Memories, dreams, images, and life

What a fantastic class last night. Some of my takeaways:

Streaming is related to working as an actor because imaging is what we DO. Streaming gives language to the subconscious. - This was really important to me. I tend to daydream VERY vividly (admittedly often when I should NOT be daydreaming, but the subconscious is powerful). I like the idea of thinking about and focusing on the symbols in both my waking and sleeping dreams. These seem like they can provide useful triggers for me as an actor when I try to connect with a character in a given script. They let me access my emotions and my feelings in a much more "real" way. Allowing the images to remain fragmented lets me explore them more clearly, explore what is "important" or "essential" to the streamed image seems like it will let me get to the source.

To me, imaging is like opening a doorway. Once there is a door there, and once you have gone through that door and allowed yourself to see inside, then that door is "marked" for later exploration. I was and still am a huge fan of the BBC Sherlock series, and the Sherlock character had a mind palace that he was able to activate and draw from at any time he wanted to help him solve cases, get out of dangerous situations, interact with the world around him. In the series, this was often "projected" in front of him on the screen. (The Good Doctor also uses this image to so when Shawn, an autistic surgeon, is making one of his brilliant connections). What I find that I am already learning from this class is that the mind palace is a very real thing. There are doors in our subconscious, and we can open them and project the contents of them in front of us (I like the tap, tap, point method because it does help to clarify and solidify the image) any time that we want. Behind these doors are memories, images, fragmented bits that upon further exploration can coalesce into vivid realities. We can interact with those realities using all of our senses, from sight at the start to smell, touch, hearing and even taste. The more we allow our senses to take part on the experience, the more vivid the image becomes.

One fascinating discovery I made was in my own attempt at the imaging exercise. We "visited" or childhood bedrooms, and because I still have the same antique bedroom furniture that I have had since I graduated from crib to bed the furniture SHOULD be familiar to me, but some of the details in the stream were different. I have a wardrobe that as a child I was often afraid of because of the monsters that might be behind its doors. It is Victorian and ornate, with a carved and detailed topper. In my stream, I saw it as an animal with eyes (this was something I saw often as a child) but the reality is that it is just a decorative topper that is not at all shaped like an animal and does not in fact have "eyes" just scrollwork. I did not get into this in my harvest, but while I mentioned the old console turntable (it was in a chest that looked like a cedar chest) it was actually playing in my stream -it was Snoopy versus the Red Baron - that was a 45 that I played over and over again when I was in elementary school. So, I must have been 8 or 9 in this stream. That makes sense with regard to how I saw the wardrobe.

One final takeaway - "the method " is not about using your memories but allowing you to access them - This is CRUCIAL in my opinion because there will be memories that are painful, memories that are traumatic, memories that are embarrassing, but a memory cannot hurt us. If we do not judge the content of the stream, if we allow ourselves to access them and to explore the feelings that are contained within them, then we can make use of the power of imaging in our craft.

GREAT STUFF!

This is a real “keeper” Post. Articulate and personal. Yum, yum!