Violinist Vilemina Neruda leading a string quartet, c. 1880. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)Music I hear or sense in my dreams before waking is beautiful and enchanting, heard delivered in ethereal voices or with chamber ensembles or orchestras. Sometimes it may be jazzy sounding or a song that may have an air of familiarity as though it is something I have heard often.
I may lie in bed for a while trying to hear the music within my mind, but it is usually a sound so otherworldly that I cannot recreate it. Some times I have written songs that were either based on my dream or came directly from my dream. I usually have to add to the lyrics or try to recreate the lyrics I think I remember having heard, but they are songs that were delivered to me by a dream.
The question is are they original or derived from something I've heard sometime in waking life? This could be a similar question that a writer or visual artist might ponder. The fear of influence can paralyze us in our acts of creating. Then again, the acceptance of similarity of theme done in our own style might be the better way to look at our creative endeavors.
Are our dreams tapping into new ideas generated from within us? Or do our dream ideas have a connection to memories of things that are already out there but we just don't recognize them? Perhaps our subconscious creative mind is taking old themes and turning them into new variations to suit our own perspectives. Do you think the dreaming mind is creating or merely remembering in its own way?
