Sleeping and Dreaming

The Nightmare, Martin Johann Schmidt after Johan Heinrich Fussli*

"Phantasy, abandoned by reason, brings forth impossible monsters; united with her, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of their marvels.”

So Spanish painter Goya commented on the artistic inspiration he experienced through his dreams and nightmares.
Sleeping and Dreaming is an exhibition at the Wellcome Collection, which ambitiously combines the works of scientists and artists in their attempts to interpret the enigma that is sleep.

As a narcoleptic, I have long been fascinated by the weird world we inhabit between being asleep and awake, where the brain is known to be incredibly but inexplicably active.

I am lucky enough to sometimes experience lucid dreaming, where I am aware that I am asleep and can, to an extent, control what happens in my dream.
Unfortunately, the amount of REM sleep I experience also means that I have always been plagued by terribly vivid nightmares and hallucinations, known as night terrors.

The exhibition shows the works by various artists including Goya who were similarly troubled by the intensity of their dreams, but managed to put onto paper the bizarre and disturbing visions of their minds.
The contemporary artist Jane Gifford also creates her paintings, drawings and installations based on her dream diaries, ranging from the humourous to the dark and sinister.

Fear of the dark and the death-like state of sleep has long occupied the thoughts of many a great artist.
Edgar Allan Poe referred to sleep as “those little slices of death, how I loathe them.”

Scientists have long struggled to explain why we need to sleep at all, and many a brave volunteer has tried to break the record of 11 days without sleep.
However, sleep deprivation is still used as a torture method today, and lack of sleep quickly causes loss of memory, confusion, hallucinations, and is eventually fatal.

The exhibition also looks into the intriguing evolution of sleep in our society.
 With the industrialisation of the work force, people now work night shifts, and our bodies respond to alarm clocks rather than the rising of the sun.
Insomnia has also been an inconvenience throughout history -caused by everything from the biting of fleas in the past, to stress and anxiety in the modern world.

The Japanese are so frequently incapable of sleep due to the stress of their lives, that they pay to visit ‘sleep concerts’ where they relax in reclining chairs and listen to music specifically designed to send them to sleep.

Most of you reading this have probably never had to go to such lengths to nod off, neither do you fall asleep every time you get on the bus the way I do.
Most people in fact, take sleep completely for granted and rarely consider what goes on inside our minds during our darkest hours.
 But as one of the few things we all have in common, irrespective of race, sex, age or status, I’d recommend a visit to this exhibition to anyone.

Katie Antoniou


Sleeping and Dreaming, The Wellcome Collection, 183 Euston Road, London, NW1 2BE
www.wellcomecollection.org
29 November 2007 - 9 March 200
Free entrance

*Wellcome Library, London

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