Dreams
In this course, philosopher and historian of science, Marieke McKenna, will guide you through the world of dreaming and dreams. From ancient dream practices and cross-cultural perspectives to cutting-edge dream tech, neuroscience, symbolism, spirituality, Jungian analysis, and lucid dreaming. Dive deep, explore the unknown, and discover the hidden power of your own dreamscapes.
hosted by Marieke McKenna
Marieke McKenna is a philosopher and historian with Scottish & Irish roots, based in The Netherlands. She has a deep love for nature, music, writing, creative expression and people.
Module 1The Dreaming Brain
Neuroscientific perspectives on the brain during sleep, the function of dreaming and other insights from scientific sleep research.
Module 2The History of Western Psychology & Psychoanalysis
Jung, Freud, dream symbolism & the concept of ‘the subconscious’
Module 3Dream Cultures Part I
Dream cultures from around the world and cross-cultural perspectives and insights from Ancient civilisations & monotheistic religions
Module 4Dream Cultures Part II
Dream cultures from around the world and cross cultural perspectives and insights from Hinduism, Tibetan Buddhism, Celtic mythology, Native American and Australian Aboriginal traditions.
Module 5Lucid Dreaming
The way of the Oneironaut - awake in the dream: what is it, what do people do in lucid dreams and how can you learn it?
Module 6Dreamtech
A burgeoning state-of-the-art field, and pressing ethical questions it raises.
hosted by Marieke McKenna
Marieke McKenna is a philosopher and historian with Scottish & Irish roots, based in The Netherlands. She has a deep love for nature, music, writing, creative expression and people.
On average, we spend one third of our lives asleep. That’s roughly 26 years of our time on earth. Of that time, we spend around 6.5 years of our life potentially dreaming.
Dreaming is a universal experience found across time and space in humanity and other species. Historically however, dreams have been of great interest to many different cultures. Importance has been attributed to them that ranges from messages from the divine and predictions of the future, to key insights for the individual and/or society at large.
How might our lives change if we engaged more consciously with our dreams? Today, the way in which dreams are commonly viewed largely falls into two spheres: those who are convinced dreams are valuable, insightful, wonderful, and interesting, and those who consider dreams something akin to a mere random firing of neurons - left-over daytime memory residue. Something many people are able to agree on is that dreams have the ability to point us to elements of our life that might require more attention from an emotional point of view: fears, desires, and - essentially - truth.
By combining experience and knowledge from an interdisciplinary oral history approach, hands-on experience in a laboratory setting, historical analysis and philosophical reflection - as well as a life-long personal dream practice - Marieke McKenna will guide you into a deeper understanding of the spectrum of dream consciousness.