Pegasus (watercolor 11x14) by NW

Continuing “Bridging Worlds” on Blog Talk Radio (Feb. 21, 2012) LINK to Show Feb. 28, 2012)

In the physical world of 3D if we want to get to another place we can jump. We can stretch. We can ride an elevator, take the lift, climb atop an animal or step into a vehicle, boat, plane, or even a rocket ship.

But what do we do when we want to go to an invisible, unseen place?

Well, we can go to sleep, have a dream, but we will remember it as a dream then, and it won’t seem quite real. It won’t have happened in our waking state. We can also simply close our eyes and have a vision. Visions are wonderful, especially when we can bring them through into our reality.

Others take a pill, a drug that will transport them to another world, and that’s certainly an option. But drugs are an artificial inducement, and no matter what the insight they provide, the source hasn’t come from our own being, or our own being-ness in the world. It is not something we have earned through our own efforts. And that does make a difference.

It starts with dreams. Dreams are our first gateway to the inner realms. I’m not an expert, but I know there are cultures who value dreams much more than we ever have—ancient cultures, and indigenous peoples have known how to use dreams to enhance and expand their waking life. It is a type of experience that can seem very odd and foreign to technologically advanced, right-brain societies.

Dreams can often be frightening, especially to children. I remember a dream I had at the age of two, and another one at the age of eight, that had such a profound effect on me that I’ve not only remembered them, but I’ve managed to incorporate them into my life-story, the memoir I call The Nancy Who Drew. I believe these dreams were messages from my soul, instructing me on who I really was, or who I was above and beyond this particular life in this particular body. And I believe that part of my mission in this life has been to connect the dreams to my experience here, and further connect them to an intuitive knowledge I came in with, was born with.

Creating from the imagination, whether it’s writing stories or painting pictures, is very much like entering the Dream World. When I was little I used to tell stories to my younger sister and brother at night when the lights were off. I made them up as I went along, and never wrote them down. But when I was thirteen I decided to write something down. I story I hadn’t told anyone yet. I didn’t get very far. I think one of the reasons was because my father was a writer and I felt intimidated by his vast intellectual knowledge, never feeling I would ever be able to catch up or know as much as he did, or write as well as he could. But the other reason was the story itself. I could only go up to a certain point of the action, and then I had to stop because I didn’t have a clue as to what came next.

This is how it began. There was a boy and a girl taking a walk down a path. The boy was named Andy, the girl was Andrea. They came to a house. They went up to the house and stood at the door. Now here is where the problem began. Should they knock? If they knocked, would anyone answer? What would happen then? And if no one answered, would they try the door knob and see if it was open? What if it was, what then? Or maybe it was locked. Would they leave then? I didn’t know where to take the story, where to take Andy and Andrea. So they stood there, paralyzed on the threshold, and that’s where I left them.

Door Under Water, oil on canvas by NW 2009

I’ve always felt bad about that story. It seemed to mark a creative failure in my young life. A lack of imagination. The door carried great significance in my dream-life, and would soon become very significant in my waking life. And maybe some part of me knew that. And that was why I was frozen. Frozen at the sight of the door. Frozen at what to do with the door, whether to open it or not. Should they go in or shouldn’t they?

To hear more, tune into Blog Talk Radio: LINK to Show, Feb. 28, 2012