Redtree Times

All men whilst they are awake are in one common world: but each of them, when he is asleep, is in a world of his own.

~Plutarch

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The other night I fell asleep early then awoke and after a bit tried to go back to sleep.  I flopped around trying to be comfortable but the wheels of my mind started turning and for a while I just lay there.  But there came a time when I slipped briefly into dreams even though I still felt awake.

It’s a strange feeling but it felt good at the same time because in those moments of lucid dreaming I saw a color and a surface that was new to me, one that I saw being used in my work.  It was multi-colored with blues and greens within it and a certain level of depth within the color that gave it a gorgeous glow.  Plus it was arranged in transparent plates that overlapped so that the combined colors deepened even more.

It’s hard to describe now because even in the time soon after waking I struggled to fully recall it in my memory.  It was there completely but in a vague sort of way.  It was not a color that I had worked with or had even seen though I can’t be sure of that.

I wanted to see it and tried to recreate it within my own range of color and technique.  I stumbled a bit at it for most of the day yesterday and finally realized that it would require something new, something different either in media or process to get the color and surface and depth that was still in there somewhere.

But the piece at the top did pop out during the day’s attempts and while it disappointed me because it didn’t fulfill my dream, it has an interesting feel that pleases me on another level.  Maybe this will take me a step closer to what I am seeing in my dream or maybe it will evolve into something different on its own, something I can’t yet envision.

It has shown itself in my dream so maybe it can come forward now if I keep looking for it with my waking mind.  Who knows?  You can never tell how things will turn out when you’re trying to take something from that inner world and move it out into the waking world.

We shall see…