Connect to outside sources (article/book/podcast/ted talk/blog/website/etc)

• • This is a Text investigation. Consider your essential question in the context of at least two outside sources you have identified that connect to your essential question. How do these ideas resonate with or challenge your own beliefs, experiences, or practices? Be sure to give concrete and specific examples. You may want to address: ways the sources answered parts of your Essential Question, what additional questions were raised, or how your essential understanding of your project was altered or confirmed by the readings you did. Make sure to cite your sources.

I’ve been reading Man and His Symbols by Carl Jung. One common theme I have been noticing throughout the book is the ongoing relationship between the dreamer and the interpreter. This was something that I never really wanted to address in my project because of how complicated it is. Since I am mostly interpreting dreams that have been submitted anonymously, it is hard to get a sense of what their dreams actually mean. I can give the dreamer a basis of what the symbols in their dreams may mean and what they come together to represent, but I can’t tell them 100% what they portray in the context of their lives. I added questions that I asked people to fill out in addition to transcribing their dreams, which actually help a lot with getting a sense of the dreamer.

I find that even with my own dreams (especially ones from a while ago) I feel a sort of a disconnect between my past and present self. I forget exactly what I was going through, what was in my mind at the time, and my overall state of being. I can take guesses, but it just isn’t the same as interpreting current dreams (and obviously I know my current state of being).

I’m not sure if this would be considered an “outside source”, but James helped me develop what I wanted to do for the art portion of my project. I started out planning to create a book with collage and writing. When I pitched James my idea, he suggested that I do larger mixed media pieces (I decided to do block print, collage, and from time to time white/black charcoal pencil). I decided that I should do sketches for all of the dreams that I interpret and mixed media collages for some of them (the ones that I thought would be most interesting). I also came up with the website idea to make it more accessible.