What is a dream?

”The shape of dreams” exhibition in the Dalí museum in St. Petersburg was quite inspiring for my writing. I took a lot of notes and gathered ideas, because dreams seem to play a role in the novel I’m currently working on. I don’t yet know to what extent, as writing and story come to me like a feral bird landing on my shoulder, and it’s too early to turn my head and look at it while it’s still getting settled there. Keeping it lose – that’s the writing state I’m currently in.

I often ponder what dreams are and particularly, how to describe them believably in writing, but I also pay attention to how dreams are depicted in both film and art. What are the elements that constitute a dream? And in what way do these elements and the story move along? What’s the “logic” behind images, setting, and composition of the action? How is “sound” conveyed? Often in movies, thoughts are echos, sight is blurred, images are disjointed… How does an artist capture a dream’s essence?

Part of the dream exhibition was happening in a separate room called “The Dalí’s Dream Tapestry,” where a group of 12 visitors at a time would type a one sentence description of a dream they had into a computer, which then transformed that dream into artwork. Then, all of the participants’ dream images were merged, connecting all individual dreams to form one coherent image. It was incredibly impressive to see such deep and beautiful artwork done by an artificial intelligence system within a few seconds!