dreaming comics
in psychoanalysis one method for uncovering the unconscious is to not just record one’s dreams, but make paintings or artwork from a particularly charged dreams in order to enter into their symbolic content.
i’m inspired by the 1972 book, ‘boundaries of the soul,’ by jungian analyst jung singer, which shows various case studies from her own practice in which the analysand’s artwork is the key to transcribing the meaning of our unconscious depths.
in this method, being artistically skilled is unnecessary, and in fact, i feel that the pretensions a skilled artist’s craft can even become an obstacle to opening the dialogue between the conscious and the unconscious. the art doesn’t have to be ‘good,’ it just needs to be a space that is open enough for subtle the subtle dynamics arising from the unconscious ocean to express themselves.
if we apply this principle to the medium of comics, then the potency of this method is particularly powerful. comics — conceived here as any form of sequential art, with or without the interplay of words¹— converse with the unconscious directly, and has both the means of literal discourse and imaginal representation in simultaneous (or a representation of simultaneous) interplay. in this way the unconscious can speak when it needs to speak, and we can ask the unconscious questions in plain speech, but the unconscious always has at its disposal the fluency to express whatever cannot be literally expressed through the non-discursive symbolism of the imaginal.
discovering this practice is what made me fall in love with comics, yet i think it’s a practice that is still overlooked by popular culture despite the way the information age has shifted discourse in a direction away from purely literal forms. maybe it’s because people still have a strong association for what a comic is supposed to be. is it still so associated with entertainment and diversion that it isn’t accepted as a practice of therapy, self-discovery, and spirituality?
i’m always looking for dream comics. there are some good ones like julie doucet’s ‘my most secret desire,’ theo ellsworth’s ‘capacity,’ jesse reklaw’s ‘dreamtoons,’ and others, but it is rare to come across raw autobiographical dream comics. there is a 1997 compilation of dream comics, ‘flock of dreamers,’ which is an excellent but rather short anthology of dream inspired underground comics. but by far my favorite dream cartoonist is jim woodring. woodring is best known for his wordless ‘frank’ comics, which are an amazing journey into the numinous. but before he created the frank comics, woodring wrote his ‘jim’ comics. as i understand from an interview this was in woodring’s ‘age of jim’ period which was all about his own ego, which was to be followed by the frank comics in his ‘age of cake.’
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‘jim’ was released in a series by fantagraphics and later compiled into a single volume. it contains a miscellaneous grab bag of illustrations, writings, and comics, but all situated into the focus of surrealism and visionary circumambulations of the numinous. included were many of jim’s autobiographical dream comics. what is amazing about reading woodring’s dream comics, is how authentically palpable the dream realm is felt. it’s likely that woodring did post-edit these dream comics, so they flow together succinctly in the final publication, but he somehow preserves the dream authenticity. you really feel the certainty that these are dreams. there is no sense that they are propped up by contrivance or artifice. the dream logic glows there on the page, and it leaps up at you like an uncompromising threat to the rational function.
it’s a loss that this work is underappreciated, and woodring did not seem to continue his work into his ‘age of cake.’ but these are some treasured items in my comic collection and works that i continue to go back and read again and again.
so inspired by this, i want to conspire a method for dream comics with a form and rules. the aspiration is to develop dream comic-ing first as practice and only second as an artistic product. my rules will certainly be developed, but i’m laying them out here for now as follows:
- draw dream comics spontaneous and quickly in the morning in order to capture as close to essence of the dream. only pencil and eraser may be used, and a time limit should be set to a maximum of 15 minutes per panel. to be sure, these are draft comics, so they should express the complete narrative but also be loose and fast. using a timer in the morning can be disruptive so it’s best to practice drawing automatic comics with a timer and the 15 minute/panel limit for a few days before beginning the dream comic practice in order to get the feel for the speed and drawing rate.
- ideally a minimum of 4 panels per day should be drawn every morning. coffee or tea is probably needed for drawing, so when one first wakes up, the basic key terms should be jotted down on a notepad or in a voice recorder, then 30 minutes after preparing for the day and making coffee or tea, draw for a minimum of one hour. if there is a good dream, one can continue for longer.
- speech bubbles, thought bubbles, and captions may be used as appropriate. it is permissible to change the sequence of events and abridge parts as necessary; but, whatever is drawn and written needs to be content that was present in the dream. it isn’t necessary to complete the narrative of the dream in this single sitting, and it’s fine to select the portion of the dream that was most interesting or numinous and disregard the other parts. it’s also allowed to compile the dream into a summation, such as abridging a long dream into 4 panels that capture the key moments.
- if the dream can’t be recalled then the dream from the night of the previous day may be continued if that one wasn’t completed. keeping a written dream journal is a natural way to strengthen dream recall. i usually find that if i keep a routine written dream journal, i recall my dreams every morning, so this should be initiated a few weeks or months before beginning the dream comic practice.
- in the afternoon or evening there is an option to do another session if time permits. either continue the an incomplete comic from the morning; or, do an active imagination comic that continues the sequence from one of the dreams before with active imagination rather than recording content from the dream. the active imagination, should be automatically drawn written with minimal contrivance according to the same rules above (maximum 15 minutes per panel); however, active imagination comics should be drawn in pen (no erasing allowed but scratching out is okay) so that the active imagination is visually distinguished from the penciled dream comics.
- since this practice is to produce a draft, the product isn’t a polished comic, but a range of material to be drawn upon for a more polished publication. (although, i’m thinking i may keep a separate online blog of my dream comic practice for archival purposes.) a selection can then be edited and curated for a polished dream comic; but, the first principle of staying true to the dream content should be maintained and avoid any conscious manipulation of the narrative from the way it arose in dream or active imagination. resist the urge to cater the artist product to an audience in anyway that would alter the dream narrative. dream comics should be regarded as a journalism of the unconscious, and such a journalism requires journalistic integrity.
so that’s my plan. my dream comic manifesto, if it were. i’ll try this for a month and see how it goes.
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1 - it’s hard to define comics. if you try to define comics as ‘pictures with words,’ there are of course many examples of wordless comics. even defining comics as ‘sequential art,’ doesn’t work because there are many examples of single panel comics. but for the sake of dreaming comics, i’m interested in enabling a conversation and dialogue between what is conscious and unconscious, and for this purpose, a sequence, with querents and replies seems to be appropriate.
