Sleeping And Dreaming: Our Most Mysterious State Explored At A New Exhibition In
Wellcome Collection

Sigmund Freud…brain scans...David Baddiel…16th-century alarm clocks...
Catherine Yass…Aristotle…Jane Gifford...Laura Ford…lullabies...
Paul McCartney…interrogation...Goya…insomnia

30 October 2007: Sleeping & Dreaming, a groundbreaking exhibition that explores sleep - the mysterious state we all inhabit for a third of our lives - will be the second major temporary exhibition at Wellcome Collection. A full programme of public events, including David Baddiel discussing insomnia, an exclusive preview of a new film work by Catherine Yass and an investigation into dreaming, will support the exhibition (event details below).

Wellcome Collection opened on 21 June 2007. To date 75 000 people have visited its three galleries and almost 1000 have taken part in public events and tours.

Sleeping & Dreaming draws together 250 objects across five major themes (detailed below) to enable visitors to explore the biomedical and neurological processes that take place in the sleeping body and the social and cultural areas of our lives to which sleep and dreams are
linked. The exhibition is the first of a two-part collaboration with the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum in Dresden.

Presented in a dark and dramatically lit space designed by the German architect Nikolaus Hirsch, exhibits range from artworks by Goya, Catherine Yass, Jane Gifford and Laura Ford to an interview with a victim of sleep-deprivation interrogation; from a vehicle designed to provide homeless people with a mobile place to sleep to an extraordinary range of alarm clocks, and a collection of traditional lullabies from around the world.

Sleeping & Dreaming is presented across five major themes:

Dead Tired: Is a life without sleep conceivable? Dead Tired features Peter Tripp, an American DJ who, in 1959, broke the world record by going without sleep for eight days. Tripp, who was broadcasting during the attempt, is said to have become increasingly incoherent and to have begun hallucinating towards the end of the experiment. His record was broken by fellow American Randy Gardner, who stayed awake for 11 days in 1964, and whose experiences are also featured in the exhibition. Dead Tired explores the issues of sleep deprivation and features a victim of Stasi sleep-deprivation interrogation talking about his experiences. Visitors will also be able to test their own tiredness via an online survey. (This is available to be trialed in advance - please contact Kallaway.)

World Without Sleep: Artificial lighting has radically changed our sleeping habits and work patterns. Daylight and the changing seasons have given way to alarm clocks and stimulants to keep us awake. The exhibition explores sleep experiments held in caves and bunkers during the 1930s through to sleep in the modern world, highlighted by the Japanese practice of inemuri: sleeping in situ regardless of the occasion, from business meetings to parliament. Laura Ford's child-sized figures wearing donkeys' heads recall the fantastical slumbers of A Midsummer Night's Dream while an interactive exhibit gives advice on jet lag and how to avoid it, and Paul Ramirez Jonas's Another Day counts down the time to sunrise in 90 international cities. A collection of bizarre, sometimes 'Heath Robinson' alarm clocks illustrates the ways in which people have woken through the ages. Examples include a clock that lights a candle and a device that transforms a gentleman's pocket watch into an alarm clock.

Elusive Sleep: Having a bedroom, a dedicated place for sleeping, is a relatively new phenomenon, only becoming standard in the West in the mid-20th century. But a bedroom does not guarantee sleep, and how do those without a regular place to sleep rest and dream? Elusive Sleep features Krzysztof Wodiczko's Homeless Vehicle, a nomadic sleeping unit for homeless people that not only provides mobility, privacy and rest, but also functions as a political comment on social neglect. Nocturnal disturbances are also explored. A series of 1930s public health posters warn about the dangers of fleas and bed bugs alongside magnified examples of these insects. Insomnia and the increasing use of sleeping pills are also explored.

Dream Worlds: Dreaming challenges our rational model of the world. The laws of space and time are annulled and anything is possible. Sleeping & Dreaming examines how our dreaming and waking states intermingle: artists often attribute their creative ideas to nocturnal inspiration. Exhibits include Paul McCartney describing how the tune to the Beatles' Yesterday came to him in a dream, while musician Giuseppe Tartini and scientist Friedrich August Kekule von Stradonitz attribute great discoveries to dreams. Kekule, credited as the principal founder of the theory of chemical structure, said that the structure of carbon bonds in benzene came to him in a dream as a snake biting its tale. The understanding of benzene, and with it all aromatic compounds, provided a huge leap forward for chemistry. Also examined in the exhibition is Sigmund Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams. This publication, widely considered to be Freud's most important contribution to psychology, placed dream analysis at the heart of a new and radical approach to understanding the unconscious.

