Traumgedanken – conceptualization and design of a book on dreams
The aim of the Dream Book is to inspire readers to think and wonder about dreaming.
To facilitate access to the topic, the book’s contents, layout and design are reminiscent of characteristics of dreams. In dreams, fragments of various memories come together to build a plot. Analogously, the book combines excerpts taken from literature and from philosophical, psychological and scientific texts about the functions and origins of dreams and their connection to reality. Thus, the Dream Book can be regarded as a model of a “dream about dreaming.”
The connections among the diverse texts that form this model are made visible through the threads which run across the pages and are linked to key words. The threads pick up traits of dreams such as confusion and fragility.
The embroidered quotes allude to dream interpretation and to the mysteriousness of dreams, since only the back of the writing is visible, but not readable. The illustrations composed of threads represent intricate links and are abstract images of the “dream about dreaming.”