Flashback Post
Do you pay attention to your dreams? Do you even have them? Have you ever had a recurring dream? My answers to these three questions are “yes”, “yes” and “yes”.
My daughter and I discuss our dreams whenever we remember them and enjoy looking for parallels in our lives and possible meanings. Sometimes we have had real “aha!” moments, and other times the dreams are so obvious as to what they represent or why they occurred that they make us giggle.
I have had dreams which I’ve really enjoyed with or without attaching any meaning to them. One of them I loved so much, that I recreated the topic of the dream, and made a large painting of a painting in the dream.
“I had one dream about a big painting of mine. In it were some big hills like the Tararuas. In the foreground was some red writing, I can’t remember what it said, but I think it was Måori. The painting became very famous and everyone loved it — in my dream.”
When I woke up I loved the dream so much, that within a few days I had finished my large painting. It did have red writing in the foreground which was in Måori (one of three official languages of New Zealand, and I happened to be studying Måori at the time I had the dream.) The red writing was a translation into Måori of the above paragraph, with the help of my teacher. Many Måori speakers have seen the painting and it usually raises a chuckle.
Since then, I created a little recycled paper chapbook (the photos in this blog post) as a gift with drawings of the painting, and the story of the dream. At the end is the translation of the dream into Måori.
I would love to hear about your dreams. Do you have them and can you remember them? Have you ever had a recurring dream?
This blog post was originally published in November 2012.
