What are dreams?

 

“The dream is specifically the utterance of the unconscious.” (Carl Jung)

I have always been fascinated by dreams, the meaning of dreams and kept a dream diary as a teenager when my dreams seemed to be especially vivid and mind boggling. One of them became a recurring dream which I dreamt in different variations throughout my adult life. It was about me and a plane. It was about flying and crashing. Maybe because this dream was recurring and I kept remembering it very well it was bound to appear in my art eventually. The first time was in 2012 when I was living in Spain. I painted and collaged on a wood panel (see below). It used to hang in my hall way until recently.

"Learning to let go" by Heather Hoeps

Even though I have not had this dream for a a long time I wanted to work with the symbol of the airplane and my dream when I saw a particular picture on a website with copyright free images to download. It fit perfectly into my series “How I work with images”. I think that creative expression can be a fun, insightful and therapeutic way to deal with dreams, especially those that haunt us. Those dreams that have something important to communicate and bring to our conscious awareness. Using collage works with the same power of the image. We can even reconstruct a dream, change the course or outcome of a dream and maybe even find an important release or have a revelation through a painting or a collage. Freud viewed dreams as “the royal road” to the unconscious and developed dream analysis, or dream interpretation, as a way of tapping into this unconscious material.

In my video you can watch one of the ways in which I  approach a dream through collage. The process was quite deep for me and the outcome very moving on a personal level. I feel grateful for my dreams and for intuitive collage! 

I would love to hear about your significant dream imagery and if you have tried to work with a dream(s) using collage or other mediums…leave a comment!

To watch the other videos in my “How I work with images” series go HERE