In the vintage interview embedded above, the great writers Anais Nin and Henry Miller discuss dreams and the writing life. Miller urged all writers to record their dreams in the morning as a writing exercise.

He explained: “Don’t wake up. Don’t open your eyes all the way. You’ll know you’ve been dreaming when you wake up, close your eyes slowly and you can hold on to that last thread and go back into the labyrinth and trace it back. When you’ve got it all together, get up out of bed, in your pajamas and go right to the typewriter and record it. Not only record that dream, but all the associations that came with it.”

Miller concluded with an inspiring reminder for all writers to live full lives: “being dead while you’re alive, that’s real death.” (Via Biblioklept)