Curiosity project

Curiosity

For our project we are looking at curiosity, so in my case I took some things I’m curious about to build my concept/idea.

My project is called ‘dream within a dream’, the title is self-explanatory but the creation of the idea has more to it, it involves my sleep disorder Narcolepsy, insomnia, philosophy and inception.

The first part to this will be the philosophy.

This is based on the dream argument that we may all be in a dream but not realise or distinguish the dream from reality, the key would be being able to perceive the subtle differences so that you would notice when it’s a dream.

But what if you couldn’t tell because of certain conditions, in this case it would be the sleep disorder narcolepsy and insomnia which I have.

The effect of narcolepsy and insomnia going hand in hand completely changes things, making it impossible to realise if your dreaming or not.

There are various reason why because of these conditions you wouldn’t be able to tell, but the biggest cause would be hallucinations and constantly falling asleep, and with no internal clock how would one know there actually in a dream or not.

Firstly, with the frequent happening of hallucinations this twists our perception of reality, especially when it takes place on a daily basis, the negative effect of this would be that even if there were hints telling you that you were in a dream how could you trust what you see when you know that because of the hallucinations it could all be a deception, the occurrence of this is due to the narcolepsy and insomnia, when both working together it vastly enhances the amount of hallucinations.

Secondly are the constant fits of falling asleep when you don’t expect or realise it, this is a common thing with narcolepsy, not only do you fall asleep all the time but it happens whenever, even when walking.

Put all this together and there simply seems like there is no obvious way to distinguish your reality, more so if your not trying to in the first place.

Finally, is the implement of inception in my final piece I have created, which is a drawn animation which shows the effect of inception when because of all these confusions and no obvious reality out of the many, it feels or seems like a dream within a dream repeatedly looping with no loop holes to escape, this is the overall idea and concept of my piece a ‘dream within a dream’.

References and Reference

Narcolepsy

Narcolepsy is a neurological disorder that affects the control of sleep and wakefulness. People with narcolepsy experience excessive daytime sleepiness and intermittent, uncontrollable episodes of falling asleep during the daytime. These sudden sleep attacks may occur during any type of activity at any time of the day.

WebMD Medical Reference Reviewed by Carol DerSarkissian (2017) Narcolepsy, Available at: https://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/guide/narcolepsy#1 (Accessed: 11th March 2019)

A rare neurological condition that affects the brain's ability to regulate the normal sleep-wake cycle. This can lead to symptoms such as disturbed night-time sleep, excessive daytime sleepiness and cataplexy. Consequently, narcolepsy is often thought of as a sleep disorder, but its underlying cause means that it is better classified as a disorder of the central nervous system.

() About Narcolepsy, Available at: https://www.narcolepsy.org.uk/about-narcolepsy(Accessed: 11th March 2019).

Inception

The movie Inception, is a welcome, albeit excessively frenetic, confusing, manic meditation on the elusive nature of reality. While its premise is ostensibly about the main character's uncanny ability to enter into and lucidly influence the dream world of others, what it fundamentally asks is whether the inner world of dreams is any less real or inhabitable than the outer world we typically call "reality"

 Dreams gained modern credibility when Sigmund Freud, in 1900, published his groundbreaking book The Interpretation of Dreams. Freud postulated that dreams indeed do have symbolic psychological (rather than supernatural or spiritual) significance, and are in fact disguised messages sent not by divine or demonic entities but rather by our own personal "unconscious." For Freud, dreams were mainly masked, metaphorical manifestations of wish fulfillment, containing, in deliberately disguised form, those unacceptable instinctual (especially sexual) strivings and impulses that could not be consciously expressed or satisfied. In studying dreams, his own and those of his patients, Freud discovered, explored and mapped a relatively unknown new world: a mysterious, surreal interior realm radically different than outer reality, with radically different rules, laws, language and logic.

Stephen A. Diamond Ph.D. (2010) INCEPTION: Art, Dream and Reality, Available at: https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/evil-deeds/201008/inception-art-dream-and-reality (Accessed: 11th March).

Philosophy

The dream argument is the postulation that the act of dreaming provides preliminary evidence that the senses we trust to distinguish reality from illusion should not be fully trusted, and therefore, any state that is dependent on our senses should at the very least be carefully examined and rigorously tested to determine whether it is in fact reality.
While one dreams, one does not normally realize one is dreaming. This has led philosophers to wonder whether it is possible for one ever to be certain, at any given point in time, that one is not in fact dreaming, or whether indeed it could be possible for one to remain in a perpetual dream state and never experience the reality of wakefulness at all.

Dreaming provides a springboard for those who question whether our own reality may be an illusion. The ability of the mind to be tricked into believing a mentally generated world is the "real world" means at least one variety of simulated reality is a common, even nightly event.

Those who argue that the world is not simulated must concede that the mind—at least the sleeping mind—is not itself an entirely reliable mechanism for attempting to differentiate reality from illusion.

(2018) Dream argument, Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_argument(Accessed: 11th March).

Inspiration

 My inspiration comes from my self experience with dreams, hallucination and my sleep disorder
along side some insomnia to creates something quite terrifiying to bear with, for example due to this in the past i have even questioned my own reality because of the wierd happenings around me.

thinking about these thoughts i thought it would be interesting to do a project based on this, and to include some philosophy and inception in the mix ,with my heavy interest in philosophy i wanted to use things like the dream argument and psychoanalysis to give an insight towards these ideas and there background.