, my mind filled with images of exotic, sensuous worlds. I saw rooms with Moorish archways and Persian rugs, their air perfumed by hookahs sending up sweet, delicate puffs of smoke. I saw lush-bellied women in silken harem pants, eyes rimmed with kohl, bodies swathed with scarves, gold bangles jingling softly upon their wrists. My imagination traveled to a glittering affair in a Venetian villa off the Grand Canal, masked partygoers laughing gaily as ladies’ frilly dresses swept across marble floors.

I must have stood long in those shoes, lost in my reverie. It was abruptly shattered by the inquiry of a sales clerk.

"Do you need some help?"

A moment of reflection on the dull status of my social life told me that I'd probably never have occasion to wear the mules, and the practical side of me, which tends to be quite bossy, said a firm "no" to both clerk and shoes.

But later that evening the satin mules crept into my thoughts. They had touched that part of my brain and heart where memories of exquisite and impractical objects I have loved are stored. In that gallery of memories gleams the brushed gold Italian heart that my mother hung on a thin chain around my eight year old neck, making me feel like a princess. Also there reside the many dolls that my father collected for me in his travels around the world, a virtual U.N. that somehow disappeared with my childhood. And there rests the memory of my mother in a sexy, red Chi Pao or traditional Chinese style dress, her slim waist cinched tiny, her lipstick and hair dark and glossy under the lights.

The next day I returned to the store and, without hesitation, purchased the shoes. The satin mules fed my eyes and my imagination. They provided an unmitigated pleasure in a complicated life. And that is how I managed to fall in love with a shoe.

Things I Miss Most

Image by jamelah via Flickr

Things I Miss Most

Together with old age comes forgetfulness, people say. But I find myself invaded with memories - from my childhood and adolescence. I think we are more attentive to our surroundings when we are younger, we relate differently to places and people. I am glad I have so many precious memories and I'll do my best to imortalize them somehow. For now, I am writing "list poems" with all the things I had in life but I lost. It can be painful to remeber, but it is a meagre price to pay if you don't want to forget...

Things I miss most - I

I miss the passage between seasons,
spring creeping under winter's snow
snowdrops and crocuses
daffodils,
lily of the valley and frangrant lilac
then
the warm air
mellowing forward summer
walking into the woods
earthen, divine smells
moss and fresh leaves
a million insects buzzing
drunk on the perfumed grass
the icy water of the brook bubling
the changing colors of autumn
orange and red and soft brown
fading into the grey sky of winter
fat clouds full of snowflakes
falling on faces
frozen tears melting

But most of all
I miss the feeling of home
of familiar things
of known places

the peal of church bells
rippling the air
Easter and Christmas
full of laughter
families around dinner tables
ladden with food and crokery
that was handed down from mother to daughter

so many memories kept in tight sealed boxes
invading and painful
beloved things I miss most.