WRITING: Surrealism

Hopefully for everyone, reality is touched by fantasy and fantasy is touched by reality. The conscious mind fills in the dull moments with daydreams that are reality based, but go beyond that which may be physically or practically possible; i.e., Willie Nelson really does invite you to ride the highways with him on the bus. In dreams, the subconscious mind creates impossible situations in unknown surroundings but conscious experience adds the details of known people or objects, colors and language; i.e., You’re actually in bed with ol’Willie, but your husband is in there too. Writers can take license and tap into the world of dreams to turn the unusual into the usual. Readers can open their minds to discount the ban of practicality and accept what they are reading. Doesn’t this just add to the experience and delight of our lives? But conscious dreams rarely include the outrageous details of our night dreams. The surrealist writers and artists understood how to pull these details out of the mind and put them on paper and canvas. Those in their audience who are unwilling to admit the nonsense of dreams into their reality, can then enjoy someone else’s.