What is the Genesis of Story? Images, of course!

I gave a workshop earlier this year for the New Leader’s Council on Story, specifically for this group of young political and social advocates we explored the genesis and composition of story so that they could construct the story of their cause to successfully convey it to others. So .. what is the genesis of story? Images, of course! Here’s how it works in a thumbnail:

Our brain ‘speaks’ to us in image – all that we experience is ‘told back to us’ via images. We then express that image to another in order to share our experiences – we do that through actual drawn/created images or through language that describes these images. Thus story – which is imagery-laden language – is a bridge from our own experiencing to sharing it with another.

Images are pre-cognitive, pre-language. Stories are pre-language. We know stories have existed for at least 100,000 years. But written communication only began 6-7,000 years ago. And the world (en masse) only began to read and write a few hundred years ago! SO what were ancient stories? Images.

Images are the composition of our dreams – they are the fabric of our experiencing. To dream – in daytime or nightime, waking or sleep – is to become conscious to our experiencing. To tell a story to someone is to convey that experiencing to another.

So the genesis of stories are images, and their birthplace is our own experience. What is the most personal becomes the most universal.

Happy dreaming and storying!