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But when I dream….

I dream of crazy things.

(This blogpost was going to be about achieving your dreams, but that’s not the way it turned out – I’ll talk about that another time.)

Sometimes I have dreams about my students or musical colleagues, as either main or peripheral characters. Sometimes they’re really amusing dreams, sometimes terrifying and post-apocalyptic, sometimes about cultural things (past performances I was, people I admire from stage and screen), and sometimes related to political events (see terrifying and post-apocalyptic). Sometimes I get a great idea or a realization about how to resolve something, and I wake up and write it down. It may not make sense in the morning, but sometimes it does.

My nighttime dreams are varied and their causes can be something I ate before bed, something I saw on TV or read, something I’m concerned about and either have worked through it or am working through it (which could be a relationship or a personal or professional challenge). I’ve read a lot about dream interpretation, and a lot of it resonates with me.

One of my most recent dreams involved seeing someone walking a tightrope and doing tricks on it above a pit with a lion below.

I decided I was going to try it. Although I’m afraid of heights. And lions.

My tightrope was actually a beam and I crawled across it to the middle. There were no tricks or stunts. I just held on for dear life. I was really afraid I would not be able to get down. I contemplated letting myself fall, figuring I’d die in the fall before the lion could get me. Instead I made my way (still crawling) to the other side, where I found a handhold and was able to get onto a ladder and get down.

I’m sure this means that I’ve faced a fear – not overcome it, because I certainly wasn’t about to get back up there, but it was something I got through, the best I could. And lived to tell the tale.

The waking dreams I have as a performer and teacher are much less frightening. They are more about how to give my audiences and my students the best possible experiences they can have. Experiences that may challenge them, but help them to grow and create their own experiences. Hopefully none that involve lions, although there may be metaphorical tightropes involved. And I’ll talk about those kinds of dreams in another post yet to come.

Three things I’ve learned from my dreams.

  1. If you dream about something and wake up thinking that it’s a good idea or has given you some clarity, write it down.
  2. If you dream that there’s an alarm going off somewhere and you can’t find it, no matter how hard you look, it’s probably your phone. You’re oversleeping.
  3. If you dream that you are running through obstacles and trying to find a bathroom, and you finally find one, GET UP AND GO TO THE BATHROOM.
That’s where the title of this blogpost came from 😀

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Do you have dreams about finding your voice and telling your story? Contact me to set up a
Vocal Discovery Session in the New Year.

Published by Mezzoid Voice Studio

Christine Thomas-O'Meally, a mezzo soprano and voice teacher currently based in the Baltimore-DC area, has performed everything from the motets of J.S. Bach to the melodies of Irving Berlin to the minimalism of Philip Glass. As an opera singer and actress, she has appeared with companies such as Charm City Players, Spotlighters Theatre, Chicago Opera Theater, Opera Theater of Northern Virginia, Opera North, the Washington Savoyards, In Tandem Theatre, Windfall Theater, The Young Victorian Theater of Baltimore, and Skylight Opera Theatre. She created the role of The Woman in Red in Dominick Argento’s Dream of Valentino in its world premiere with the Washington Opera and Mary Pickersgill in O'er the Ramparts at its world premiere during the Bicentennial of Battle of Baltimore at the Community College of Baltimore County. Other roles include Mrs. Paroo in Music Man, Mother Abbess in Sound of Music, Dorabella in Cosi Fan Tutte, Marcellina in Le Nozze di Figaro, both Hansel and the Witch in Hansel & Gretel, and many roles in Gilbert & Sullivan operettas. Her performance as the Housekeeper in Man of La Mancha was honored with a WATCH award nomination. Ms. Thomas-O'Meally received an M.M. in vocal performance from the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore. She regularly attends master classes and workshops in both performance and vocal pedagogy, and is certified in all three Levels of Somatic Voicework™ The LoVetri Method. Her students have performed on national and international tours of Broadway productions, at prestigious conservatories, and in regional theater throughout the country.

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