Brainwave: Dreams Series at Rubin Museum of Art

Hello everybody.

I thought I would let people on this site know about a pretty cool program all about dreams that is going from now through April 29, 2011 at the Rubin Museum of Art in Manhattan.

The program is part of the Rubin Museum's ongoing Brainwave series. The series takes certain artistic, mental, or spiritual issues and then runs a series of talks between more creative people and more scientific people regarding those issues.

The current Brainwave series is about dreams. In conjunction with all the talks that will be taking place, there are movie showings, workshops, and even an actual sleepover in the museum.

The series of talks began on Monday. I went to the one last night. It was pretty great. The conversation was between the famous composer/performer Meredith Monk and the former head of the psychology PhD department for CUNY, John Antrobus. The conversation setting was really great and the Q&A session was pretty interesting.

I am listing the rest of the shows below so you can see who will be there. The tickets are a tiny bit expensive. The discussions are $25. The dream workshop is $75. The sleepover is $55. But I think the cost is worth it.

The weekday discussions start at 7 PM. The Saturday and Sunday discussions generally start at 3 PM.

The Rubin museum is at 17th St. and 7th Ave. in Manhattan. The Rubin Museum website is www. rmanyc.org.

Anyway, I hope this information is useful for anybody who might be in or around NYC between now and April 29th.

Film:
Various dates from Feb. 16 to Feb. 26 -- The Edge of Dreaming, by Amy Hardie

Workshop:
Various dates from Feb 17 to Feb 21 -- Dreaming workshop with Amy Hardie

Sleepover:
March 5-6 -- Dream-over

Talks:
Feb. 27 -- Bedtime Hypnotism, with Nathan Englander and Amir Raz

Mar. 2 -- Soul Dust: The Problem of Consciousness, with Nicholas Humphrey and David Freedberg

Mar. 5 -- Creativity in the Dreaming Brain, with Amy Tan and Deirdre Barrett

Mar. 6 -- Who Dreamed the First Dream?, with Meir Shalev and Serinity Young

Mar. 9 -- Which Side of the Brain Controls You?, with David Salle and Iain McGillchrist

Mar. 11 -- Do You Doubt Your Own Dreams?, with John Patrick Shanley and Polly Young-Eisendrath

Mar. 16 -- The Murderous Mind, with Scott Turow and Michael Gazzaniga

Mar. 20 -- Do Dreams Come True?, with Debra Winder and Robert Stickgold

Mar. 23 -- Are Dreams Pure Fantasy?, with Graham Joyce and Kelly Bulkeley

Mar. 30 -- A Dream on a String, with Roman Paska and Rodolfo Llinas

Apr. 9 -- Irish Dreams, with Frank McGuinness and Ernest Hartmann

Apr. 13 -- The Buddhist Dreamer, with Sharon Salzberg and Lawrence Barsalou

Apr. 17 -- The Compass of Pleasure, with David Linden

Apr. 20 -- Tibetan Dream Yoga, with Lama Lhanang

Apr. 29 -- PEN World Voices Festival

This is really interesting, I hope they get put on youtube or something. Any idea if they are being videotaped for DVD or anything?

Actually, I think they are posting some of the conversations directly to the Rubin Museum website. I'm not sure how it works, but I'll try to find out, and I'll pass the info along.

Hi, Aquanina. I thought I'd just check back in and let you know that the Rubin Museum has posted a video of one of the talks on its website so far. They posted it just this week.

The address that takes you directly to the schedule of Brainwave talks, where the videos are posted, is Rubin Museum of Art:Brainwave 2011.

I went to a second lecture this last week, and I saw a sign saying they were going to post a lot of the talks onto their website. So keep an eye out, and I'll keep an eye out, too.

Just as a side note, the talk I went to this time was between Graham Joyce and Kelly Bulkeley. I hadn't known either of them before. I just went to the lecture because the title, "Are Dreams Pure Fantasy?" sounded pretty cool. But Joyce and Bulkeley are both interesting people.

Joyce is a horror and fantasy writer. His works center a lot on dream worlds. In fact, his first book, Dream Sign, was about a group of lucid dreamers. Joyce just released a new book, called The Silent Land, which Joyce said during the talk was a kind of continuation on the themes that he explored in Dream Sign.

Bulkeley is a professor in San Francisco. He does a lot of research into dreams. He has written a couple of books about dreaming as well. One is about the symbols of dreams in world religions. Another, newer one is called American Dreamers. It's about the dreams of Americans and how those dreams reveal the character of Americans.

So, works by both of those guys might be interesting to check out if you're looking for some additional reading material, non-fiction or fiction, about dreams.

And, like I said, I'll keep you posted if I see more talks pop up on the Brainwaves website.