A few weeks ago, I bought myself a copy of The Artists Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron. I had a copy many years ago and remembered that it helped me to start making art again in my mid-twenties. I got a portfolio together and went to university. I re-read the book in two days but oddly, I didn’t remember any of it. I thought that I had better go back through it and do the tasks at the end of each section. It’s meant to be a twelve-step program done over twelve weeks, but I did speed Artists Way in a week. I had been feeling blocked. I just didn’t feel like making any art, so I came across the book at the right time. The two main tasks in The Artists Way are morning pages and artists dates. The morning pages consist of three pages of stream of consciousness writing done in the morning. I’ve adopted this but mine are afternoon or evening pages. I have enough trouble trying to get body and soul together in the morning without adding morning pages and...

  In Jungs method of dream interpretation called amplification, first subjective amplification is done by seeing what each dream motif means personally, ‘Then collective meaning is obtained through objective amplification ; i.e., the dream elements are enriched with the universal, symbolic material of fairy tales, myths, etc., which illuminate the universal aspect…’ [1] Eril Shalit and Nancy Swift Furlotti write of amplification, ‘As the term implies, we attempt to enlarge the dream image by amplifying it – relating it to its roots in the objective psyche and its appearance in culture, history, mythology, and religion. The psyche speaks in images; thus, in order to gain from its wisdom, we need to understand the language of images, to be aware of their depth and meaning, and to study them in their personal and collective contexts.’ [2] Most creative people have a good understanding of images and symbols. Understanding personal associations relating to each dream motif is re...

  ‘This sea of sleep, deep in the foundations of human nature, has its high tide at night: every slumber indicates only that it washes a shore from which it retreats in waking hours. What remains are the dreams; however marvellously they are formed, they are no more than the lifeless remains from the womb of the depths. The living remains in him and secure in him: the ship of waking life, and the fish as the silent booty in the nets of artists.’ [1] Walter Benjamin suggests that dreams are lifeless remains, but I would say that interpretation gives these remains a new life, one that can support us with our creative process. This is about allowing dreams to enrich and influence the creative process. It is not about “using” dreams. We tend to reduce things to their use value. A self-help book will be useful to us; it will help us eliminate our problems and lead more fulfilling lives. Sometimes though, a self-help book surprises us. It says something that we did not expect and yet i...

  Jung observed that the idea of the unconscious presented by Carus and von Hartman disappeared without a trace, it then re-emerged in medical psychology. [1] He noted that at first, the unconscious denoted forgotten or repressed contents of the psyche. [2] Jung suggested that it was the study of dreams that allowed psychologists to study the unconscious aspects of conscious events, ‘As a general rule, the unconscious aspect of any event is revealed to us in dreams, where it appears not as a rational thought but as a symbolic image.’ [3] Jung then noted that, ‘It is on such evidence that psychologists assume the existence of an unconscious psyche – though many scientists and philosophers deny its existence. They argue naively that such an assumption implies the existence of two “subjects,” or (to put it in a common phrase) two personalities within the same individual. But that is exactly what it does imply – quite correctly.’ [4] Sigmund Freud, despite being aware of the m...