The Reality of a Dream

The Reality of a Dream
In Stephen King’s essay, “The Symbolic Language of Dreams”, King describes some of the ways dreams have helped him with his writing. I read about all the things that King dreamed about. He dreamed about all kinds of unrealistic things and he consciously put these dream stories into his writings. I think this method of creative writing is crazy, but I agree with it. I like the idea of using the ability that every person in the world has; creative imagination through a dream. I agree with King’s methods and admire his effective use of his own dreams.
King uses metaphors of the mind as an ocean, as a nutrient bath, and as water. In his essay, King said, “I think that consciousness is like an ocean. Whether you’re an inch below the surface or whether you’re down a mile and half deep, it’s all water. All H2O. I think that our minds are the same nutrient bath all the way down to the bottom and different things live at different levels… the messages that we get a lot of times are nothing more than symbolic reworkings of the things that we’re concerned with.”(page 7) I think that this way of thinking of the mind is brilliant. Subconsciously, we dream and think of things that our minds are concerned with. Then after this process has finished, we dream about them in our sleep. However, King doesn’t believe that these dreams are all very important. He thinks that most dreams are nothing more than a kind of mental or spiritual flatulence; a way of relieving pressure, yet some of them can be useful for a writer.
Another example King uses is fish. King compares our dreams with fish and how there are types that belong at different levels below the water. King said, “there are different types of fish. They go down to a depth of maybe fifty, sixty, or a hundred feet. People catch them, and we get used to seeing them. Whereas if you go down in a bathysphere, if you go down real deep, you see very different and rare species of fish. Those are creatures that we don’t see very often because they explode if we bring them up close to the surface.” Surface fish are basically like dreams to our surface thoughts and deep fish are like dreams of surface fish. They change shape and form and come as they go. It seems that King is trying to explain to us about how our thoughts would convert into “surface fish” and how “surface fish” would dream about “deep fish”. The complexity of our dreams vary and their shapes can change anytime. I felt that this idea of our thoughts going through a process of conversion into dreams was very insightful. Rather than just explaining a dream as a mere time of creativity and possibilities, King connected two very different subjects and linked them together to get his point across to his audience.
Additionally, King goes over a concept of dreaming while he is still conscious and awake. He says that he is able to do this if all the right things are in the right place and the right time. This is part of his function as a writer. King said, “If I sit down to write in the morning, in the beginning of that writing, I’m aware of my surroundings… Creative imaging and dreaming are just so similar that they’ve got to be related.” King brings up a very good point. He believes that creative imaging and dreaming are just so similar that they’ve got to be related. In my opinion, this is very true. According to Webster’s Dictionary, dreaming is having a series of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations occurring in the mind during certain stages of sleep. This is basically what we do when we try to perform creative imaging. We run through our brains and think about all the things that we would have to consider. We also experience many different emotions when it comes to brainstorming. These two things are so similar that I would have to agree with King and his theory on how they would have to be related.
In addition, King goes on to describe how humans tend to have habitual routines that they perform before they go to sleep. As I read this, I could only think about the things that I would do before I sleep. Before I sleep, I would have to shower, brush my teeth, wash my face, and put on my retainers. Then I would get in bed. But even after I’ve gotten in bed, I would need to crack my neck, crack my legs, and crack my back to the left and right. Most of the time, I cannot get myself to fall asleep if I do not do these specific things. King said, “I think it’s a way of your mind saying to your body, or your body saying to your mind – maybe they’re communicating with each other, saying – we’re gonna go to sleep now. And probably dreaming follows the same pattern if you don’t interrupt it with things like drug use, alcohol, or whatever.” This was one of the many things that King explained that blew my mind. I never really thought about this type of thing before having read this essay. The way King looks at things and just the level of his insight is on a whole other level.
In conclusion, King’s description of the ways dreams have a great influence on us and how they are perceived is very sound. Most of the things that were discussed were subjects that most people wouldn’t even dream to think of. The little things that we never think about, King brought them up and discussed them in deep thought and words. I would like to think that I will be able to look at the way I dream differently and attain the skill of enabling myself to apply myself according to what I dreamed about in the night.