Dream intentionally - while you are awake?

Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami once said in an interview…

“For me, writing a novel is like having a dream. Writing a novel lets me intentionally dream while I’m still awake. I can continue yesterday’s dream today, something you can’t normally do in everyday life. It’s also a way of descending deep into my own consciousness. So while I see it as dreamlike, it’s not fantasy. For me the dreamlike is very real.”

I read Murakami’s book ‘Novelist as a vocation’ while working on my own craft as a writer. His concept of - intentionally dreaming while awake - resonated.

Sit with that for a moment.

Go where it takes you - dream intentionally - while you are awake.

'I am never alone
when my mind is engaged.

I dwell in possibility.

Stories - lie deep in my soul
at the bottom of my heart.

I  must do my work for its own sake,
not for fortune or attention or applause.

In three words
I can sum up everything I’ve learned
about life - it goes on.

Reading is my first line of defence
against an empty head.'

The words above aren't mine - but the ‘patchworking’ of them into poetic format is. Twyla Tharp’s words bookend those of Emily Dickenson, Haruki Murakami, Steven Pressfield and Robert Frost.

This piece sets the tone for what’s to come.

‘Dream - intentionally’.