Lucid Dreaming Ledger: Why Do We Dream About Cities?
AFR Top List – Fantasy Cities
I’m starting a new weekly feature today, called Lucid Dreaming Ledger. I’ll post links, resources and my own anecdotes in dreaming and in particular lucid dreaming.
As you know, a few weeks ago I started writing my first dream journal, annotating what happens in my dreams. This experiment has completely blown the doors off my notions about the imagination, and I can’t get enough of its discoveries. That’s why I want to share some of my findings with you.
When it comes to dreams, I wonder: Is it possible that we could have a predilection for setting? I am inspired by nature often, and its vistas are incredible in a dream, but why is it that I most often dream about cities? What is it about cities that makes them my psyche’s most-used setting?
It’s a mystery, friends. This mystery also makes me wonder, are there other persons who constantly dream of nature? Maybe they dream of a setting that is neither city nor nature? Is that you? I would love to know, leave me a comment.
My own dreams contain many cities from around the world. In many of them, I travel up skyscrapers, down tunnels, through subways, on top of houses, and inside museums. When I look at fictional cities like China Mieville’s New Crobuzon or Tolkien’s Miras Tirith and Gondor, I am reminded right there and then how much influence the images of our dreams can have in helping us imagine the cities that writers build for us.
As I think about dreams of cities, these are my burning questions:
How would you map the geography and spatial relationships of the cities in your dreams? Would an architect be able to do this well?
If a dream city, like Paris, looks slightly different in our dreams than in real life, is it still Paris?
For those that are able to lucid dream, can they literally explore new buildings in the cities they inhabit?
These questions are endlessly fascinating. In my limited experience in writing down my dreams, I do seem to really enjoy being inside cities in those dreams. Maybe this is because I have always lived in some of the largest cities in the world.
But what about you? What does the city do for you in your dreams?
As part of these posts, I encourage you to leave me a comment with descriptions of your dreams and your experiences. If you are a lucid dreamer, share your tips with us, too.
Related links
Dream Journal Pro (Android app for dream journaling)
The Dream Theories of Carl Jung
Big Dreams & Archetypal Visions
One Year Ago in this Blog
