Anna DeStefano's Blog

Whether you’re a writer or a “normal” member of the human race, you dream. And whether or not you pay attention to those dreams, I believe, defines the life you choose to lead. Yep, in case you’re just now finding my blog window into dream theory and didn’t know I’m writing books about how our dream world affects our waking reality, let me catch you up–respect your dreams. They’re your subconscious and your deepest desires and fears and hopes, and they’re talking to you every sleeping night, and sometimes during the waking days, too. LISTEN to them…

Actually, this post is about seeing your dreams. Seeing them all around you. Never losing touch with them.

A perfect new topic for a new blog year.

My year’s going to start out rocky. I knew that about mid-way through December, and began the next several weeks in a bit of a haze that felt at first like dread. So much so, I couldn’t write or do much of anything. But it was the holidays. Not a good time to check out. Not a good time at all, for me or my family. Not how I wanted my 2010 to begin.

So I did what I’ve done since I was a child when I needed to stay grounded in my everyday life but was stumbling about in the shadows instead–I started to read about other worlds. Obsessively. Kind like I pulled out all my favorite books that I’d hidden away in a closet and began to re-read like a maniac. Bing reading. Need-a-support-group-to-recover reading. I hadn’t done that in years. Because I’ve been too slammed with writing, instead, I guess. Not that I haven’t read books every month of every one of those years. But there’s a difference when you read solely for pleasure. Around the clock, every chance I got when I wasn’t involved with the “normal” people in my life. Because I had to escape and believe there were other realities out there besides the one I was afraid I was slipping into. Because I needed to fill my creative well, more than I needed to write. The obsession to write couldn’t sustain me for the first time.

I couldn’t write, but I could read. Only reading. A lot of reading, which, not surprisingly, turned into a lot of dreaming. Day dreaming and sleep dreaming. And a slow relaxing that I hadn’t felt in over five years. Since before the publishing race began to rule my waking world (14 books in 5 years is it’s own kind of obsession). Of course my dream life has been vivid and active the whole time I’ve published, but those dreams have been shadowed in no small part by the books I’ve been writing. The worlds and lives I’ve been creating on the page. That’s not the same thing as my dreams coming just from what I’m feeling and reading and relaxing into, because if I don’t relax I’m going to explode. Slowly, over the last two weeks, I’ve realized that reading in the absence of the non-stop writing I’ve been doing for so long has been changing my dreams. Or, more to the point, returning my dreams to something I haven’t had in a long time. Something I hadn’t realized I’d missed so much. Something I haven’t slowed down enough to see for too long. Me. That’s what I’d been missing. What I needed to plug back into to face the first of ’10’s challenges. I had to put the rest away and just see me and what I needed for a while. Different. Not what I’ve been doing for 5 years. But essential. And it only took me two weeks of falling into my favorite novels to get there ;o)

Of course I’ll write obsessively again. That’s who I am. And my dreams will once more become about the other realities floating around in my mind. Soon, I hope. But for now, they’re about what I want this day to be. This week. This year. My family and my friends and the NEXT five years. My hopes and dreams, which need to thrive again. What makes me stretch and relax and believe that all will be well, regardless. My friends and the life they challenge me to live. My love and the power it has to hope and heal and thrive and conquer. These are the parts of me that reading and dreaming have always inspired. These are the emotions that dreams touch in all of us. And aren’t stories simply another way of dreaming? Don’t they help us see ourselves, as much as the subconscious worlds that go on in our sleeping fantasies? Don’t they teach writes and readers alike what’s most important and worth fighting for?

So where does that leave me/us?

1. I’d have to say to my writer friends, read for pleasure, as a way to feed the soul you need to create.
2. To my reader followers, recognize your role in breathing life into the stories you read and the dreams they inspire, because you’re part of all of this, and it’s a HUGE part of you.
3. To me, understand that slowing down is a new chance to grow and learn what you need to learn next.
4. Whoever you are, see your dreams, in every way they come to you.  However they come to you. Whatever you have to do to stay in tune with them.

Sounds simple, right???

Anyone else have a light-bulb beginning to their new year???

Tags: creativity & inspiration

This entry was posted on Monday, January 4th, 2010 at 2:58 pm and is filed under Dream Theories, Revising a Year. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.