Many believe dreams about drawing relate to creativity, but it can relate to trying to understand and simplify complex topics to communicate them.
Art comes with many intentions. Often it’s an attempt to get the viewer to see the world how the artist sees it.
You might be working over in your mind how best to communicate something with others, adding this, taking that away, all to present a clear message.
In that sense, yes, drawing or sketching in a dream is about creativity.
Working out a message is also a way of understanding a message for yourself.
What do you do when you’re trying to understand the steps of a complex process? Usually, one of the answers is to sketch it out, to make a diagram. That’s what has gotten many students through anatomy and physiology class, for example.
Art tools?
It also depends on what you’re sketching out in the dream. What was it? How do you feel about it?
How do you feel about the art tools? Were you sketching in the dream with a graphite pencil, colored pencils, or pen? Maybe you were painting?
Maybe in the dream, you’re using a pencil that keeps breaking. That might mean you’re stymied by the tools with which you have to communicate.
What were you drawing on? It dreams you’re not limited to canvases and sketchbooks. How do you feel about that?
Asking yourself a series of questions specifically about drawing and how you feel about it can help you get to the root of what the dream means for you.
How do you feel about drawing itself?
Some people feel awfully insecure about their drawings. For them, it’s a struggle to render something the way that they see it in their mind. Drawing is frustrating.
Others revel in their art. Drawing is an opportunity for self-expression, a chance to show others how they see the world.
What about what you were drawing?
Was the dream a sort of slice-of-life of what you enjoy doing every day?
For example, were you laying on the floor of your room sketching a car out of a magazine?
There are a lot of different aspects to consider about the dream about drawing. It’s usually well worth it to do so. You’re usually mulling a problem over when you dream about this. Naming the problem is the first step to figuring out a solution.
Also on the blog:
Why you should take time to sketch in your dream journal
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James Cobb RN, MSN is the founder of the Dream Recovery System, a top sleep blog dedicated to helping readers make the most use possible of the time they spend sleeping.