D is for Dreams

Here's a little project for those of you who keep a dream journal: make a frontispiece. It's another way to explore your own inner reality. Here's how to go about it.

• First is the planning stage, although it's pretty minimal here because the aim of this project is to let unconscious ideas come forth, rather than to impose our conscious ideas. So the plan has only two components. 1) We define the format: square, round, rectangular—whatever shape appeals. 2) And then we put something into that space, filling most of it. In the example here, I used the letter D, for dreams, but it's important for you to use whatever appeals to you: it could be the shape of a firetruck, a stone, a pool--whatever.
   
• Now play with the object you have put into the space, seeing what it suggests to you. As I played with the letter D a cave emerged, then a couple of creatures I thought of as threshold guardians. Once your concept comes together for you, play with your favorite rendering technique or, even better, try out something new.

Congratulations! You've produced a work that has come straight out of your unconscious, just like a dream. You can take the project a little further by writing a sentence or two about your creation. Here's what I said about mine.

The scary things, partially dead and buried, that emerge from the Unconscious are the source of new life, health, and healing of the spirit.