how does your sleep state ( dreams ) effect your photography

removed account4 · Apr 9, 2017

im not sure if this is in the right forum or not, mods/sean, if i have misplaced this please feel
free to move it as you see fit.

it is a well known story how Friedrich August Kekulé dreamed of the benzine chain
he woke up and sketched it and realized it was the answer to a problem he was trying to understand.
he had a sketch pad next to his bed.
if you don't know the story, this website explains it: https://web.chemdoodle.com/kekules-dream/
some people remember their dreams, some people keep a journal or a pad and note what
they lived when they were asleep, others have revelations of their dreams mid day and it changes everything.
with photography, sometimes we want to print a negative a certain way, and we burn through a
whole box of paper, trying to figure it out, or we want to photograph something a certain way, we keep going
to the same place, different times of day and of the year... but can't quite do it ...
and maybe we might have a dream that influences how we solve our problems.
maybe the dream was hyper-real saturated coloration and you decided to photograph the special scene
cross processing velvia, or contact bob carnie and have him make a tri color carbon print from your negative ..
or you made a decision the next day to only photograph leaves swirling above your head in a fall windstorm
and make diptychs with afflictions of starlings or flocks of seagulls or you do macro photographs of
silt+dirt in the gutter after a storm and show them next to mountains and vast lanscapes or aerial views or ?

do you keep a record of your dreams, hand writen or sketched, do you dream? and do
these night visions change how you have made your photographs ?

faberryman · Apr 9, 2017

jnanian said:
do you keep a record of your dreams, hand writen or sketched, do you dream? and do
these night visions change how you have made your photographs ?

No, and not that I am aware of.

Sirius Glass · Apr 9, 2017

I agree with faberryman, but it will be interesting to see what other say about the application to photography. Yes, I have used sleep to do the background processing to solve other problems both technical and non technical.

BrianShaw · Apr 9, 2017

faberryman said:
No, and not that I am aware of.

Me either.

But I routinely wake up at 3 AM with creative solutions to my (non-photography) business problems - both technical and management related. So I think/hope that dream state can help in artistic pursuits... I'm just not there yet.

Mr Bill · Apr 9, 2017

Here's a story that should probably be in the joke thread, but it fits in here. A guy was always having dreams about sure-fire ways to get rich. He'd wake up from the dream, thinking how he'd be on the way to wealth next morning, then go back to sleep. Unfortunately when he woke in the morning, he could never remember the exact scheme. So he finally got a notebook and put it next to his bed. The next night, he woke up with another great idea to get rich. He remembered the notebook, picked it up and scrawled some notes before going back to sleep, secure in the knowledge that in the morning he would be on the path to wealth. In the morning he woke up, stretched, and then suddenly remembered that he'd had another dream and this time had made notes. So he got the notebook, and hands trembling with excitement, opened it up to read, "Remember your idea to get rich!"

BrianShaw · Apr 9, 2017

Oh, and regarding documentation of dreams... that has been on my New Year resolution list since about 1974.

removed account4 · Apr 9, 2017

Mr Bill said:
So he got the notebook, and hands trembling with excitement, opened it up to read, "Remember your idea to get rich!"

there was a seinfeld episode like that .. he woke up from a dream laughing at th e funniest thing he ever thought of
and when he woke up, he read the note it said " Ful-hel-mo-nen-ter-va " ...
====
i've had some dreams over the years that i have tried to commit to film/paper, some were done successfully,
others not as successful.
i've made photographs that triggered deja vu, and done alternative printing techniques that i dreamed up too.

TheRook · Apr 9, 2017

I often get musical ideas from dreams, but I can't recall any of my dreams ever having influence on my approach photography. However, I certainly would welcome it.

Arklatexian · Apr 9, 2017

BrianShaw said:
Me either.

But I routinely wake up at 3 AM with creative solutions to my (non-photography) business problems - both technical and management related. So I think/hope that dream state can help in artistic pursuits... I'm just not there yet.

When I wake up at 3 AM, I have more pressing things on my mind like getting to the bathroom. If, on the other hand, I am still awake at 3 AM, it always has a lot to do with business or family problems and once in a while a photographic problem. If it is photographic, I frequently get up, go to the computer and go to APUG for an hour or so. This usually gets my mind off what was keeping me awake and/or puts me to sleep......Regards!

silveror0 · Apr 9, 2017

I don't have a memory problem, but I DO have a recall problem.

