It has been discovered that during an average person’s lifetime, 26 years are spent asleep and around 7 years in the process of falling asleep, resulting in a total of 12,045 days spent in bed. It is no wonder then, that dreams have become such a fascinating subject for artists, writers and philosophers.
In the late nineteenth century photographer Louis Darget created a portable radiographer, consisting of a headband with a photographic plate attached, which was then placed on the forehead of his subject. The results were blurred, abstract markings which he would then interpret, strongly believing them to be projections of dreams and the inner working of the human mind. Instead, they visualised a mixture of poorly diluted developer and the warmth of human skin.
Although Darget wasn't necessarily key to the theories and research behind the work, he did show me some of the interesting ways in which sleep and the dream state have been interpreted in the past.
Examples of Darget's Work