DEAREST DREAMERS,

In our waking lives, we sometimes find ourselves slogging away, working through the ups, downs and often tricky ground of personalities, politics and problems. We may feel as though we are making headway, only to discover that we’ve worked our way around a circle and made no progress at all.

Our Dreaming Selves offer us a higher perspective, almost as though that part of ourselves sees the lay of the land around us from a helicopter’s vantage. Using the beautiful language of metaphor, our dreams sum up confounding situations and direct us to openings and inroads we simply cannot see from ground level.

People from all walks of life have relied on their dreams when in need of inspiration for solving problems with inventions or innovations, or when in need of creative impetus. Moviemakers, songwriters, visual artists and scientists are among the most notable:

John Lennon and Paul McCartney attribute some of their iconic music and lyrics to the stuff of their dreams. These include McCartney’s “Yesterday,” the most covered song in music history, and Lennon’s “#9 Dream.” Keith Richards tells of dreaming the riff to the Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.”

Surrealist painter Salvador Dali called many of his works “hand-painted dream photographs.” With images of melting clocks in his “Persistence of Memory,” Dali illustrated his idea that our concept of time becomes arbitrary when we’re in a dream state.

Moviemaker Richard Linklater of “Boyhood” fame credits his dreams for his previous, well-received animated feature “Waking Life.” And director Christopher Nolan took the inspiration for his 2010 psychological thriller “Inception” from his own lucid dreams.

Some of our most famous and acclaimed authors, including Maurice Sendak, best known for “Where the Wild Things Are,” and Sue Grafton of the alphabet mystery series “A Is for Alibi, B Is for Burglar, C Is for Corpse … H Is for Homicide,” speak about dreams’ influence on their work.

And Nobel Laureate James Watson reported stumbling upon the double helix image for the DNA chain through his dream of a spiral staircase.

Our dreams are not only beautiful and lyrical, but their practical use for problem solving and creative generation of solutions ranges across art, science and literature. It doesn’t take a giant leap of faith to know that productive and accomplished people across all endeavors can and do employ their dreams, tapping depths of creativity and insight for their work.

Why not you, Dear Dreamer? No doubt you have challenges in your life. Consider that your Dreaming Self can give you perspective on the problem. As Stephen King said, a dream may offer an angle on the issue that you just cannot see without it!

If these talented persons relied on their dreams for insights and assistance, we too can add them to our toolbox for working resourcefully on the perplexing problems of our daily lives.

Sweet Dreams to you!

Carolyn Plath, M.Ed., is a Benicia resident and member of the International Association for the Study of Dreams. Reach her at sendmeyourdreams@yahoo.com.

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