draw your dream out...

speaking of dreams, i had one the other night that is just one of the strangest ever for me...i'll share so you can get an idea of what my brain does with me.

i was in a large school, and my son was there in kindergarten. there had been wolf sightings around the area, so some very large burly guys with bloody aprons took care of the problem by killing off the wolf pack. they became a slight bloodthirsty, i guess, because in a large room next to my son's kindergarten class, there were high piles of dead animals, stretched long and laid on top of each other like a wall.

i was really angry, obviously, about all the dead animals and also because it was right next to the classroom, and kids could be so traumatized by all of it, so i went into the room to have at whoever was in charge. when i entered the room i saw that there were not only lots of wolves, but also monkeys, bears, baboons, and other wild animals, all killed by gunshot or head smashing. there was even a water buffalo---whose head moved as i spotted him. he lumbered onto his feet and ran out of the room and down the hall. all of the other "dead" animals remained still, but all of their eyes turned to the buffalo and watched him escape...and a baboon on one of the piles collected himself, gunshot in his head, and darted out of the room screeching- i could hear kids screaming all up and down the halls...

so. there it is. a slice of my dreamtime....not every night is that dramatic, but even with less crazy dreams, my head is still on overtime, and i wake exhausted. i have told this dream story 3 times now, and i think it's fading. i was close to drawing it when i thought it might not leave my head, but i'm giving it another day or 2 to wear out on its own. in the past, i have drawn very rough sketches of bad dreams and such, and they seriously disappear. not from my memory, but from the place in my head where they matter. art is good...absolutely necessary for me and so very good ;)

how my journaling started

i used to write endlessly in my personal journals. i was born with a LOVE for the physical act of writing, and kept many diaries and keepsake journals. but the matters i wrote about in my young adult years were things that bothered me, so i was actually giving permission to my brain to continue obssessing. yes, i unwaveringly believe that this process is cathartic and useful, and that writing out thoughts can dismiss them from your mind, but i also found that i kept returning to my journals for affirmation that i had reasons to be crazy. by rereading entries, i opened old crap for re-examination, which eventually made the thought processes spin further out of control.

i continued writing for years, sometimes pages filled with small longhand, other times a few disjointed words scrawled, painted or carved into the paper, but really very few drawings of any kind. the written word was seemingly more understandable to my imaginary readers? my only "art" was done separately from my journals, for classes mostly...

at the time i was most prolific with written journals, i was the most ill. i didn't care that my rantings were very unpleasant and disturbing to others. i was still new to my braincrap (as it presented during these years), and i was unsure of what to make of it.  i was scared, suicidal and in moments of lucidity, embarassed. this dark period (that sounds so artistic) overlapped with my bachelor's studies in art therapy and psychology. at one point my art therapy professor (thank you, M) expressed concern over my art therapy class journal and projects. he insisted i find a therapist, and i did.

and the excrutiatingly slow process of mental rehab (through self-imposed art therapy) begins...