I Think in Pictures, You Teach in Words is a series of photographic works representing my dreams. The images are a by-product trace of the synaptic impulses created by my dreams and then exposed to film. This process is pseudoscientific. Thus, they are flawed images; a problem symptomatic of pseudoscientific practice... It’s not possible to know what the electrical impulses I sampled represent. They could be my dreams. They may not be. They may simply have represented autonomic processes of the mind that regulate the breathing of the lungs and other vital organs.

More specifically, the process uses cameraless photographic sheet film to trace my dreams. Dreaming is believed to occur during the REM sleep stage. I used an Electroencephalogram to record my brain activity throughout the duration of sleep. REM data collected during this sleep cycle are then translated into an analogue output via a digital to analogue converter. This information is then conducted with an electrode – the electrical product of which exposes the photograph. This approach to image making seeks to make visible that which is ordinarily not seen in the physical realm.

Image credit: Ellen Dahl