Creative Review- The Science of Sleep

As part of my research for dreams within the art world there are a few films I want to watch. One of these was The Science of Sleep, which I watched yesterday. I have to say I loved it, I have no idea why I didn’t watch it before because it helps explain a lot of the subconscious so well.

The main character, Stephane, is an illustrator who is fascinated with the dream world (already there are two huge similarities between the main character and me) and this film helps show the relationship between the way he acts in real life and what goes on in his sleep.

The introduction of the film is interesting; in his sleep, Stephane is teaching how a dream is made up. He adds to a potion- a person’s wish, things that they’ve reminisced about that week, memory and feelings amongst other things. This helps show why dreams are so hard to work out—there are so many things going on!

The relationship between the dream and real world is supported by the imagination. Stephane always thinks of creative ways to make things look more fun, he wants to be an inventor, and when he analyses real life events in his dreams he more often than not turns the dream into something he wants.

The reason I love the film so much though are the small bits that a lot of people might or might not pick up on. I have a heavy interest in dreams so feel like I connect with the character quite a lot. There is a fear of rejection, which he uses his dreams to escape from. He can create new worlds in his dreams, which I like to do. He begins to dream when he should be listening. He tires easily because when he dreams he uses a lot more energy than you should. He sometimes has to do little tests to work out if he’s dreaming or not. All of these are me!

There is a lot of inspiration I can draw from this film, both personally and in the creative world. A lot of great techniques were used to portray dreams that I might be able to use in my work, like the exaggeration on hands to show how heavy they are, or a car crash and him not moving when he’s feeling drunk. I give it a 9/10.