Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Under the Sea

I had a strange thing occur just now while half-asleep. I was dreaming a music video. The song was about walking on the ocean floor. In the dream, I was able to live underwater and the song was about my life there. The lyrics were descriptive and accurate of what I was doing. But it turns out I was only half-asleep because Jackson Brown was performing a new song on Colbert Report, which was looping on my DVR. His song was about going to Cuba 'where the river ends.'

I find this fascinating. Obviously my 'dream' was partially based on the waking world. The 'sound' of the song was exactly Jackson Brown's tune. The lyrics were even slightly overlapping in content. But the story of the song was completely different. And 'my' lyrics were full, complete, and sensible. In the dream world, it seems, I am a prolific song-writer. I often wonder if we're much more creative in our dream states than we are in the waking world, and if so, what stifles creativity while awake?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

How many times do I have to tell you no more poptarts before bedtime!!!

Owen said...

The subconcious mind is much more interesting than the the concious mind. Why do you think so many artists use drugs?

Aaron Perry said...

these brains of ours are pretty amazing. i always find it interesting when i try to "stay asleep" so that i can see how a dream ends when it's my own brain telling the story! also, makes you wonder about some of the decisions you make that are influenced by much more than the simple processes we use.

thanks for this post.

Jecca said...

i can relate to aaron, trying to stay asleep to see the end...i have realized lately, in the absence of sleeping in, how much i love to sleep and dream.

Anonymous said...

I too have created songs in my sleep. They usually aren't as good when I wake up as I remember them being when I was asleep. However, they have been pretty creative (read: crazy).

My mom and dad used to listen to the radio every morning, and one time I had a whole dream that included what the radio said, but with people I knew saying it instead of the radio personalities.

Tammy Craig said...

Lol. Nothing about you really surprises me anymore, Matthew. You always hear the cliche "Everyone is different." Well, you're living proof of that in a world that's trying so hard to make everyone conform to it's standard of norm. Thank you for your uniqueness.