Traces of Sleep: In mythology and popular culture, sleep is often associated with other states of unconsciousness and with death. The exhibition explores these themes through exhibits ranging from Aristotle's treatise 'On Sleep and Sleeplessness', in which he argues that sleep is caused by a cooling process taking place in the heart, through to Hans Berger's revolutionary electroencephalogram (EEG) machine. Berger's machine, developed in the 1920s, showed for the first time that the brain never ceases to be active, even while we are asleep. His discovery debunked earlier science and set the scene for a new genre of sleep studies. Other exhibits include a copy of an 1827 machine designed to tune the nerves to prevent sleepwalking.

Collaboration with the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum, Dresden
Wellcome Collection and the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum have developed a unique partnership with the aim of creating major exhibitions to be shown at both institutions. Drawing partly upon their own exceptional collections, these exhibitions will seek to engage the public with some of the most important issues relating to human health and wellbeing.

The Deutsches Hygiene-Museum and Wellcome Collection have developed two exhibitions in collaboration: Sleeping & Dreaming and War and Medicine, details of which are yet to be announced. Sleeping & Dreaming was exhibited at the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum from 30 March to 3 October 2007, before coming to Wellcome Collection. War and Medicine will be on show at Wellcome Collection from October 2008 to February 2009 before moving to Dresden.

Dr Ken Arnold, Head of Public Programmes, Wellcome Collection, said: "Building on the huge success and public interest of The Heart, our first thematic show, this new exhibition applies the unique Wellcome Collection approach of freely mixing art, science and other disciplines to subjects of universal interest: sleeping and dreaming.

"Sleeping & Dreaming is the first of two major collaborations with the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum in Dresden. It has already received spectacular reviews and huge visitor numbers during its showing there."

James Peto, Senior Curator, Temporary Exhibitions, Wellcome Collection, said: "Using documents and films from the world of science, together with cultural items including historical artefacts and the work of contemporary artists, this exhibition vividly demonstrates how the phenomena of sleeping and dreaming have inspired people's imagination through the ages.

"The partnership with the Hygiene-Museum in Dresden enables the public to see items from its outstanding collection alongside objects from the Wellcome Trust and other international institutions."

Sleeping & Dreaming public events
Sleeping & Dreaming public events enable visitors to explore the scientific and cultural aspects of sleep and dreams with medical and arts experts. A full list of events will be released prior to the exhibition opening. The list below details those already confirmed.

Public booking information
Tickets: All events are free, unless otherwise stated.
Booking: Phone 020 7611 2222, email events@wellcomecollection.org or book online at www.wellcomecollection.org/events

The Mysteries of Dreaming
6 December 2007, 19.00-20.30
Dreams were once considered to hold major personal and religious importance. Some cultures still consider this the case. 'The Mysteries of Dreaming' explores the personal, cultural and scientific aspects of dreaming and its function in wellbeing. Speakers: Mark Blagrove, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Swansea University; Iain Edgar, Senior Lecturer in Anthropology, Durham University; Daniel Pick, Professor of Cultural and Intellectual History, Birkbeck, University of London.

Late-night Film Festival
25 January 2008, 19.00-23.00
A late-night film festival with the focus on sleeping and dreaming, as well as films from the Wellcome Library's moving image collection. Films will be show in the Forum and auditorium. A confirmed programme will be available shortly.

Catherine Yass in Conversation
7 February 2008, 19.00-20.30
Artist Catherine Yass talks about her ideas on dreaming and her work on the subject. Central to the talk will be a premiere of a film she has made that captures her recounting her dreams the moment she wakes.

Sleep Talk
22 February 2008, 19.00-21.00
23 February 2008, 10.30-17.00
A day-and-a-half symposium to explore insomnia through science, psychology, history, sociology, literature and art, held in partnership with the Wellcome Centre for the History of Medicine at University College London.

