Fifty Cent Dreams and Stuff

The last few months I've had vivid and interesting dreams featuring symbols that repeat themselves (not exact repetitions, more like variations on a theme).  Symbols like elevators, escalators, and skyscrapers, and one unusual dream involving, er, melted butter. 

Being naturally curious, I decided to start keeping track of these dreams and try to divine what, if anything, they might mean.  Dreams remind me of poetry in that they both deal in metaphor.  I love that!

I've been paging through modern dream interpretation books and tomes that include page after page of boring Freudian dream philosophy and Jungian archetype dream philosophy, and not finding a reference anywhere to elevators, escalators, skyscrapers, and, ahem, the melted butter, so imagine my amusement when I found this book at the thrift store today for fifty cents!  Written in 1952 it addresses all of my symbols except for skyscrapers.  Inside is a handwritten dedication in blue ink reading: "to my Darling little Dreamer, Christmas 1952, Your loving husband."

Such a perfect and serendipitous find!  Not only may it possibly help me discover patterns and meanings in my dreams, but will be great for collage work as well!

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On the creative front, I am still plugging along with my day/week/month project.  You can follow along on flickr.  At the 30 day mark I have a few things planned, so stay tuned for that.  I'm only on Day 21, but I'm already learning a lot through this process. 

Today, I went out to swap-bot; I hadn't been there in awhile.  Swap-bot is a wonderment of swapping goodness!  People swap everything from themed CDs, to zines and artist trading cards to postcard and holiday themed projects.  So much fun!  I signed up for these: A cupcake atc swap and flickr favorites swap (which requires no sending of anything and is so easy its ridiculous!). 

Go forth and swap!  It's good for you!

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If you are here looking for the All About Blythe page, I've temporarily removed it from my blog.  I am trying to decide if the Blythe stuff needs its own blog.  I hesitate to do that because I don't like the idea of breaking my interests down into six gazillion blogs, but I want to keep a balance of things here (it's not all Blythe, it's not all art, it's a lot of everything).  I'll figure it out; in the meantime I've removed the page.

However, Blythe aficionados, do not despair!  I am hosting a Blythe photo swap via swap-bot!  You can check out all the details and sign up via the link.

Finally, whether you are Blythe collector or not, you might appreciate this article profiling the designer of the original Blythe doll in 1972 and the revival of the doll in the last many years.

Enjoy!

Comments

[Marti]

I LOVE DREAMS! I think they hold keys to things our subconscious is working out. A great website for finding general information about dream symbols is www.dreammoods.com/dreamdictionary

Here's what it says about skyscrapers: To see a skyscraper in your dream, represents your high ideals, creativity and imagination. You always aim high at whatever you do. It also suggests that you have great foresight.

Kind of fits where you are :)

Can I just say I love the dedication in the book - maybe that was a gift for you too :)

[Jessica]

What a wonderful vintage find in the dream dictionary. It would be interesting to compare the "old" interpretations with the new interpretations. Certainly our visions of symbols have changed in the last few decades.

I also love that dedication -- I wonder about the story behind it. How magical!

[MarilynH]

I have many tornado dreams. But I think that stems from living in NC when I was little and getting scared out of my wits so many times by nearby tornados and very high winds!

[Willy-Nilly Waterlily]

Lovely blog! I especially like your posts on Blythe dolls as I collect them, too.

Happy New Year!