Sleeping & Dreaming
About the exhibition | Online taster
Dream Worlds
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For a taste of what you would see in the 'Dream Worlds' section of Wellcome Collection's 'Sleeping & Dreaming' gallery, take a look at key exhibits above.
We experience dreams during sleep and remember them when we wake up. In that process, the dreaming and waking states alternate and mingle. Artists and scholars often attribute their creative ideas to nocturnal inspiration. Scientists are attempting to decode the mechanisms of dreaming and to relate our dreams to what we have experienced during the day.
At the same time, dreams pose a challenge to our rational model of the world. In them, the laws of space and time are suspended. The strangeness of our night-time visions can fascinate, irritate or frighten us. In the visual arts, the search for an artistic vocabulary for what happens in dreams has in particular highlighted their nightmarish, disturbing or fantastic aspects.