Speakers include: David Baddiel, writer and comedian; Kenton Kroker, Assistant Professor of Science and Technology Studies, York University, Toronto; Professor Eluned Sumner Bremner, Department of Women's Studies, University of Auckland, New Zealand; Kevin Morgan, Director, Insomnia Research Programme, Loughborough Sleep Research Centre, Loughborough University; Chris Idzikowski, Director, Edinburgh Sleep Centre; Professor Russell Foster, Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford.

Further details to be announced for 'Sleep Talk'; the programme is subject to change.

An End to Feeling Shattered?
28 February 2008, 19.00-20.30
Are we searching for the day when we never have to sleep? The emergence of narcolepsy prescription drugs on the black market has show there is public demand for healthy people to try to medicate and control the hours they sleep. Big questions are faced by society, drug companies and medical science - should the option to limit sleep be available?

Speakers: Dr Simon Williams, Lecturer in Sociology, University of Warwick; Danielle Turner, Neuroscience Coordinator, University of Cambridge; John Harris, Professor of Bioethics, University of Manchester.

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Wellcome Collection press contacts
Wellcome Collection media centre and images:
www.kallaway.co.uk/wellcome.htm

Will Kallaway
T +44 (0)20 7221 7883
E will.kallaway@kallaway.co.uk

Anna Cusden
T +44 (0)20 7221 7883
E anna.cusden@kallaway.co.uk

Wellcome Trust
Media Centre: www.wellcome.ac.uk/aboutus/mediaoffice

Katrina Nevin-Ridley
T +44 (0)20 7611 8540/ 07973 481485
E k.nevin-ridley@wellcome.ac.uk

Craig Brierley
T +44 (0)20 7611 7329
E c.brierley@wellcome.ac.uk

Mike Findlay
T +44 (0)20 7611 8612
E m.findlay@wellcome.ac.uk


About Wellcome Collection: www.wellcomecollection.org
Wellcome Collection is a new £30 million visitor attraction from the Wellcome Trust that opened on 21 June 2007. Admission is free.

Wellcome Collection is a world first. It combines three contemporary galleries together with the world-famous Wellcome Library, a public events forum, a café, a bookshop, a conference centre and a club, to provide visitors with radical insights into the human condition. Wellcome Collection builds on the vision, legacy and personal collection of Wellcome Trust founder Sir Henry Wellcome and is part of the Wellcome Trust's mission to foster and promote research with the aim of improving human and animal health. The building is centred on three substantial galleries totalling 1350 m2:

Special exhibitions (650 m2): The largest gallery in Wellcome Collection is used to host temporary exhibitions, presenting newly commissioned works and thematic shows structured around topics of medical, cultural and ethical significance. The opening exhibition was The Heart (21 June-16 September 2007).

Medicine Man (350 m2): This permanent exhibition contains more than 500 strange and beautiful artefacts from Sir Henry Wellcome's original collection, presented in a rich American walnut-panelled gallery, centred on a large 'Wunderkammer' cabinet.
Medicine Now (350 m2): The permanent Medicine Now exhibition explores contemporary medical topics through the eyes of scientists, artists and popular culture in a bright contemporary environment.

Public events: A lively programme of public events expands on exhibition themes. Wellcome Collection's flexible events space, the Forum, will bring audiences face-to-face with prominent experts and personalities from the worlds of art, science and the humanities, to explore current issues and ancient mysteries of human wellbeing.

Wellcome Library: The Wellcome Library contains over two million items and is one of the world's greatest collections for the study of the history and progress of medicine. The public areas of the Library span two floors of Wellcome Collection and include the fully restored Reading Room, first used as a Hall of Statuary by Sir Henry Wellcome in 1932.

About the Wellcome Trust
The Wellcome Trust is the largest charity in the UK and the second largest medical research charity in the world. It funds innovative biomedical research, in the UK and internationally, spending over £500 million each year to support the brightest scientists with the best ideas. The Wellcome Trust supports public debate about biomedical research and its impact on health and wellbeing.

Wellcome Trust funding has supported a number of major successes, including:

sequencing the human genome
establishing UK Biobank
development of the antimalarial drug artemisinin
pioneering cognitive behavioural therapies for psychological disorders
building the Wellcome Wing at the Science Museum
setting up the Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium, the largest ever genetic study
of common diseases such as diabetes, coronary heart disease and bipolar disorder.

The Wellcome Trust is a charity registered in England, no. 210183.

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