Music, Mystery, and the Dreaming Process
By Amy Mindell
Originally published in the “Dream
Network, a Journal for Exploring Dreams and Mythology”, Vol. 21, #1,
2002, pp. 7-11, http://www.dreamnetwork.net.
When I was a child I learned to play the guitar
and piano, and loved to sing and dance. As a little girl I used to twist
and frolic to the rhythms
of rock and roll, “Oh shake it baby now, twist and shout!” As
I grew up, music and movement became my lifeline; a home I could return to
in order to find meaning in an everyday world. Today, whenever I feel confused
about what direction to go, curious about the world, or upset by something
that has happened, I find myself spontaneously sitting at the piano and letting
the music carry me like a magic carpet to lands of greater perspective, to
my inner dreams and deepest yearnings, and to my sense of connection with
others. However, for the first forty years of my life I was unable to find
the thread to my own inner songs. I don’t really know what suddenly
allowed me to begin to write my own music a few years ago but I do know that
it has something to do with my growing openness to, and my fluidity with,
my dreams and my dreaming process.
There is something so inexpressible, so deeply stirring about music and
the creative process, that I am utterly grateful each time a piece of music
comes through me. Sometimes a song has begun with a dream image, sometimes
a slight body sensation, at other times a faint tune that has unfolded into
a melody. There have been times when I cannot track what has happened. It
has felt as though the piece of music was always here and I simply allowed
it to manifest through notes and chords.
Therefore, I am shy to try to describe my process of writing music in any
clear or defined way. However, in my work as a process worker (1),
a form of therapy and conflict resolution developed by my partner and husband
Arny Mindell, I have found vocabulary for this ineffable experience. This
understanding has helped me and my clients gain an even deeper access to
the creative process. Perhaps I can share some of these concepts here.
The Dreaming Process
A central idea in process work is that we do not only dream at night but
we are dreaming all the time, throughout the day as well. The source of these
experiences is what we call the dreaming process. The dreaming process is
like a wellspring that continually generates dream-like experiences whether
we are asleep or awake. Spontaneous movements and gestures, body symptoms,
and flickering experiences are some of the ways that the dreaming process
manifests in everyday life. If we follow and unfold these occurrences, they
actually mirror our nighttime dream images. When I tune into this source
of dreaming in all of its manifestations I tap into a fountain of creativity
and expression.
Levels of Experience
In order to understand the dreaming process more, let me describe various
levels of experience.(2) One level is called “consensus
reality” and includes such things as the way I identify myself, my
profession, my weight, my height, my body gestures, the sound of my voice,
music that I can notate, etc. These are things that most of us would consent
to, or agree upon. A second level is what we call “dreamland”.
In this realm lie deeper feelings, our dream images and dream figures. An
even deeper level we call the “essence” or “sentient essence” level.
This is the area of subtle tendencies that occur before something manifests
as a visual dream image, an identifiable feeling, or an exact tune or melody.
In Taoism, this realm would be called “the Tao that can’t be
said,” that which arises before it can be named. Aboriginal people
call this the area of the “Dreaming” which gives rise to all
other levels including the material world. In process work, this is the level
of the dreaming process.
The dreaming process is the deep source from which all the other levels
arise. We can visualize it as the underground roots of a tree from which
the visible portions of the tree emerge. In other words, as the essence begins
to express itself, it appears as flickering experiences that catch our attention
such as something suddenly catching our eye, a fleeting feeling in our bodies,
or a quick sound that grabs our attention. When these experiences further
unfold, they express themselves as identifiable feelings and the images and
figures of our nighttime dreams. In other words, dream images first appear
as very slight tendencies and sensations that then unfold into dream figures
and images. In fact, if we notice these slight tendencies during the day,
we can often predict the dreams we will have at night. When dream images
further unfold, they appear in consensus reality at times as disturbances
such as body symptoms, spontaneous gestures, slips of the tongue, etc, or,
if we follow this unfolding with awareness, they appear creatively in such
forms as song, art, and dance. These levels are not really separate but part
of a fluid spectrum. By joining the flow of dreaming along this spectrum
we can gain access to a great deal of inspiration.
Heaven is Open
Let’s think about my experience of creating
my song Heaven is Open. When Heaven is Open began to unfold I felt a tremendous
relief. It was as
if something inside of me wanted to write this song for many years and finally
gave birth to melody and words. The process of writing the music began with
both a dream and a flickering body experience.
About a year and a half ago, I had a dream in which
I was feeling a bit down and was sitting by the ocean. In the dream I laid
back and let the water
carry me. When I awoke I wrote down my dream and went about my day as usual.
A few hours later I noticed a very subtle and strange feeling in my chest,
a slight sensation as if my chest was moving backwards, expanding, and opening.
Since the sensation was so faint and didn’t make sense to me, I was
going to ignore it. However, I decided to stay with it and meditate upon
it. As I did that, I suddenly had an image of gold pouring down from heaven
into my chest. At that moment I began to hear the beginning melody of Heaven
is Open. I then remembered my dream images from the night before. I sat down
at the piano and the song poured out like melted butter: “I thought
I was empty, at the edge of the sea, I lay down and rested and let it carry
me. And heaven is open, each and every day….”(3) (You
can hear this song on the music page of this website.)
