has anyone made photographs of their dreams? sometimes i get a dream-like effect with my printing or a negative i made, but i have never been able to put a dream on photo paper.

i read somewhere that scientists came to some sort of a conclusion that we dream in silence and black and white, and when we wake up our minds put color and sounds to the images.

have you ever heard of this? thanks for your thoughts :)

- john

-- john nanain (jak@gis.net), December 21, 2001

Answers

I attempted to make a photograph of one of my dreams, but my wife came in and made her put clothes on.

Merry Christmas,

-- Doug Paramore (Dougmary@alaweb.com), December 22, 2001.

Go find a book of Jerry Uelsmann's phtographs. Sandy Skogland is pretty good at this sort of thing too.

-- Ellis Vener Photography (ellis@ellisvener.com), December 22, 2001.

Are you sure about the sound part? A while back I had a dream where my ex-wife(the first wife and the worst wife) is cursing me out. You mean to say I put those words in her mouth? Is the color cmyk or rgb?

-- Jonathan Brewer (lifestories@earthlink.net), December 22, 2001.

Jonathan, he said "Dream," not "Nightmare!"

-- Whulman (bmitch@home.com), December 22, 2001.

Oh......Happy Holidays

-- Jonathan Brewer (lifestories@earthlink.net), December 22, 2001.

John, You ought to check out the Wim Wenders film "Until the end of the world"

-- Stuart Whatling (swhatling@hotmail.com), December 23, 2001.

John,

Is this Question really correct? Because I have made Photographs "During" and "In"my Dreams and God knows I've done the same thing during and in my Nightmares!! But "OF MY DREAMS," now that's a Workshop I want to attend. Sounds like I may get the REST I need.. ;-)

Mac

-- R.L. (Mac) McDonald (rmacsteam@aol.com), December 23, 2001.

Also, on the Wim Wenders stint try Wings of Desire. It is one of the most beautiful films and very dream like.

Happy Holidays Ec

-- eck wheeler (ew1photo@aol.com), December 25, 2001.

I also like the suggestion of looking at Wenders. Of course the classic dream sequences come from Hitchcock, but I think those were less his own dreams than Freud's. And of course that would bring you to Salvador Dali, who collaborated with Hitchcock on _Spellbound_ and made his own interesting dream images in paint and on film (see the short film _Un chien andalou_, if you haven't already).

See if you can get a copy of the catalogue of the current Surrealism exhibit at the Tate Modern in London (which should be travelling to other major cities over the next few years, if London isn't convenient to you). I thought the exhibit focused a bit excessively on the erotic to the exclusion of other interesting issues in Surrealism (not that the erotic isn't a major issue), but it's an excellent assemblage of works from the period.

-- David Goldfarb (dgoldfarb@barnard.edu), December 26, 2001.

thank you for your suggestions. i am familiar with jerry uelsmann's work but not sandy skogland, i will check out her (his?) work. i have seen wim wenders films and really like them. i am really impressed with his work .. he seems to be a rare breed of film maker whose every frame is like a still photograph or a painting. i probably should have worded my question a little differently. while i am well aware of the surrealists and the hitchcock / dali dream sequences in film, i guess i was thinking more of a dreamlike or etheral quality that photographic abstractions can have whether they were taken with some sort of funky lens, or printed in a way that makes you look at them and wonder what is going on. thanks again & have a nice new year :) - john

-- john nanian (jak@gis.net), December 26, 2001.