The Surreal Nature of Reality

Dreams are often weird. We all have experienced that, yet I had never expected to have reality turn out even weirder.

A while ago I had a dream where I found myself looking into a circus tent. I stood in a small room adjacent to the big top. I remember that besides a person sitting at a table to my right side, the room was empty. From where I was standing, I could also glance past a curtain into the big top, where an acrobat stood on a horse and rode in a circle with her arms spread out. Not so much weirdness there yet. We all have been at a circus at one time. This experience might have been simply stored in my sub-consciousness and surfaced within this dream – or so I thought. I even forgot the entire story when I woke up as it happens so often with dreams.

However, the next day was a Friday. Every Friday in my school, I would put up an art print for my students so they could draw the main design as a warm-up. As I was going through the prints I had in storage, I suddenly gasped, because I found myself starring at the very scenery I had visited in my dream the night before! It was called “The Circus”, painted by impressionist artist George Seurat in 1891.

I realized that in my dream I had been walking around inside of this painting, and I had accessed a space that was not even shown. Even though I had seen this painting before, the entire timing was odd. And so was reality. Usually dreams seem to be a reflection of everyday experiences, thoughts, fears or hopes. Yet never before, I had reality being the reflection of a dream in such a stark way!

I also realized how much I am entrenched within the world of art and how much of who I am is connected to this realm. Whenever I doubt myself and question how much of an artist I truly am, I will remember this dream and know no matter how imperfect I might be in my outer expression, inside, in my deepest core, I am art.

I am writing my first book and I would love for you to join me on this journey. How about experiencing the creation of a book in the making? Maybe, in the process, you become inspired and more courageously in your own creative expressions.