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Night Writing: Allowing Dreams to Influence the Creative Process.

 

I knew that I wanted a project but was unclear what shape the project would take. It would involve amplification, the method developed by Carl Jung in the interpretation of dreams, but I am not a psychiatrist, psychologist, analyst or therapist but an artist.

Before I went to sleep, I asked what form the project would take, hoping that I would have a dream that I would remember on waking. I had a lot of dreams that night but all I remembered on waking was the image of a row of people sat in a ditch writing in notebooks.

I initially dismissed this as a simple image of no importance but decided to try a technique I sometimes use to interpret my dreams. I have a conversation with my dream self and write it down in a notebook. I ask my dream self a question and write down the first response that comes to mind, without thinking about it. The conversation with my dream self unfolded as follows:

Me: Why do I dream of a row of people sat in a ditch writing in notebooks?

Dream self: They are collecting runoff.

Me: What is the runoff?

Dream self: The days residues.

Me: What are the days residues?

Dream self: Something fertile.

Me: What are they doing with it?

Dream self: Transforming it into writing,

Me: What sort of writing?

Dream self: Writing of the night.

Me: Why is there a row of people?

Dream self: More effective to collect the residues.

Me: Does that mean it’s a group effort?

Dream self: Yes, like alchemists collecting dew.

Me: A bit like Blanchot’s demand of writing – the other night?*

Dream self: Just night (as opposed to day).

*Maurice Blanchot’s other night was not the days night. It is difficult to understand Blanchot’s meaning as the other night evades definition. It is not the void but an incessant murmur. He suggested that people who perceive ghosts, ‘… are those who do not want to see the night.’[1]

Dreams are often composed of the day’s residues, so it appears that the people sat in the ditch are writing down their dreams. The conversation with my dream self suggests that they are transforming their dreams, performing alchemy on them, interpreting them. Carl Jung in Psychology and Alchemy suggested that dew was one of the names the alchemists used to denote the prima materia, the basis for the alchemical work.[2] The dream was also suggesting a group effort, not an individual one. This suggests that the project may be of use to other people and that is why there is a row of people in my dream, all writing in their notebooks.

I use this process to interpret my dreams when other means have left the possible meaning unclear. It resembles a method used by the surrealists. In The Manifesto of Surrealism Andre Bretton defines surrealism as:

SURREALISM, n. Psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes to express — verbally, by means of the written word, or in any other manner — the actual functioning of thought. Dictated by the thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern.

This method of interpreting dreams resembles the process outlined below, also from The Manifesto of Surrealism:

SECRETS OF THE MAGICAL

SURREALIST ART

Written Surrealist composition

or

first and last draft

After you have settled yourself in a place as favourable as possible to the concentration of your mind upon itself, have writing materials brought to you. Put yourself in as passive, or receptive, a state of mind as you can. Forget about your genius, your talents, and the talents of everyone else. Keep reminding yourself that literature is one of the saddest roads that leads to everything. Write quickly, without any preconceived subject, fast enough so that you will not remember what you’re writing and be tempted to reread what you have written. The first sentence will come spontaneously, so compelling is the truth that with every passing second there is a sentence unknown to our consciousness which is only crying out to be heard. It is somewhat of a problem to form an opinion about the next sentence; it doubtless partakes both of our conscious activity and of the other, if one agrees that the fact of having written the first entails a minimum of perception. This should be of no importance to you, however; to a large extent, this is what is most interesting and intriguing about the Surrealist game. The fact still remains that punctuation no doubt resists the absolute continuity of the flow with which we are concerned, although it may seem as necessary as the arrangement of knots in a vibrating cord. Go on as long as you like. Put your trust in the inexhaustible nature of the murmur.

André Breton’s Manifesto of Surrealism (1924) - Surrealism Today

I decided to call the project Night Writing. As you may have noticed dreams already influence my creative practice, so I felt that this was a perfect project. I decided that I will record my dreams and interpret them following Carl Jung’s method of amplification which I’ll outline later. In the next post I will look at the ways Jung’s dreams influenced him.


[1] Maurice Blanchot, The Space of Literature, trans. Ann Smock (Lincon and London: University of Nebraska Press), 163.

[2] C.G. Jung, Psychology and Alchemy, trans. R.F.C. Hull (London: Routledge, 1993), 317.

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