Page 54, Question 3: Tim O'Brien, William Stafford, Stephen King, and other writers included in Dreams and Inward Journeys experience and value writing as a process of self-discovery and healing. Write an essay in which you explore this perspective on writing.

Writing is the process of recording thoughts passing through your mind onto a piece of paper or a computer screen. Casual reflective writing, such as in a journal, provides the outlet for endless ideas, feelings, opinions, and musings that continuously flow through both our conscious and subconscious minds. Sometimes we surprise ourselves by bringing to light the innermost secrets of our deep subconscious and pulling up feelings, ideas and thoughts cast down by our conscious mind. These are the times when we find self-discovery and healing in our writing.

Several authors have presented similar views on writing. Susan Helfter expresses that reflective writing, "forces me to create concrete images", allows her "to examine my feelings and motives on paper", and that it "helps me to capture my questions and intentions on paper". Similarly, William Stafford describes writings as providing "scope for individuality, and elation, and discovery". Mr. Stephen King goes one step further by putting nightmares into his writing not only as a tool of healing but also into fantastic horror tales.

From my personal experience, I have found that relaxed reflective writing is the best way to acquire these gifts of self-discovery and healing. Whenever I feel am flooded by great distress, enormous elation, deep depression, or a bewildering uncertainty, I release this torrent rush of feelings into the sea of my journal with informal language and little attention to grammar but with complete honesty. On those pages I have captured the fleeting emotions that would otherwise rush forward and disappear forever into the rapids of forgetfulness. They are frozen into ice blocks of memories, from my childhood crush, biggest embarrassment, first kiss, grandest achievement and most painful heartbreak, up to my initial impressions of college. The words never melt away; they just keep bobbing up and down along the river of thoughts.

Living in the more peaceful parts of this sea are colorful and diverse ideas that have taken vivid forms and odd shapes, swimming aimlessly and waiting to be tempted by the right bait. Little jellyfish details also find their way into the sea, floating around in small notches of space. The gifts however, are not fully received until I open up the covers of my journal, the gateway to this virtual sea, and immerse myself into the pages. I wade gently past the groups of translucent trivial details and admire the diversity of creatures proliferating in this place. When I see something I particularly like, I reach in, scoop it out, and find a more suitable environment where it can mature into enormous projects.

Progressively, I make my way over to rougher waters. Here I am more cautious because the emotional tides are stronger and it takes more energy just to stay afloat. Memory ice blocks sometimes appear without warning and hit with immense strength, knocking all the breath out of me.

The top layer holds blocks of warmer memories that barely skim the surface of the water because of the light-heartedness they contain. Thoughts of my "blankee", my best friends, and a favorite musical figurine tingle me with bubbles of joy and love. I openly embrace them because they buoy up and enliven my spirits so that I can continue on cutting the tides. Others tend to be very slippery; especially those with profound insights that I find very hard to fully comprehend. I struggle with the tasks of resolving a dispute between good friends, deciding which activities should take precedence in my life, and choosing the direction to point my life towards. It takes diligence and many tries to finally hold it firmly in my grasp. The struggle is well worth it because by seeing it from an external and less emotional aspect, I can understand my inner nature a little better through a more objective view. I get a glimpse of a part of me that I had never seen before because my thoughts were too emotionally cluttered and my attention scattered around to several simultaneous happenings. Sometimes it's an aspect of me that comes and goes and I never realize it until I really come face to face with it.

The most important yet dangerous of all are the blocks saturated with pain and anguish. They are so cold that they burn to the touch. These memories do not bob along the surface of the water lightly like those happy memories; instead they rise to only to the tip of the water surface with their heavy burdens of confusion, hurt feelings, long-lasting grudges, and deep traces of guilt.

These painful ice blocks are extremely hard to handle and seriously injure when they hurtle themselves at me without warning. First, I temper the anguish and rub out traces of any guilt or grudges with the soothing waters of forgiveness. Next, I sort out the maze of feelings and absolving the confusion. Lastly, I need to fill in those cracks left behind by the hurt feelings by implementing wisdom I have acquired since this particular incident.

When my energy runs out, I make my way out of the sea and return through the gateway back into the realities of life. I leave filled with complete happiness, relieved at having solved complex problems, or simply lightened of emotional burdens. However, I always leave behind enough in the waters for future explorations.