Dream Departure is the journal of an artist’s return to creative practice, and use of dreams as source material. Sigmund Freud called dreams, “The royal road to the unconscious.” In my experience, they are that and far more. While the psychological level is unquestionably important, I now see some dreams as a direct connection to what many traditions identify as the Spirit World.
In my younger years, as I struggled with drug abuse and depression, I most often felt creatively blocked and stymied, yet my dreams remained a consistent source of inspiration, and of real information. This channel remained open when all others failed. I now intend to honor it as a primary source.
There has always been a kind of threshold here, and my return to mental health has made this more clear. I was ever afraid that, with sobriety, a kind of magic would be lost. There is something kind of cool about self-destruction when one is young, but it has no legs for the long haul.
With a few exceptions, publication date of the dream posts is the date the dream occurred, even though the posts were often created months or even years after the day of the dream. This is done to give a sense of true chronology.