Vaughn · Apr 9, 2017

I'll be driving towards the basket, jump in the air -- and then realize that I have never hung that long in the air in my life...and usually wake up before I can dunk the ball. Did not help my basketball.

While I was carrying the 8x10 thru Death Valley last month, I had sort of a Deje vu, remembering-a-dream sort of experience, but that could have been the heat...

MartinCrabtree · Apr 9, 2017

I have occasionally awakened with solutions to difficult problems. Can't say I ever kept track of them and no impact on my photography I'm aware of. Lots of Deja Vu though. Always considered that a lingering symptom of the chemical warfare I waged on the gray matter as a younger man.

Mr Bill · Apr 9, 2017

I've always been amused at the method Salvador Dali used (allegedly) to tap into the edge of his subconscious. I'm sure I don't have the details exactly right, but it was along the lines of: he'd sit in a straight back chair and try to take a nap. But... in one hand he'd hold a spoon, directly above a pie tin on the floor. So as he fell asleep he would drop the spoon, and the noise hitting the pie tin would startle him awake. I don't know how much it did for him, but he certainly came up with unconventional ideas.

Theo Sulphate · Apr 9, 2017

My most interesting dreams are what I call "location" dreams - where there is something interesting about where I'm at: either at the top of an extremely tall building, inside a new house with an amazing number of rooms, or perhaps a series of dreams from my younger years that I can't tell if I've just dreamt it once or dozens of times.

These dreams may influence my approach to photography, since my interest is in preserving the image of places that I know are going to be drastically changed by urban development. To capture the essence of what I dream, though, I'd have to draw or paint it.

As for writing things down - never tried it - I'm afraid the level of alertness required would dissipate my memories of the dream. Occasionally I'll dream about what I think is an award-winning movie or book plot. Later, upon wakening, I realize just how lame it was, e.g. "wife hires man to kill husband".

removed account4 · Apr 10, 2017

MartinCrabtree said:
Always considered that a lingering symptom of the chemical warfare I waged on the gray matter as a younger man

some say it has absolutely nothing to do with that sort of warfare, but other "stuff".
i've had long conversations with people that know a lot more than i can imagine about deja vu
since i suffered through a lot of deja vu for months, and i was told things like it has to do with electromagnetism
and being susceptible + memory. i had it "bad" at one point, i'd go to sleep and dream all sorts of stuff that happened the next day,
or even while i was dreaming ... i had a 230 shift where i was working, and at 930 i'd wake up after a
work related dream and get to work and talk to my manager and laugh about it, and she'd say " talk to hans he
had her as a customer" ... and i described the customer and situation he had to deal with at 930 to a T, except i
didnt' recollect the lady's english accent. the best was when i'd meet a friend of a friend ( a stranger i had never met before )
and knew them, and what they were going to say &c before they told me seeing i met them the night before ... sadly its hard to commit something like that to paper and film..

Toffle · Apr 10, 2017

As a (much) younger man, I used to engage somewhat in lucid dream experiments, trying to raise my level of consciousness whilst maintaining a dream state, and trying to observe and/or influence the direction of my dreams. Doing so, I was able to recall some dreams in vivid detail; some dream images have stuck with me for decades. As I have aged, I seem to have lost this ability, except that if I am having a nightmare, I am sometimes able to pull myself out of the dream into less-troubled sleep.

My interest in dream-state consciousness stemmed from some unsettling early childhood dream experiences. Whenever I was on the verge of developing a serious fever, I would suffer the same horrifying nightmare, the details of which I could never remember, but which laid such a heavy stamp of dread on my soul that I am uneasy thinking of it even now. These experiences were traumatic for me, not least of which for the unnamed horror of the dreams themselves, but for the fact that they were invariably followed by days of fevered chattering of teeth and bone-chilling ice baths to bring my fevers down. My cycle of dream and fever was so intertwined that I was convinced that if my dream ever reached its conclusion that I would die.

As for crossover between dream and waking "realities", I don't recall that dream images ever influenced my waking pursuits, (including photography or other artistic activities) but I do know that my daytime experiences often returned bizarrely transformed in my dream world.

