Dream of magical editor

 This dream was quite long and involved, about trying to track down a magical editor, who had the capacity to see your work for what it was and offer just the right comment about it, even in rejection. The editor was also a kind of writing guru, and at the end we were taking a workshop from him. 

(There were other stages in the search. One person who we thought it might be was William Something, and the woman I was working with on the search met with someone of the same name under false pretenses, pretending there was a scholarship opportunity.  It turned out to be someone else of the same name as this editor. At times in the dream, I myself was this woman, or was seeing things from her perspective.)

There were several exercises in the workshop. One was thinking of something disgusting, and then retaining that image in the mind for a few seconds. Mine had to do with chewing gum, something I do find disgusting. At the end of the dream, I was holding forth about how I wanted to pursue insight or intuition in my writing, not style.  That you could never just take all you had learned from past writing and then produce a new poem out of it (a bag of tricks) but had to start afresh with each new poem. Of course, you can use techniques or stylistic devices you've practiced, or used before, but you cannot just rely on those completely.