2020 Dreams
AnthropologyThe year 2020 emerged as a pivotal moment in modern history, in many overlapping and mutually reinforced ways. 2020 Dreams: Toward a New Understanding of the Dreaming-Waking Continuum is an interactive digital project that illuminates the dramatic and epochal events of that year as witnessed from the vantage of collective dreaming.
Using innovative tools of digital analysis, 2020 Dreams follows the 2000+ dreams of ten avid dreamers and interweaves the data presented in their journals with thousands of survey responses gathered over the course of the year. The dreams—about environmental problems, the COVID-19 outbreak, racial justice protests, the immigration crisis, economic upheaval, social media anxieties, US electoral politics, and more—reflect people's shared emotional experiences during a year of immense social turmoil. Many of the dreams are nightmares, some are strangely amusing, and others offer creative visions of hope for a future beyond the dire challenges of the present.
The project invites readers into an analytic dreamscape, reflecting the multiple dimensions of dream meaning through multilinear navigational paths and interactive data visualizations. Integrating digital methodologies with digital presentation, 2020 Dreams advances a new era of improved dream research methodology, and invites a wider range of people to participate in the field of dream analysis.
"A fascinating and widely engaging study of the impact of the social and political world on the content and processes of dreaming. Especially notable are the novel methods used to analyze and represent the relationships between dreams and worlds, and a sample of dreams that far exceeds those used in most previous studies."—Douglas Hollan, University of California, Los Angeles
"Sixteen thousand participants, two sources of cryptic symbolism (dreams and the nightly news), and one year (2020). The brilliance of this unique digital project is matched only by its friendly and visually stunning design. If you're curious how the narratives in our personal dreams and our collective stories dance together, 2020 Dreams awaits you."—Ryan Hurd, author of Lucid Talisman: Forgotten Lore