#149 To sleep, perchance to dream
I’m walking on the ocean bed, breathing water in like air, holding a giant stuffed giraffe in one hand and a can opener in the other- when suddenly, my local milkman appears and asks me to follow him to the Railway Station, which turns out to be my childhood school, except that it’s full of people I had once met on a Sound Of Music Bus tour in Salzburg…
By now, you probably figured out what I’m describing and recalling similarly bizarre scenes; your brain served you up on a platter while you were sleeping: your dreams.
And if you’re anything like me, you often find yourself fidgeting when you wake up after a particularly peculiar one, thinking, what on earth did that mean?
Turns out, we’re not alone. Millions of people around the world turn to Google to unearth the meanings of the things, people, and circumstances they dream about.
Federica Fragapane, an information designer, decided to dig up search data on “how people look for the meaning of their dreams on Google”. Then she created The Shape of Dreams, a project that visualises these searches across cultures and languages, creating dreamlike motifs to demonstrate her findings.
It’s a fascinating glimpse into the similarities of human dreams across borders (and a grim reminder of just how much our Google searches give away about our inner lives). Wade through.
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