Valerie · Apr 10, 2017

I use imagery from my dreams quite often, since most of my photography is based on situations/scenes that I construct. I keep a dream journal by my bed (which does not get used as often as I like) and a few journals scattered around the house to record those "day" dreams/images that spontaneously occur.

Wallendo · Apr 10, 2017

I never have instructional dreams that solve problems or predict the future.

What drew me to this thread was a dream I had last night. It had something to do with Russian Mobsters who may have also been neo-Nazis. What really stood out to me was that when I woke up, I was quite aware that the dream was in black-and-white and I was most impressed by its tonality. It was almost like a Panatomic-X dream. Despite my dream, I have no desire to load up the last rolls of my Panatomic-X and shoot photos of Russian Monsters neo-Nazis. I hear they aren't the nicest of people and it might be unhealthy to photograph them.

Ko.Fe. · Apr 10, 2017

Dreams and creativeness was prescribed in the Surrealist Manifesto. Dali was best for connecting his painting with dreams. But his relation with his Russian wife was very awkward.
If I'll start to use my dreams and photograph naked ladies, my Russian wife will boot me.

Toffle · Apr 10, 2017

One correction to my earlier post... I said that my dreams did not influence my art, but this is not entirely true.

One evening nearly 40 years ago I started reading Sir Francis Chichester's autobiography, "The Lonely Sea and the Sky". The frontpiece of the book had John Masefield's famous poem, "Sea Fever". Some time in the middle of the night, I awoke with my ears ringing with a fully-orchestrated setting of the words of the poem. I quickly sketched the melody notes on some staff paper, and in the morning, filled in the remainder.

I have spent a lifetime in front of student musicians and community orchestras, and am no stranger to composition and arranging, but I almost feel as though this particular piece composed itself. I merely acted as a transcriber for the notes created in my sleep.

I eventually composed an entire stage musical (flimsily) derived from that piece. Mercifully, it was never performed, as I am a much better composer than I am a dramatist or lyricist. It had some good tunes, though.

LAG · Apr 10, 2017

jnanian said:
do you keep a record of your dreams, hand writen or sketched, do you dream?

Yes, hand writen. Sometimes it's just the beginning of something (and I try to finish the idea asap. without thinking intervention, I stop with the first hesitation) others it's complete, then I go back to sleep, unless it's less than two hours to wake up again.

jnanian said:
and do these night visions change how you have made your photographs ?

The same way with the light of day visions, they complement or feed my thinking...

Bob Carnie · Apr 10, 2017

Actually I do not think dream about the images I print , but I do think about them when I am in that state at 3 am between heavy sleep when I can really relax and see how I want to go with my photo projects.

I also find I can solve complex problems during the night between heavy sleep that are related to workflow problems associated with my business which is Printing.
I have spent the last 8 years learning complex PS - hybrid film situations and I must be honest most of my solutions come when I wake up from deep sleep.
I do not remember dreaming about images, but I keep re living a secondary life with people from my past and there is that damm old building with many , many rooms
that I keep inheriting and walking into. Need to talk to a shrink about that stuff.

LAG · Apr 10, 2017

jnanian said:
... contact bob carnie and have him make a tri color carbon print from your negative .. ?

I'd like to have one made, why not?

removed account4 · Apr 10, 2017

LAG said:
I'd like to have one made, why not?

me too !
but i gotta sell off some gold burried in my back yard.
unfortunately my budget is lacking.

removed account4 · Sep 11, 2021

Valerie said:
I use imagery from my dreams quite often, since most of my photography is based on situations/scenes that I construct. I keep a dream journal by my bed (which does not get used as often as I like) and a few journals scattered around the house to record those "day" dreams/images that spontaneously occur.

I've been doing this more and more the last few years.
It is hard to explain but I have been visiting an island near me
that for some people is a melding between the dream state and what
we might think about as "reality" .. it doesn't happen to everyone, you have to let yourself go.
I went there for 2 years and made photographs in this awake dream state and then last summer / fall
I allowed myself to be carried off there when I wasn't there ..... lately I've been documenting my dreams with a camera.
last night I dreamt I lost my keys and looked through a keyhole and they were where I had left them. I took a photo of it this morning

how does your sleep state ( dreams ) effect your photography

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