Shortly after finishing and publishing Dreams, Bones & the Future: A Dialogue (available at http://tinyurl.com/mskbp4w), Paco and I immersed ourselves in a follow-up volume, Dreams, Bones & the Future: Queries & Provocations.

Provocations. An audacious title, hopefully in the sense of spirited and original, and not in the sense of reckless abandon of propriety--both meanings carried in that word. It comes from avid, and I like the idea embedded there of keen interest and enthusiasm. So those are the lines we are treading and we look forward to being able to offer up some samples soon.

In the interim, I found myself writing this line: “The hegemony of conscious intentionality is extreme.” I was in a rant about how our conscious intentionality in relation to dreams remains dominated by seeking interpretations, searching for meaning, yearning for understanding. The problem with this is all this effort always moves toward serving ego’s desires and needs. Little credence is given to the notion that dreams may have their own desires, desires unmet when the dominant attitude prevails.

As I wrote that line above, I received an email about how David Bowie would write his songs. Now, I am sure, Bowie was capable of writing a song with full conscious intentionality. So why did he do “something else”? What he did was this. He’d have a general idea in mind about a new song (e.g., a song about the state of the world). Then he would go into a kind of reverie state and write down the words that would come to him “randomly” or “by chance.” No agenda, no filters, no censoring (a la Freud’s “free association”). Then, he would cut out the words and mix them all into a pile. From this pile he would select 10 words without seeing them—a random set of 10 words. Then he would take each of these words in turn, and again in a meditative state begin to write a phrase or sentence prompted by the word. He did this in sequence. By the end, he had given chance a chance to produce a “frame” for this song.

This method is one I’ve used in relation to working with dreams. Instead of falling immediately into that mode of interpreting, understanding, and meaning, take your dream and create a “log line.” A log line is a one-sentence description of a script, film, movie, book, etc. A log line for The Wizard of Oz might be this: “After a twister transports a lonely Kansas farm girl to a magical land, she sets out on a dangerous journey to find a wizard with the power to send her home.”

Now with your log line finished, go into that reverie state and wait for words to come and write them down. Then cut them up, turn them face down. And shuffle the pile and pick 10 (I actually prefer 13, but that’s me). Then from each of those ten words, in order from 1 through 10, go into reverie again and get a sentence or phrase that will come when you focus on the word.

Pay attention to what you are experiencing in addition to the task. What’s going on in your body? What strange ideas are coming to you? (Write them down). What’s your mood? Work the ten phrases/sentences into a song, or a poem. What’s your sense of the dream now, having done this “chance” work?

It would be interesting to gather a few examples of such work from anyone willing to send them in. I can post them anonymously so you need not be concerned about exposure.

Let me end with a quote from David Bowie about dreams:

"I suspect that dreams are an integral part of existence, with far more use for us than we’ve made of them, really. I’m quite Jungian about that. The dream state is a strong, active, potent force in our lives…the fine line between the dream state and reality is at times, for me, quite grey. Combining the two, the place where the two worlds come together, has been important in some of the things I’ve written, yes.”