Dream Theory

What is it that the mind is accessing when we dream? How is it that we dream of places we’ve never visited, experiences we’ve never had and landscapes that don’t exist? What is the difference between the convincing reality we experience when awake and the reality we are equally convinced by, when asleep?

To explore these questions I drew on influences from the medieval imagination of Hieronymus Bosch, the anthropic reasoning of Nick Bostrom, the psychoanalytic theory of C.J. Jung, the metaphysical painters; Giorgio De Chirico and Carlo Carrà, the surrealist work of Max Ernst, the naïve art of Henri Rousseau and the supernatural events of Botticelli’s Forest of Ravenna series.

Is a fundamental archetypal language being expressed in dreams? Are we experiencing nested simulations? Is there a connection between psychosis and revelation? Can we glimpse the fundamental structure underlying a reality that seems so familiar yet we understand so poorly?

This series of composite images seeks to represent aspects of these questions through an exploration of the non-places of dreams.

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