The House of Dreams

Ilya and Emilia Kabakov: The House of Dreams at the Serpentine Gallery, London until 8 January 2006.

The Cameral Van...

One night In the fall of 1993, Harrod Blank had a dream in which he covered his car with cameras and then drove around and took pictures of people on the streets. The public, unaware that the cameras worked, reacted naturally. At the end of the dream, Harrod looked at pictures taken with the van of faces frozen in the moment of awe, pictures so powerful that the next morning he decided to attempt to build such a vehicle in reality.

Lord Maximus's night-time excursions

It is dark and there is a full moon and there is a strong breeze outside and I go out and I feel that I want to fly, so I try. It's a really strong wind so I just run and I throw myself in the air and it works, after a few hiccups I'm in the air and I manage to go up and there are all these trees around and I'm over a city and I'm looking down and it is the greatest feeling I have ever had in a dream. I fly and I seem to have a technique but sometimes I forget and I go down and hit the branches. I feel that if I force myself I go down but in the end I always manage to recover and go up again. It's the greatest feeling that I've ever had but it usually just ends. It really is an amazing feeling, I can tell you that. I don't forget about that.

Max Horstink, Holland, 33

A woman in bright red lipstick

Well here's my dream it haunted me for years...

I am alone in underground tunnels, made of brick, these tunnels usually run under a building, at either the place i work, or my old school or a hospital, as i am walking thro the tunnel i feel frightened and i dont want anyone to see me, at the end of the passageways, they open out into a room, this is usually a toilet block, the toilet cubicles are usually in disrepair or dirty, with syringes on the floor, i am desperate to use the toilet but am afraid to go in, i cross the block and choose the one that is furthest away,at this juncture i feel absolutely terrified of whatever is lurking there,nothing ever appears or happens, then i wake up.

I had this dream continuously for about twenty years, the last time i had the dream , i didn't cross the floor but stayed where i was, a woman in bright red lipstick, came out of one of the toilets to my left, (hell lol she made me jump!) and walked past me, i have never had the dream since, significantly i think, the last time i had this dream was the night before i came out.
you probably think this is a stupid coincidence, but hey.

Helen, UK

A dark shape at my feet

I am walking towards an expanse of golden corn, as I approach it the corn begins to part and a dusty pathway is revealed like the parting of the redsea. I walk down the path and arrive at the field's centre. I notice a dark shape at my feet and with intrigue bend down to examine the shape. I discover that there lies the corpse of a small child, perhaps just a baby, all blue and with its brain all pecked out...

katie Mavroleon, UK, 24 yrs

Dreamt away my fear of death

I dream frequently and vividly - at 28, I still wake up excited if I've had one of my regular flying dreams, and a silly part of me still looks overcliffs and wonders 'If I can do it in my dreams...?'
One dream in particular stands out from all the others though.

I was swimming in the sea, underwater, as I often do in real life (it's the closest thing to flying, you see.) I was aware of a growing need to breathe, but didn't do anything about it straight away as I was near the surface, and the water around me was still bright from the light above. As the reassuring light began to fade, however, I looked up to see the surface of the water far above me, and my lungs began to burn. It was immediately obvious that I would never take the next breath that I now desperately needed, but for several seconds my panicked brain wouldn't accept the reality of the situation, and I thrashed around with one thought in my mind: live. Then, as quickly as the panic had taken it, my mind went completely calm. I had accepted the inevitability of my drowning, and with that acceptance came a flood of relief, euphoria even. By my acceptance, death had replaced life as the natural state of things - of me! - and from this new perspective, all my thrashing about just seconds earlier seemed somehow entertaining - evidence of a childish attachment to a life that I always knew would end someday, somehow. Even though I'd lived very happily till that point, life seemed to me now to be an exhausting struggle for survival, and I was utterly content just to let it all go.I resolved to take my last watery breath and (as you've probably already guessed) woke up in my room at uni. But I held on to the insight that I had gained, and which has stayed with me ever since: There is no need to fear death - life, maybe - but not death.

