Dreams Part 2, Experience all our senses

Dreams Part 2 July 9, 2020

A few more people got to do the dream exercise. I still haven’t done it. But there are a lot of great insights from Jon’s comments on those who have done it.

We will need this experience to build our work on who and where.

It is not our job to describe (not telling a story but experiencing it).

Experience creates layers (not descriptions)

We are conditioned to the narcotic off approval.

Our mind demands formality.

We need to bring an experience that we have never had to life.

In these exercises we are conditioning ourselves to be where we think we are.

Environment is a layer. Layers add depth and richness to anything but in this case our acting.

We need to be supersensitive to our environment.
For this we need to sublimate our vision and bring all of our senses into service.

I think of my dog (or cat) when they first go outside after having been inside. Not only do they look around they listen and sniff the air.

I remember another acting class I took and the instructor had us pick a celebrity. There were mostly women in the class, so we picked Johnny Depp. Then he told us we had been called by Johnny Depp who said he was coming to Asheville and he understood we knew a lot about Asheville and he wanted us to show him around. He arrived the next day in his limo with his driver, pulled up in our driveway. The driver came to the door and we answered it, went outside and got in the limo. We spent the day showing Johnny Depp around town. After finishing the exercise, he told us that was a memory we created that we would always have. Looking back it would have been so much richer if we had also paid attention to what the weather was that day, the leather seats of the limo felt like, if we had had refreshment from the limo bar. We could have stopped at 12 Bones for lunch and experienced that as well.

Yes, it’s correct! Very little effort is given to the senses by acting teachers. It’s hard to teach, and actors don’t get it right away. My thought is to do the hard stuff until it becomes easy.