I don't dream songs. I'm more apt to write dreams down and then

The words of Judy Collins, spoken with the grace of an artist who has long dwelled between the worlds of waking and dream, reveal the sacred process of creation itself: “I don’t dream songs. I’m more apt to write dreams down and then to be able to interpret them into a song. I also tend to get up and write prose in the morning from which will come songs.” These words are more than a reflection on art; they are a meditation on the mystery of how inspiration moves through the human spirit — from the unconscious depths of dream, through the discipline of writing, to the luminous form of song. Collins, a singer of uncommon soul and a poet of rare insight, teaches us that creativity is not magic without labor, but a marriage between vision and craft, between the silence of the night and the clarity of the dawn.

To understand the origin of this thought, one must look to the life of Judy Collins herself — a woman whose voice rose from the folk traditions of the 1960s and carried with it the strength of introspection and truth. Her songs have long been reflections of her inner world — songs like “Both Sides Now” and “Send in the Clowns” that turn emotion into melody and memory into meaning. When she says she does not “dream songs,” she means that her art is not born whole from the heavens, but forged through the humble act of translation. She takes the raw material of her dreams — the fleeting images, the half-remembered emotions — and shapes them, through the discipline of writing, into music that speaks not only to herself but to all who listen. This process mirrors the work of the ancient poets, who believed that dreams were gifts from the gods, yet knew that only through effort could those gifts be transformed into lasting beauty.

Her morning ritual — to wake and write prose, to let words flow freely before melody — carries echoes of ancient wisdom. The philosopher Aristotle once said that the soul never ceases to think, even in sleep; it simply changes its mode. The dream is thus the conversation of the soul with itself, and the artist’s task is to listen, to capture, to translate. Collins’ practice honors this truth: she listens to her dreams not as finished songs but as messages, symbols to be decoded. Her creativity is not a sudden lightning bolt, but a steady fire — one that must be tended, fed, and transformed through reflection. The ancients would have called this the art of techne — the divine skill of giving shape to the formless.

Consider the story of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the English poet who once dreamed an entire poem — “Kubla Khan” — and awoke to write its haunting verses. Yet even his masterpiece remained unfinished, broken by the interruption of the waking world. Judy Collins’ wisdom lies in her refusal to rely upon such fragile inspiration. She does not wait for the dream to deliver perfection; she takes its fragments and works with them, shaping them into meaning. In this she embodies a deeper truth: that inspiration without discipline is like rain upon stone — beautiful but fleeting — whereas discipline turns inspiration into creation, the eternal legacy of the artist.

There is also a profound humility in Collins’ words. She acknowledges that the muse does not simply bestow gifts but invites collaboration. To write dreams down, to interpret, to rise early and put pen to paper — these are acts of devotion, not merely to art but to the mystery of being alive. For what are songs, if not the language of the soul seeking to understand itself? What are dreams, if not whispers from the unseen world, asking to be remembered? By writing her dreams, Collins becomes a bridge between the unconscious and the conscious, the shadow and the light. Her art is thus an act of translation between two worlds — the world within, where the gods of imagination dwell, and the world without, where humanity listens and finds itself reflected.

Her words also teach us that prose and poetry, reason and emotion, are not opposites but companions. The morning prose from which her songs arise is the groundwork — the soil in which melody takes root. Just as the sculptor first shapes clay before casting it in bronze, the artist must first gather and refine thought before it can sing. The ancients understood this, too. In the temples of Greece, poets and philosophers shared kinship; both sought truth through language. Collins’ process unites them again — she begins in thought and ends in song, proving that intellect and emotion are but two harmonies in the same divine music.

Thus, the lesson of Judy Collins’ words is one of balance and devotion. She reminds us that dreams are not to be worshiped passively, but worked upon with patience and reverence. The dreamer must also be the craftsman; the mystic must also be the worker. Inspiration is the spark, but creation is the steady tending of the flame. Her example invites us all to become interpreters of our own dreams — not to dismiss them as phantoms, nor to expect them to deliver perfection, but to engage with them, to draw from them the wisdom and beauty they conceal.

So, dear listener, take this ancient truth to heart: when you wake, write. Listen to your dreams, not as oracles to be obeyed, but as seeds to be planted. Turn the fragments of your night into meaning by the light of day. For in this act, you too may discover what Collins has found — that the divine speaks in whispers, and it is through discipline, reflection, and creation that we give its voice to the world. And when at last your song is sung, it will not be a gift from dreams alone, but the fruit of your labor — the sacred union of heart, hand, and soul.