Mash's Musings


The strangeness of creativity

Published May. 19, 2021

Last night I dreamt I was in a competition to build large scale art exhibits. As with all dreams, I have no idea how I got there, I certainly am not a top pick for such an exercise. Fortunately for me, my team seemed completely unfazed by my ineptitude and methodically built up a wondrous room-sized display of wood and metal. Sheets of metal were punched out and cut down to resemble ivy and the wood gave a sense of all of this simply being a part of nature. As with all dreams, I cannot quite put into words the details. What I remember clearly is a sense of awe at the whole thing. Somehow these people envisioned and built this wondrous structure, a feat beyond me in my wildest dreams!... Oh wait.

Wasn't this exactly within my imagination? While writing this, I can humbly tell you that I have no idea how I'd begin to replicate the endeavor. Yet, wasn't it my own mind that effortlessly created and constructed, however impossibly, the whole thing? How bizarre this sense of creativity is. And how subconciously it occurs. Our brains paradoxically create the impossible while disbelieving its ability to create. Are we really of two (or more) minds as some research shows? Or is this all part of some cohesive singular experience? My conclusion: dreams are weird man.