SleepWalks: The Body of Dreams

<div class="entry__text"> <p><i>We spend 1/3^rd of our lives sleeping and dreaming, yet scientist still don’t know exactly why…</i></p> <p><i>SleepWalks</i> is sound artists <a href="http://www.listeninglistening.com/">A</a>ndrea Williams and Lee Sparks Pembleton. We lead soundwalks through dreams by performing improvised soundscapes for an audience sleeping overnight in a venue. These dreamscapes are created using field recordings collected around the world over the course of our lives. The performances last twelve-hours, 9:00 PM to 9:00 AM, gently fading out in the morning as participants journal and share their dreams over breakfast.</p> <p>The goal of this long-term project is to study the relationship between sound and dreams in order to learn to compose collective soundwalks for dreamers. During <i>SleepWalks</i> we record the sound samples that we use and later, by reading the timestamp, we mark possible correlations between the sounds in the improvisation and writings from the participants’ dream journals. Dr. Todd Anderson of Sheep Dog Sciences often collaborates with us, providing wireless EEG to allow cleaner synchronization between individuals’ dream states and the sounds playing.</p> <p><i>SleepWalks</i> does not use spoken word as part of our guided dreaming. We do not use hypnosis. We do not use subliminal nor subconscious verbal manipulation of any sort.</p> <p><i>SleepWalks</i> began in 02009. We have performed <i>SleepWalks</i> at Issue Project Room, NYC; Soundwave Festival, San Francisco; Diapason Gallery, NYC; Parsons Hall Gallery, MA; Mills College, Oakland, CA; and Flux Factory, NYC, among many other venues. In 02016, we collaborated with Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company (ESDC) and Dr. Todd Anderson to create <i>SleepWalks: The Body of Dreams</i>, a multimedia dance performance. Choreography, sets, costumes, and video projections were drawn from journaled dreams where the participants saw each other, and the music for the final piece was taken from the soundscapes that the dancers and audience dreamt through previously. In 2018, <i>SleepWalks: The Body of Dreams </i>had a residency and multi-media performance at Kaatsbaan International Dance Center.</p> <p><i>SleepWalks</i> invites you to listen to the 45-minute <i>SleepWalks: The Body of Dreams</i> soundtrack as you sleep. You can journal your dreams and send the documentation along to Andrea Williams at: [email protected]. Our goal with this online manifestation of <i>SleepWalks</i> is to continue our research into how sound elicits dreams, and to look for similarities in the dreams of participants that might be related to the sounds we are all hearing as we sleep.</p> </div>