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dreams

How to Live the Life You Dream of Living, a motivational piece by Sabrina, 13

Sabrina Lu, 13 (Ashburn, VA) How to Live the Life You Dream of Living Sabrina Lu, 13 If you would like to live the life you dream of living, please follow the steps below as a guide. However, there are no right or wrong steps in living the life you desire. It is all about you. This list is simply a reference. Be yourself. It’s that simple and that hard. No one knows who you aren’t. No one knows who you are. Only you do. You can be anyone in the world or be yourself. Remember that there is only one of you and nearly eight billion others. Look at the mirror with confidence. Believe you can, and you’ve done the most challenging part of believing that you can and you will. Your journey may not be exactly as you imagine it, but it will be a great accomplishment to take pride in. Look up to others and yourself. You are one of the most extraordinary people on Earth. You have so much potential and can soar so high. You can inspire future generations and change the world for the better. Take care of yourself. Much like a good book, you need to be cared for. It’s perfectly alright to rest still for days at a time. Don’t forget to dust yourself. Let go of past grudges and think ahead to all the great wonders the future has to offer. The longer you hold on to something, the more tiring it will be to hold on to it. Find the little things that bring you joy. Sometimes it is the smallest things that make all the difference. One genetic mutation can create an entirely new species. One microscopic particle can evolve into a life-changing remedy. There are no limits to this list. If you imagine it, the list is endless. The opportunities are endless. You are limitless. You are empowered. Repeat the following steps above as often as you wish, and if you want to see how far you can stretch your wings, try creating your own list and refer to it often. It will always be there for you. No matter how tough life may seem, if you stick with it, you can’t go wrong. Even in the emptiest and darkest of places, there is always light. You just have to find it.

How Stories Work-Writing Workshop #9: Dreams, Visions, Hallucinations

An update from our ninth Writing Workshop with Conner Bassett A summary of the workshop held on Saturday June 12, plus some of the output published below We began this week’s workshop with an excerpt from the first two paragraphs of Colm Tóibín’s novel, The Master, in order to highlight how dreams are an essential function in writing used to tell us, or, rather, to foreshadow elements of character and or plot. We went on to distinguish the logic of dreams from the logic of reality, noting, in particular, how within art and literature dreams can be used to introduce a sense of unreality, reveal a character’s fantasies or inner desires, show how characters are haunted by past events, foreshadow future events, create a mood, create symbols, represent a theme, or show how real life is influenced by dreams. We then looked at a few representations of dreams/visions in art (Moses at the burning bush, Moses looking at the top of Mount Sinai, Ezekiel’s vision of a strange winged being in the heavens, and Ezekiel’s vision of bones reconstructing themselves in the desert) in order to demonstrate the full spectrum of feelings dreams can convey. Next, we close read two paintings according to their representation of dream logic—Rousseau’s The Sleeping Gypsy and Fuseli’s The Nightmare—noting how the former portrayed a more neutral, poetic vision, while the latter portrayed the potential for darkness and horror in dreams. Finally, after our discussion of these paintings, we moved into the realm of literature with a reading of two Mark Strand poems—”Clear in the September Light” and “Eating Poetry”—and James Tate’s poem “The Cowboy.” The Participants: Madeline, Svitra, Aditi, Liam, Harine, Sena, Sasha, Emi, Isolde, Audrey, Simran, Helen, Zhilin, Josh, Julia, Lucy The Challenge: Write the opening to a longer story that begins with a character dreaming. Isolde Knowles, 9New York, NY Dream Isolde Knowles, 9 I walk around the strange world. The people of it all have different reactions to my existence. Some notice me, some just continue on. The people here are blurred and foggy. They are graying and any color they barely have is muted. As if they are on the verge of disappearing. I keep on going. Until I find someone different. Their colors are bright. When they notice me their colors change. Their skin goes bright yellow, their hair is now a startling purple and their eyes are pink. Suddenly they pivot and run through a shortcut which I will swear on my life hadn’t been there before. I start to jog and then run towards the shortcut. I am a foot away when the shortcut closes up, turning into a solid wall. I groan in defeat until I notice an alleyway. I follow it, and suddenly I’m chasing the strange person again. The terrain seems to be evolving to help the runner by creating paths and ramps for them, but only hurdles and hills for me. I run and run until I fall down panting as the runner disappears. I wake up in a cold sweat. Sena Pollock, 14,Madison, WI The Worst Rehearsal Sena Pollock, 14 I am in the dark and the dark likes me. I have forgotten the song for the talent show, so I make up my own. It goes like this: “I am in love with a squid, I will live in the sky, I have flowery eyes.” I will sing this and they will love my act. I shove the dark away and sing: “I am in love with a shark, I will live underground, I have a candy bar in my pocket.” I don’t pay attention when the dark comes even closer. “I am a stiiingraaaay, I will drive a plane, I will kill the rain.” Wait, this is a happy song, no killing. “I am a fist- no, no fists either, I am a fish in the lake, I like to eat cake, a rabbit I will bake- no, none of that, think happy!!! I am eating pie, I will surely die- WHAT IN THE WORLD IS WRONG WITH MEEEEE!!!!!!! Why can’t I think of anything happy?!?” I look and the dark is hugging me like a long-lost friend. The dark says, “Come with me and I will give you everything.” I say, “NO! I will sing in the talent show and win and they will all love me.” “Your life is empty without me,” says the dark, “You need me.” “What’s in it for you?” “We will have fun together,” says the dark, “we will have the most fun and your life will be complete! I know that you do not believe what they say. And you are right, their praise is hollow. Come with me and have a real life.” “What do you mean!!! My life IS real!! I AM happy!” I say, trying to convince myself as much as the dark. “You are lying to yourself,” says the dark and I know that it can see my innermost thoughts. “All right,” I say, feeling at the moment that this is what I truly want. The dark shouts with glee as we fly off a cliff I hadn’t noticed before. “CRASH AND BURN!!!!” The dark screams as we fly into an unknown future. Svitra Rajkumar, 13,(Fremont, CA) In Another Dream Svitra Rajkumar, 13 Rose was running. Although she didn’t know what she was running from and where she was going, she just couldn’t stop running. Her heart pounded like it was going to burst out of her chest. She bent down gasping for breath and trying to make sense of her surroundings. Her brain was working slower than usual and her head felt dizzy from all the continuous running. She stared up at the bright blue sky. It was an unreal blue, like the color of the ocean except burnt. The ground beneath her began to crack and split apart, and soon she was falling. Rose felt as if she had been falling for hours but the scream couldn’t make it

Daily Creativity #2: Start a Dream Journal

Create a notebook or document dedicated to recording your dreams. To begin, write down as many dreams as you can remember from your life, then try to record your dreams daily as soon as you wake up. Use this repository as inspiration for a poem, story, or piece of art.