Syllabus: Art Through Psi

Course Description

This 5-session seminar course will follow the text An Artist’s Thought Book: Intriguing thoughts about the artistic process. Through an examination of five main topics (To be an artist, singing and music, painting, poetry, and the nature of creativity) students will explore their own artistic reactions to 80 maxims – one or two sentence observations – presented in the text and discussed in the context of an interactive class.

This course will integrate discussions of the dream process and how dreams can inspire or assist in the creative process. Does psi emerge through dreams or can it be expresses in artistic project or works?

This is a seminar course with a limited enrollment to accommodate live discussion, but students may also participate asynchronously in the online discussion forums in order to expand their exploration or attend classes they miss. Attendance of the live class meetings is strongly encouraged to get the most out of this course.

Course Objectives

By the end of this course, students will:

  • Recognize that the dream environment is a rich source of your own creativity, humor and invention.
  • Learn about how psi experiences (e.g. dreaming) can a great source for creative projects.
  • Explore the intersection of psi experiences such as aesthetic chills and synchronicities are signals for personal meaningful projects.
  • Understand that everyday acts can have a creative quality to them.
  • Discuss the potential connection between creativity and psi experiences (e.g. data downloads).

Course Outline

  1. Week 1: (Chapter 1) What does it mean to be an artist?
    • Is an artist someone who is sensitive to the paranormal?
    • How does Openness contribute to both Art and psi experiences
    • Artists often feel misunderstood as do persons who experience the paranormal
    • Negative Judgements hurt both the artists and psi experiences
    • Childhood Playfulness is what survives in the adult artist.
    • To make art is to show a side of a subject that is often covered up.
  2. Week 2: (Chapter 2) Singing and Music
    • Stream of consciousness is similar to the meditative practices useful to help induce psi experiences
    • The flow state is important in singing and in some psi experiences (e.g. remote viewing).
    • Dreams are often a great source for the plots of songs
    • Thinking and self-consciousness are detrimental to singing and some paranormal phenomena.
  3. Week 3: (Chapter 3) Painting
    • Painting requires having a vision before you start working.
    • Painting is largely an intuitive action.
    • The Imagination is wide open with painting in ways that poetry and music aren’t. Painting can be completely unstructured.
    • A single second of insight can be the inspiration for a month’s work.
    • There is a not a single meaning to a painting as is the case with psi experiences.
  4. Week 4: (Chapter 4) Poetry
    • A poem should be over-determined just like a dream or other psi experiences
    • Free association, stream of consciousness, alliteration, and rhyme are important tools for poetry
    • To describe the dream world is to enter the poetic.
    • Words are the best thing we have to describe psi experiences.
    • Poems and automatic writing are ways to discover unique connection between diverse experiences.
  5. Week 5: (Chapter 5) Creativity
    • Creativity was often described as the work of a muse: an external force that overtook the artists in a similar way as some psi occurrences.
    • Numerous inventions have been attributed to coming to the creator during their dreaming state.
    • Numerous psi experiences occur in the hypnagogic state that happens between waking and sleeping
    • Creativity is a practice and so are some psi experiences (e.g. remote viewing), in which the artist is rewarded for accepting an unusual idea and playing with it

Course Materials

    • Bargdill, R. W. (2014). An Artist’s Thought Book: Intriguing Thoughts about the Artistic Process. 2nd Edition. University Professors Press.

This text is available as an ebook as well for students adding the class close to its start.

Suggested Readings:

  • Bargdill, R. W. (2024). An dreamer’s thought book: intriguing ideas about the dreaming process. University Professors Press: Colorado Springs, CO.
  • Maisel, E. (1995). Fearless creating. Jeremey P. Tarcher/Putnam: New York.
  • May, R. (1975) The courage to create. W. W. Norton: New York.
  • Rilke, M. R. (2004). Letters to a young poet. W.W. Norton: New York.

Course Activities

 

  • Students will be expected to either be at the live zoom classroom (preferred) or view the recordings of the classes each week.
  • After a brief introduction of the topic, the students will have to a chance to share their thoughts on one of the maxims from the Chapter up for discussion. The passages are short so even impromptu responses are possible, however, reading the chapter beforehand is encouraged.
  • Students will be expected to participate in weekly discussion forums and activities. Each student will be expected to provide an original posting each week and to respond to at least one other student in the discussion forums. Greater participation in this area will be considered during class evaluations.
  • For a final project, due on the fifth and final week, students are expected to Write a 3-5 double space paper (12 font, 1” margins- title page/bibliography not included in page count) on how art is like other psi experiences. Please include 3 references (with one being an academic style reference—journal or book on creativity).

 

Evaluation and Grading

Students who are taking the course for a grade will be assessed using a letter grade based on the standard letter grade format.

  • A – 90 - 100
  • B – 80 – 89
  • C – 70 – 79
  • D – 60 – 69
  • F – Below 60

Participation in the forums is a large component of the grading, and substantive postings are necessary to get full credit for each discussion topic.

The following activities will be considered to contribute to the courses as follows:

  • Discussions (Total 50%): 10 pts for each of the 5 weeks including responses to other students' posts.
  • Final Project (50%)