Writing has long been used as a first step in dream work; the written dream report is a commonly regarded as the launching ground for dream analysis. But how we write is far more important than what we write when it comes to knowing our dreams in a meaningful way, says writer and workshop leader, Tzivia Gover.
Gover, a student in the Institute for Dream Studies and member of the International Association for the Study of Dreams, teaches new techniques for combining writing and dream work in her upcoming workshop, “Dreaming on the Page: Using Proprioceptive Writing as a tool for Dream Exploration.” The workshop will be presented at the IASD conference in Asheville, North Carolina, June 26-July 1, 2010.
Proprioceptive Writing (PW) is a meditative form of writing that allows you to know yourself more fully by exploring on paper the territory of your mind, memory and emotions. This technique, when used as a regular practice, helps synthesize emotion and imagination, generating authentic insight and joy. PW combines focused attention and the use of a mantra-like question to excavate and expose personal meaning and to amplify thoughts and dream images. PW also engages the auditory imagination, helping people to cultivate the skill of deep listening.
Combining this method of writing with dream work, allows us to question and come to know the dream more intimately and more viscerally, says Gover, who is a certified Proprioceptive Writing instructor. By doing so we have the opportunity to channel our energy into our waking experiences.
Through Proprioceptive Writing, we become still and quiet so that we can receive impulses from the field of unconscious awareness. As we stay in this open, awake and aware state, we turn our attention toward the thoughts that emerge. We don’t choose or direct these thoughts, but rather receive them. By “saying” on paper what we “hear” in our minds during this process, we participate in making these energies manifest. Through listening to our internal process and capturing it in writing we bring material from the unconscious into the stream of conscious thought, as described by William James.
As Jungian analyst Robert A. Johnson writes in Inner Work: “When the image speaks, it is with one of our own inner voices. When we answer back, it is the unseen inner part of our own self that listens and registers.”
Writing and dreaming seem to have a natural affinity for one another; each amplifying the complementary characteristics of the other. Writing clothes the images and energies of the unconscious in words, as dreams clothe them in color, character, image and drama.
When we not only write, but write in the state of receptivity and awareness that PW cultivates, we hold the messages of the unconscious in our conscious attention long enough to know them in a truly transformative way, says Gover. Then the conscious mind can interact with otherwise amorphous and intangible systems of thought and energy and the mysterious dramas of the dream world. The written line thus becomes a story, a trail to follow, inward, ever deeper; bringing our conscious faculties to the realms of the unconscious.
For more information on Writing and Dream Work with Tzivia Gover visit www.tziviagover.com; for information about the upcoming IASD conference and Gover’s workshop visit www.asdreams.org
My poems have recently been published ... or are about to be published ... in the following journals and anthologies:
• Alimentum Journal: The Literature of Food, “Lunch” (Forthcoming, 2007)
• Cadence of Hooves: A Celebration of Horses, Yarroway Press, “Today at Camp” (Forthcoming, 2007)
• Alternatives to Surrender: Poems that deal with cancer, ed. Martin Willitts, Jr., Plain View Press, October 2007, “July Fifteenth”
• Sojourn: A Literary Journal of the Arts, University of Texas at Dallas, Vol. 20, 2007, “I, Cordelia”
HOLYOKE - Now in its fifth year, Nautilus II a collection of poetry and art by young mothers who are studying at The Care Center, has earned praise from some of the country's top poets. Essayist and poet Martín Espada writes: "The Care Center is a place of hope, courage, redemption, energy and hard work. You can see it, hear it, and feel it in these poems."
The Care Center is an inspirational non-profit educational center where young women study academic subjects for their GEDs, along with a range of other classes including poetry, art, computers, parenting, nutrition and athletics.
As part of the poetry program led by author and educator Tzivia Gover, students this year read poems by classic and contemporary authors including Lucille Clifton, Julia de Burgos, Robert Frost, Christina Rosetti, and dozens of others. In response they wrote their own poetry about their experiences as mothers, students and citizens.
Award-winning author Naomi Shihab Nye, who visited the center as part of The Care Center's literary series, wrote: "The writers at The Care Center write honestly and eloquently of the deep lives they are living and the mysterious, complicated, beautiful world we share. Celebrate them!"
Nautilus II, vol. 5, Spring 2007
ISSN 1938-5994
$10
available at Odyssey Bookshop www.odysseybks.com
or through The Care Center www.carecenterholyoke.org
Nationwide, April is known as poetry month. This April has been a poetry-filled month in my life, too.
Two of my poems are published online this month: one on Kripalu’s online newsletter, and the other on LiteraryMama.com. In addition, I was featured in an article about poetry in a regional news magazine, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.
You can use the links below to read the poems and article.
Meanwhile, I hope your spring is blooming with poetry, too — on and off the page!
--Tzivia
Tzivia Gover leads One-Book Holyoke this March and April
PUBLISHING NEWS:
Tzivia's poem, "Yarn" was recently published in the anthology KNITLIT THE THIRD: WE SPIN MORE YARNS, an anthology of poetry and prose on the theme of knitting! Visit knitlit.com for more information.