Charlie Dunmore, 28, Belgium

Drat you figured it out!

I was in my parents' garage outside of Philadelphia, idly searching for a bicycle pump to inflate the limp basketball I had tucked under one arm. My mother is Japanese, and I could softly hear her humming a Japanese lullaby (Yurikagono Uta) outside in the garden. I peeked out the window and saw her pulling weeds a few meters away, the sun casting dappled shadows through the trees above her. Still looking for the bicycle pump, I was surprised by my dad opening the door that led to the house from the garage. "Can you help me take out the trash?" he said, handing me a large black bin bag, stuffed and tied. I reached out to grab the trash bag, but just as I took hold of it something shocking occurred to me. "Dad!" I whispered, "where am I?"

My dad looked puzzled. "I'm in the Czech Republic," I said with alarm, "I just took out the trash in Mikulov last night! Remember?? I'm in the CzechRepublic! I'm not here at all!" My dad looked both surprised andconcerned that his son would say such a thing. "Really dad, remember?I live in the Czech Republic! This is a DREAM! This must be a DREAM!!!" And with that, my dad's face abruptly went blank, utterly devoid of all emotion, and he turned robotically and went back into thehouse, shutting the door behind him and by these strange actions confirming what I had suspected. I could no longer hear my mother's lullaby outside, and I knew that she was gone as well. Oddly, I felt this amazing sense of euphoria, as if I had cracked the secret code that held the keys to the universe.

"A dream," I thought to myself, and wentto pick up the basketball, which was now magically inflated. This I took as more proof that I was just dreaming, and I suppose that it was this whole feeling of lucidity that's made the dream so memorable - most dreams I have are full of bizarre happenstance, with buses turning into boats while I'm aboard and the thrill of huge floating leaps down sets of stairs, but I never really question the reality of whatever occurs while it is happening. This dream was marked by what seemed to be my normal waking ability to recognize abnormality when I saw it though, andthe sudden knowledge that although I seemed to be at my parents' house in Pennsylvania, I was actually still lying asleep in the Czech Republic utterly blew my mind. I think I tried pinching myself, or perhaps itwas a simple poke? At any rate, I woke up, feeling amazingly satisfied and disappointed that I hadn't done anything fun and crazy like flying around naked.

Jeff Taylor, Netherlands, 27yrs

Fishing

I once had a really long dream that I was fishing. I spent the whole dream watching the float, but didn't get one bite, then woke up.

Dan Littler, 26yrs, UK

My most memorable dream

It was one of those dreams where you dream that you have woken up but this one was particularly vivid and I had no concept that I was actually dreaming. I was about eight years old and I woke to find a small planet hovering above my head. Somehow I knew it was Saturn and it had come to visit me. I lifted my head off the pillow so that I could get a closer look at the little planet. It had managed to shrink itself to the size of a tennis ball but looking at it I could see a complex little planet happening all around it. I noticed three little guys about the size of a grain of rice hanging off the outer ring of Saturn. I reached up to grab hold of the ring and as soon as I touched it I shrank to the size of a grain of rice and joined the three little guys in their hanging thing. I looked back down at my pillow and realised that it was getting further and further away. Miniature Saturn was leaving my bedroom and travelling out my window. I became scared (I was only 8) and let go of the outer ring. I started falling . . .Then I woke up.I think the reason this is my most memorable dream is because to this day I regret letting go of the outer ring. Bloody hell, if only I had been a gutsy 8 yr old, who knows where Saturn may have taken me!

Anonymous Australian, 24 yrs

Two dreams

Here are two dreams, take your pick:

Bad (at night in czech youth hostel): various unspecified tormentors force me to take part in some form of bilingual roulette. I must translate a medieval sonnet into Czech (of which I know only two words). For each line of the sonnet I am offered a variety of Czech words, which I must select and arrange to complete a perfect translation. It is made clear to me that the slightest error will bring punishment. It is evening. Despite intense nervousness I somehow complete the first twelve lines of the fourteen line poem without making a mistake. I begin to hope that luck is with me and that I wil somehow complete the task. Halfway through the penultimate line I make a mistake. I am given a saw and am forced at gunpoint to cut off both of my legs at the hip. I wake up crying, and manage to disturb several other guests.

