If the anxiety of the COVID-19 pandemic has led you to experience strange dreams at night, iBestTravel wants to highlight an intriguing initiative. The Museum of London has launched a research project known as ‘Guardians of Sleep,’ which involves compiling the dreams of Londoners during the coronavirus pandemic as part of its Collecting COVID initiative.
According to a survey conducted by King’s College London and Ipsos MORI in June 2020, the anxiety, stress, and worry brought on by the global crisis affect our sleep patterns and dreaming. In response, the Museum of London, in partnership with the Museum of Dreams based at Western University in Canada, is launching a project aimed at collecting the dreams of Londoners through personal testimonies during the pandemic.
The Guardians of Sleep project represents the first time that dreams will be collected as raw encounters and personal testimonies by a museum. The project aims to gather dreams as oral histories as part of the museum’s ongoing Collecting COVID project, while also exploring the insights dreams may provide into mental health and coping mechanisms during external crises.
“Collecting Londoners’ dreams in their own words not only documents a key shared experience from the pandemic but also expands the definition of a ‘museum object,’ by incorporating dreams as personal testimonies into our permanent London Collection for the first time,” states Foteini Aravani, digital curator at the Museum of London.
“Traditionally, when museums have collected dreams, it has been in the form of artistic interpretations, such as paintings or drawings influenced by dream experiences. However, this approach often dissociates the dream from the dreamer. Consequently, as part of Collecting COVID, the museum will gather dreams as intimate oral histories, aiming to present a more personal narrative of this extraordinary time for future generations.”
The museum encourages Londoners to express their interest in participating in the project by emailing info@museumofdreams.org or visiting the museum’s website here.
