Publish at November 26 2025Updated November 26 2025
Turning dreams into art
Turning this short-lived period into something special
We are all involuntary artists. Every night, our brains act continuously without the cognitive filter and create unique images and scenes that sometimes defy logic and the rules of our world. Most people won't remember this imaginative period, which, according to scientists, is used to regulate emotions, or if not, only nightmares. Yet some people are able to transpose what they experience into works of art.
This ARTE report follows a number of artists who turn dreams into an aesthetic and, above all, a creative motor. There's an Austrian performer who takes naps in the most incongruous places, a way of reminding us of the importance of dreaming in this world.
A German visual artist, for his part, uses his dreams to create a false biography of his life in paintings and short films whose aesthetics and logic evoke dreams. A fellow German has exorcised his serial nightmares by composing "black metal" songs. The latter, incidentally, is more terrified of dreamless nights than of potential negative images.
Finally, a French visual artist uses brainwaves from her dream periods to create digital montages or 3D-printed sculptures.
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