Good (during afternoon train journey back home to Cornwall): My father tells me that the girl by whom I have been smitten for two years is my sister. I tell her this, fearful of her reaction, but we enjoy an intimate, intensely pleasurable but completely chaste heart-to-heart conversation in which we reveal to each other feelings and thoughts unknown to any other, realising we have very much in common. I wake up drooling, and nearly manage to miss my stop. I remain happy for days.

Mat Westlake, UK, 26yrs

Pushing a trolley throught the streets of Cambridge

I can never remember my dreams other than the most disturbing or erotic (or both, like this one).

I was pushing a shopping trolley through the streets of Cambridge. I realised that a friend's girlfriend was lying in the trolley, naked, with her legs over the sides. We made conversation. She began to play with herself whilst looking at me. I was transfixed, but could not take my hands off the bar of the trolley - she made it clear that I had to keep pushing. As she got more turned on she became much more aggressive, to the point where she was violently fisting herself, and screaming "THIS IS HOW IT'S DONE!". I became acutely embarrassed, as I thought that passers-by would think that she was my girlfriend, and that I couldn't satisfy her, whereas in fact I'd never really thought about her this way.I suppose this was my subconscious reminding me what a commodity sex has become nowadays. Unfortunately the dream finished before I could reclaim my pound coin from the trolley-lock.

Rick Adams, UK, 26yrs

I will leave out the really naughty dreams about me and Girls Aloud.

My most memorable dream is probably a nasty one, sorry. It is about animals with sharp teeth.It begins gently with me stroking one of my now dead pets, a rabbit called Titch. Titch was grossly fat, the size of a small dog, smelly and very nervous. As I stroked, Titch would cower in the crock of my arm, its heart beating so hard that I could feel it through my sweater. Everything fairly normal so far, but then Titch turns and bites my index finger of my left hand just below the knuckle. Vicious grip it has, I am blinded by pain. My arms fall to my sides but Titch has still got its jaws clenched round my finger. From nowhere, my other long dead pets appear and leap up bearing their teeth, snapping down on my other free fingers. Joining Titch on my left hand are two guinea pigs, Daisy and Angus Ogg. On my right, another rabbit called Herbie, and an old neighbours dog, called Brandy. The agony is unbearable as I stagger round in a garden, which is vaguely familiar from when I was 8, my hands bleeding heavily, these animals desperately gnashing down on my poor fingers. Then I wake up. I think it is an anxiety dream. I get it quite a lot. I fucking hated those pets. (I didn't really, I just don't know why they hated me so much)

Iain Ferguson, Scottish, 26 yrs

Mir träumte ich sei in Palästina

I dreamed I was in Palestine. It was dark, night had fallen, and I was walking through a pine forest. By my side there was my brother, although he did not take part in the conversation I was having with a local man, who was walking next to me. Desperately I tried to remember the few arabic words that I knew, I wanted very much to talk to the man and strained my thoughts to pull out the words. "Kiifak?" I remember asking him, "How are you?". Later on, my brother was gone but now there was a dog by my side, a quite nonedescript animal with light brown fur, about the shape of a bull terrier. I was quite scared of the dog, knowing that it could be fierce and dangerous but I still proceeded to carefully unrap the strong red tape that was wound around its jaw. Once freed, the dog stayed with me, and although I remained a bit frightened of it, I was very glad it was there and so was the dog.Later, I had a red palestinian scarf around my head and carried lillies toward a cemetery, where, as another local informed me, martyrs lay buried. That was the end of the dream.

Sophia Hoffman, German, 26

The lake horses

My dream is more of a moment, a feeling, that haunts me. I have it again and again. I am underwater in the lake at Sibberscote and there are white horse muzzles pushing me under, snuffling at me with their grey whiskers, wanting to drown me. I do not know what it means, I only know the ugly terror of it.

Chloe Davies, British, 26 yrs