In the last section of the “Who Am I” course, we reflected on a dream from our pasts and created a dreamcatcher in order to symbolize the deeper meanings of our dream and how to make sense of the positive and negative dimensions of it. We read to understand Freud and others who analyzed dreams as well as define vocabulary words to gain a better understanding of the subject. We looked at a surrealistic art to also help us understand this topic. We then had to interview someone to interpret and give us feedback on our dreams. We wrote a 400-500 word explanation and created a physical dreamcatcher that would give visual representation of the unconscious fears and wishes captured in the dream. What follows is my analysis of my own dream and how I created and made use of my dreamcatcher.
Here is my dream artist statement:
I created a dreamcatcher to visually represent the deeper meanings of my dream. My dream was about meeting, interviewing, and being interviewed by Eric Clapton. What struck me most from the dream was when Clapton turned the tables and interviewed me. Also significant was when we heard a loud banging noise on the door, took a risk, and entered through another door to a new dimension. We ended up walking into a movie/documentary about Eric Clapton’s life and musical career.The materials that guided me to create the dreamcatcher were wire ring, beads, colored feathers, wax strings and leather straps. I got my materials from Michael’s Arts and Crafts Store (hoop and leather straps) and from the art table in our house (beads, string, knob, black paint, feathers and board). The center of my dreamcatcher symbolized the hopes and possibilities for my life. My dreamcatcher specifically symbolized good friendship and happiness. The things I hope will reach me through the dreamcatcher’s web are things like my interview with Eric Clapton, his interview with me, his autographing my t-shirt, and our being in a movie together. The colors of the feathers were American-red, white, and blue that represent hope in my dreamcatcher and my dream.I symbolized my dreamcatcher with a circular metal ring shaped like a musical CD and strings representing guitar strings tied together. I wanted the dreamcatcher to catch certain fears and anxieties from my unconscious. For example, the knocking noise from the door represents a frightening part of my dream. It startled me, which made me scared and reminded me of my fear that I might not be able to ever break through my wall of fear. The dreamcatcher will be mounted on the door to keep bad things from passing through. I symbolized fear with a picture of a tall, black door. The black door was created to block the frightening parts of the dream from coming through and entering the dreamcatcher. The beads with swirls around them represent terror swirling around, clinging, and clanging like a tornado spinning around like crazy, threatening to destroy identities.For me, the dream and dreamcatcher are about my desire to gain new friends. I will use the word “unconscious” to talk about how this dream is very deep and about things I don’t think about normally. I will use the word “repression” to talk about how I may be afraid of unknown things. I think I try to avoid things in advance when I am unfamiliar with the situation, since this creates fear and anxiety. The dreamcatcher really works when I’ll have happy and restful dreams. When bad dreams slip through, I will probably feel scared and wake up.
