Art Making While Asleep

Many times after a day of art making when I am laying in bed and falling asleep in my mind's eye I am in front of an image and I am drawing and moving in the way that I do. Then suddenly, in accordance to a gesture I see myself making, my fully relaxed body makes a swift, strong and languid jerk, as if I was used as a whip.

I have also been awakened from my sleep by such a powerful jerk and then remember dreaming of doing my art. And I wonder, am I not really doing the same thing as when I am in front of my images, even though I am asleep? And then, so what materials are involved?

Hmm.

When this impulse comes in these cases afterwards I sometimes try to recreate the exact physical sensation. I cannot. The movement seems to emanate from a physical place inside that I do not consciously know how to move.

Even while drawing sometimes the impulse comes so strong that I cannot seem to even hit the surface with the marking tool. At these times I let go of the tool, look at the image and let the movement come again and again until I am too tired to continue, paying as much attention as I can to what is happening. And again comes the same question, What is really different here? Am I not still making art?

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