Week 7 Blog

Dream like dripping clocks
 Persistence of Memory, Dali

Something I’ve always appreciated about the nature of art is that it replicates, a lot what you see in dreams. People’s dreams are often formless, or follow different rules than traditional sensory experience. They can be nonlinear, self-referential, inverted, and in a way, are extremely similar to art.

There are a lot of definitions of dreams, and theory’s about what they are and what they represent, but most circle back to them being conjured up by the unconscious or subconscious mind. What they mean is something psychologists and neurologists are still debating.

Freud on dreams

I shall demonstrate that there exists a psychological technique by which dreams may be interpreted and that upon the application of this method every dream will show itself to be a senseful psychological structure which may be introduced into an assignable place in the psychic activity of the waking state. The Interpretation of Dreams - 1900

Jung on dreams

Jung believed that dreams were a reflection of events the mind was trying to deal with, that the subconscious works on and presents ideas on how to solve them. (Jung, 1976)

Art, in many respects, is very good at speaking to the same portion of the mind as dreams come from. Artists intentionally use techniques designed to speak to the subconscious and conscious mind, creating emotions and connects that are not always clearly discernable. A great body of surreal artwork is in fact focused on dreams, probably because they still aren’t well understood.

Michael Lang Art of dreams

Its impossible, or nearly so, to have a discussion of dreams without discussing the modern movie called Inception. Leaving aside everything else, I found the technology very interesting. I most wonder if, with the coming kinds of technological advances some kind of directed dreaming technology will present itself.

Well dreams, they feel real while we're in them, right? It's only when we wake up that we realize how things are actually strange. - Inception (2010)

I think that that kind of performance art, with the ability to display anything, and still hold realism, would be extremely moving and interesting. Of course, it would probably just lead to mind control. (Vesna)

Inception(2010)
Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretation of Dreams. N.p.: n.p., 1900. Print.

Jung, C. G. The Practice of Psychotherapy. N.p.: n.p., 1976. Print.

Lang, Michael. "Abstract Art Painting 'Edge of Dreams' Modern, Contemporary, Mix Lang How to DEMO." YouTube. YouTube, n.d. Web. 18 May 2015.

Vesna, Victoria. "Mind Intro." YouTube. YouTube, 26 Mar. 2012. Web. 18 May 2015.

The Persistence of Memory, Salvador Dali - 1934

Inception (2010)