Creative Dreaming -or- Cognitive Maps of Postmodern Dreamtime

Creation Myths -or- Mythological Hyperreality of Dream Vision 

In her book "Creative Dreaming" Patricia Garfield discusses many of the famous dreams also posted at the International Institute for Dream Research (IIDR) website. Creativity in the Biblical sense begins with the "Book of Genesis". While physicists see the creation of the universe from the "cosmological" perspective", many "creation myths" have been created since the dawn of humanity to explain said creation. The Australian Aboriginal mythology believes that dreamtime  is the source of all creation. We in the Western world live in the "post-modern" era, where the cognitive distinctions between everyday social reality, dream and cognitive map become blurred thereby creating a surreal "hyperreality". 

The time honored plot device of the "dream world" has always been the stuff that "dream visions" have been made of. In post-modernity, children begin to grow up and learn to see, experience and live in this "hyperreal" mass media generated consumer "dream world". We can see this visual "hyperreal" dream world beginning to form in Brenda's dream below. Other dreams sent to the IIDR like "Queen of my Postmodern Domain" shows us someone who has become more skilled in the art of dreaming, and has learned to differentiate between the real waking world and the dream world. 

Here is Brenda's dream;

Brenda, 13 

Every night I dream a different dream but it's like I created a world like everything is so real. Like sometimes my dreams will be in the same location but different things are happening. I can remember the dreams too like I drew a map of my dream world and sometimes I have vision dreams. 

Further Reading:

  • Silvio Gaggi "From Text to Hypertext: Decentering the Subject in Fiction, Film, the Visual Arts, and Electronic Media"
  • Fred Alan Wolf "The Dreaming Universe
All material Copyright 2006 International Institute for Dream Research. All rights reserved.