Sleep Note

This one has been sitting in my mind for a few weeks after my daughter left me a small card on my pillow at Christmas with this written on the envelope.

Kids can have such a fresh outlook on life and I’m aware that we’re privileged to share our lives with growing, inquisitive, vibrant young people.

Regarding the image above – This is what I do. Some people draw, some paint, some watch football, some like gardening. I make images. Often this is in the form of digital photo collages.

I was listening to BBC Radio 4’s Thinking Allowed recently, and they were talking about sensory landscapes. As ever, Laurie Taylor’s guests go off on one and get a little academic and wordy. But it’s true, we live in our selective sensory worlds. Each of us selects different elements from our environment. The programme talks about ‘scenes’ and ‘lifestyle bubbles’. They also talk about ‘-scapes’ and how we are always enveloped by sounds, as well as smells, mannerisms and culture. People’s practices mark people’s experiences. Monica Degen says“People sense in very different ways…”. Our selected practices, our selected perspectives, affect our selected views and experiences of things.

I love the phenomena of dreaming and dreams. I’m a great one for cheese before bed, though I doubt it affects one’s dream-life. One’s imagination resonating outside of the input from the sources we are daily surrounded by should be celebrated and enjoyed. This includes daydreams.

Children are often dreaming outside of the material they are presented with, and long may they be encouraged to think outside of the material we present them with. Edward De Bono says in his interesting book ‘Children Solve Problems‘, “A Child … enjoys the use of his mind just as he enjoys the use of his body as he slides down a helter-skelter or bounces on a trampoline”.

Back to ‘Sleep Note’, I hope we can all remember to enjoy the use of our minds, just as we might remember the exhilarating experience of bouncing on a trampoline. I love the idea of growing and inquisitively opening the envelope when our sensory world is cut of! Open the envelope when you go to sleep folks, vibrantly! x