Dream Director sells out at DLWP

THE DREAM Director, conceived by artist Luke Jerram, invited 40 people to sleep overnight in the DLWP auditorium.

Specially designed pods housed the sleepers, who wore eye-masks to detect the rapid-eye movements which characterize the dream-stage of sleep.

Individual banks of sounds responded to each sleeper's dream-state in an attempt to influence the content of their dreams.

Jim Truscott, of Bexhill, who slept in a pod on Friday, April 3, described the experience.

He said: "It took me longer than usual to get off. It was an airbed, and I was worried at first, but in fact it was surprisingly comfy.

"It was a bit more restless than a usual night's sleep. I was very conscious of the fact that it was an experiment and that I should be dreaming.

"But I didn't have full dreams, I had dreamlets.

"In the morning we filled in information about any dreams we had during the night, and we got a chart of the sounds they had played for us when we went into REM sleep.

"Most people were completely oblivious to them. Some people said they didn't sleep at all, some said they slept all night long.

"It works on two levels. Firstly its an art installation, but there is also a little bit of science, in how the sounds affect your dreams.

"A sleep psychologist found that 60 per cent of our dreams are anxiety dreams. They found that ambient sounds tend to relax you, and stop these anxious dreams, but they don't know if that's a good thing or bad thing.

"I actually signed up as respite from my three children."

Luke Jerram's The Dream Director ran at the DLWP from 3-5 April.