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The Dream Director

The Dream Director is a new immersive installation created by Luke Jerram and his team of specialists at the Watershed Media Arts Centre, Bristol 2007.

Over a duration of 2-3 nights members of the public can sleep over in the gallery in specially constructed 'pods'. There are spaces for 20 participants each night.

Watch this new 3min film by Kate Taunton and Rosie De Belgeonne.

See this new Dream Director website.

Concept

The Dream Director explores the boundaries of participant’s conscious and subconscious mind, prompting questions about the ethics of and possibilities for, creating art in dream space.

The Dream Director delivers an artistic experience to an audience on the edge of sleep and within dream space itself challenging the limitations of public participation and interaction.

The artwork allows the public to explore their own mental territories in a communal and safe environment.

The Dream Director is also a new tool for sleep science and clinical applications which raises questions about the rules of interaction and boundaries of science and art.

UK Tour & New Dream Director Website.

The Dream Director installation will soon begin its UK tour. With funding from the Arts Council, the installation will be exhibited at the ICA in London, FACT in Liverpool, Compton Verney and the De La Warr Pavillion of Bexhill on Sea. See this new Dream Director website.

Experience for the Public

1. Guests arrive in the evening and are given a short presentation. They fill in dream forms from their most recent nights sleep.

2. Participants are allocated their pods and get ready for bed. The artist gives a briefing, describing the journey ahead. Lights go out.

3. Through speakers mounted in each pod, participants are taken on a 20minute surround sound acoustic journey triggering imagery in their imaginations. The participants explore the edges of sleep and perception, as they lie in their beds in the darkness.

4. Silence and sleep.

5. Throughout the night short sounds are played to individual participants triggered by their own REM (Rapid Eye Movement) Each pod is allocated a bank of different sounds with themes- water, forest, large spaces etc. These sounds may be incorporated into the dreaming content altering the narrative of the dream. Alternatively, the sound may lift the dreamer into the space on the edge of sleep allowing them to explore this creative and illogical perceptual location. Lastly, the sound may partially wake the participant allowing them to become aware that they are dreaming and potentially take control of their dream (lucid dreaming).

6. It’s Morning and a 20minute ‘Wakeby’ is played lifting the participants back into the space on the edge of sleep.

7. Breakfast and feedback. Participants leave with their data from the night.

During the day, between sleepovers, the installation is open to the public. They can submit thier own dream reports, read others left by day time visitors and to explore documentation of the project.

Results and feedback.

Completed this summer, the installation has been tested at the Arnolfini Gallery and at-Bristol science museum. Dream data analysed by our psychologists suggest that the Dream Director is altering both the narrative and mood of participants dreams.

Pod4“I was hovering over a huge empty Teletubby landscape. The sky was blue and the space was vast, serene and empty with no trees or hedges.“

Pod6 “I think the biggest place I’m normally in, in my dreams is a field, but this place was enormous and there were elephants”

These pods were allocated only vast echoic empty sounds- Canyons, distant trains in the landscape, a deserted wilderness etc.

How it works

Each pod is lined with sound absorbent foam and has speakers mounted on each side facing inwards. A sleep mask containing an IR sensor is worn by each participant measuring participants REM/dream stage during the night. Using an adapted lucid dreaming kit called the “REM dreamer” (developed by Pawel Herchel in Poland), signals from the mask are sent to a computer that triggers sounds from a bank of audio when a specific participant is dreaming. This signal is logged on a computer called ‘Bertha’ creating a data set that can be presented to each participant in the morning and is analysed by sleep psychologists later.

The Dream Director is a development of sleep science research carried out since 2003 by the artist and psychologist Chris Alford at UWE (The University of West of England). The installation has been made by a team of specialists including Oliver Humpage, Dave Boultbee and Dan Jones.

Support and Media Coverage

Read article in The Times by Juliet Rix.

Listen to All in the Mind -BBC Radio4 programme that includes a feature on the Dream Director scientific research.

Read the dream_director_writings by Director of Eyebeam,NY- Amanda McDonald Crowley . Sleep Anthropologist- Dr Tom Rice. Sleep Psychologist- Dr Chris Alford.

Funded by the Clark Bursary with support from Custom Audio Designs.

Technical requirements.

The Dream Director has been designed for touring and is technically self sufficient. The sleep pods flat pack and are delivered on 3 pallets from the UK.

The artwork takes 2 technicians (which come with the installation) 1 day to install and 1/2 day to pack away.