Dream poetry as dream work.

Abstract

This paper explores the relationship between dream poetry and dream work by presenting a representative dream poem, along with the text of the dream that inspired it; examining some of its poetic qualities and showing how these figured in the writing of the poem; and comparing the dream writing process to dream interpretation and to Jungian active imagination work. The formal demands of poetry introduce a unique type of critical thought into the creative process that develops the dream material in ways different from other forms of dream work. Writing dream poetry differs from hoth dream interpretation and active imagination in important ways, hut can he viewed as a form of non-interpretative dream work. These observations are probably generalizable to all forms of dream writing and dream art.

The Anomalous Foundations of Dream Telling: Objective Solipsism and the Problem of Meaning

“…Dream narratives are subjected to many of the same methodological treatments as are traditional ethnographic field notes, newspaper texts, and stories told to ethnographers by native informants. Dream narratives are qualitatively analyzed (Foulkes 1964;Knudson 2003), compared with other dream narratives and personal artistic expression (Bulkeley 2003;Russo 2003), compared with shared cultural mythologies (Garfield 2004) and with external events of dreamers' waking lives (Wunder 1993). Dreams are converted to professional typologies and variables (Van Eeden 1913;Tart 1969) and are subjected to ethnotypological analysis (Gillespie 2002).…”

A Discovery of Meaning: The Case of C. G. Jung's House Dream

“…(p. 184) The process of being 'taken in' by a dream image is clearer in accounts of dreams that influence creative work (e.g. Knudson, 2001;Russo, 2003). In such cases, there is a protracted, sometimes life-long, preoccupation with the image, translating it into numerous different productions that explore its possibilities.…”