Each time I sing this song, I feel that deep sense of openness to something
greater than myself. My chest expands, I drop my everyday self, and I am
taken by the wings of eternity. Where the song actually came from is a mystery
to me and hopefully always will be. It flowed from the unfathomable essence
of my experience. I do know, however, that by noticing a fleeting body sensation
and then connecting to my dream images, I was able to catch hold of the dreaming
process, let it unfold into melody and words, and finally share it in everyday
reality with others.
Songs of the Land
When I was a child, I loved to sing, “The hills are alive with the
sound of music!” For me, the plants and the ground were full of dreams
and songs. I twirled around the trees dancing and singing and imagined they
sang back to me in partnership. Throughout time, many peoples have said that
the consensual, material world originates from dreaming and that the basic
essence of the earth and the universe is sound. Australian Aborigines say
that the material earth manifested from the Dreaming and that legendary beings
sang the world into existence. These songs or songlines, invisible pathways
that flow throughout Australia, recount the creation of the land.(4) Sufi
mystics understand the universe as an immense, vibrating medium.(5) For
Pythagoras, the pitch and rhythm of music was a microcosm for the mathematical
laws of the universe.(6) Likewise, from my
limited understanding, quantum physics teaches us that the basis of all matter
can be understood as vibrations or waves.(7) This
of course, is the basis of music as well.
Over the past few years, I have had a few experiences
in which I felt that I heard the sound of the land. I remember taking a
walk in the beautiful
mountains of eastern Oregon a year ago. As I walked I thought I heard a faint
sound coming from the mountains. I listened closely to what seemed to be
a rhythmic beating of a drum. It sounded to me like a war march. As the rhythm
reverberated inside of me, I started to walk to its beat. Eventually, I began
to hear the first words of another song. I heard, “Standing on this
mountain, far away from our home, fighting for our freedom, on this land
that we roam…” The song further unraveled and when I returned
home I wrote down the music and the words.
About a week later, I was reading a book about the plight of the Nez Perce
Native Americans who inhabited that very land years ago and who were forced
to leave it by the US army.(8) They were
chased to the Canadian border where they were finally overcome. I was startled
to read that many of the images in the song that I had written down closely
followed the story of what had occurred. I feel shy to talk about this since
I am not Nez Perce. However, this music came through me while I was listening
to the mountains and I tried to step out of the way and let it express itself.
I realized that the land itself carries history and dreams, the stories of
ancestors, if we listen to its songs.
Kermit’s Dream
It seems to me that some songs come to me in a
very humorous way. One night I dreamed that the famous Muppet puppet, Kermit
the Frog, was singing to
me about his own dreams. Kermit was in a frustrated state and was terribly
confused because he dreamed that he had transformed into a dog! Kermit had
begun to wonder who he really was! When I woke up, Arny and I had a good
laugh about the dream and I found myself writing “Frog Song” which
is about the impermanence of life. (You can hear this song on the music page
of this website.) I’m grateful to Kermit for imparting such wisdom
and to the dreaming process for its endlessly generous gifts.
1 For an introduction to Process
Work see my Metaskills:The Spiritual Art of Therapy, New Falcon, Tempe,
AZ, 1995/Lao Tse Press, Portland,
Oregon, 2001, Arnold Mindell’s River’s Way: The Process Science
of the Dreambody, Penguin, London, 1984 and his Working with the Dreaming
Body, Penguin/Arkana, London 1984/Lao Tse Press, Portland, Oregon, 2001.
For more on particular process oriented methods
for connecting dreams and music see Chapter Eleven in Arnold Mindell’s upcoming Dreammaker’s
Apprentice, Hampton Roads, Charlottesville, VA, 2001 and for more applications
of process work with music see Lane Arye’s, Unintentional Music: Releasing
Your Deepest Creativity, Hampton Roads, 2001.
2 See Arnold Mindell’s Dreaming
While Awake: Techniques for 24 Hour Lucid Dreaming, Hampton Roads, Charlottesville,
Va., 2001 for
detailed descriptions and examples of these various levels of experience.
3 Heaven is Open can be heard on our website, www.aamindell.net.
4 Bruce Chatwin, The Songlines, Cape, London, 1987.
5 See the beautiful book, The Mysticism of Sound
and Music: The Sufi Teaching of Hazrat Inayat Khan, Shambhala , Boston and
London 1996 for more on the connection between sound, the universe, and mysticism.
6 Donald Jay Grout and Claude V. Palisca, A History
of Western Music, 4th ed, W.W. Norton, New York, 1980, p.7.
7 See Arnold Mindell’s
Quantum Mind: Journey to the Edge of Psychology and Physics, Lao Tse Press,
Portland, Oregon, 2000
for more on the basis of quantum physics and its connections with psychology.
8 Diana Yates, Chief Joseph: Thunder Rolling Down
from the Mountains, Ward Hill Press, NY, 1992.
