Literally A Coffin Cut In Half
Zoe Oleshansky
Dreams and reality are in direct correlation to one another. Reality is what manifests in dreams when information stored in our brains is used for an alternative purpose to interpret real life thoughts and actions. Dreams come from recent experiences; drawing from the declarative memory system, which includes newly learned information. They can feel and actually convince us that what we dreamt is real. If this is true, how can we truly rely on our consciousness of reality? The legendary Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi (Chuang-Tzu, 369—298 BCE) was said to have had a dream that he was flying around as a butterfly and then awoke to find that he was a man. But he had the eerie feeling upon awakening of not knowing whether he was a butterfly dreaming that he was a man or a man dreaming he was a butterfly. If dreams and reality have a direct correlation or overlap, how do we know what’s real and what isn’t? Documentation can aid in deconstructing our dreams and reality and make connections between the two, exploring their relationship. Literally A Coffin Cut In Half investigates my own personal mind though an everyday account over the course of one month. Using photos taken throughout the month as well as receipts collected, I have demonstrated how my conscious and unconscious thoughts act like a stream, continuously flowing. I leave my real thoughts and dreams ambiguous to the reader, creating a question as to which is reality and which isn’t.