{"id":12249,"date":"2021-11-08T09:25:52","date_gmt":"2021-11-08T14:25:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/?p=12249"},"modified":"2021-11-08T10:07:38","modified_gmt":"2021-11-08T15:07:38","slug":"dreamlife-of-the-anthropocene","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2021\/11\/08\/dreamlife-of-the-anthropocene\/","title":{"rendered":"Dreamlife of the Anthropocene"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The work of environmental\/climate humanists is premised on the assumption that the way we make sense of the world matters<\/em>. This means that the dreams we have — Covid pandemic dreams, climate change dreams — also matter. The best artists, in turn, help shape our collective dreaming. The environmental arts and humanities aim to help dream a new world into existence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brooke Jarvis’s “The Global Dream Lab” (“Did the Pandemic Change How We Dream?<\/a>“), which appeared in this weekend’s New York Times Magazine<\/em>, captures a bit of the reason why I do what I do, and why I often find the wilder, more speculative variations of ecocinema (like the films I focus on in Ecologies of the Moving Image<\/em><\/a>) more promising than empirical, fact-based eco-documentaries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jarvis’s key interlocutor, psychologist and dream researcher Dierdre Barrett, is cited as describing dreams as “another way of thinking,” when “the unheard parts of ourselves are allowed to speak.” The dreaming brain, Jarvis writes, is “tuned differently” than the waking brain; its “most bizarre and nonsensical elements” keep dreams from being “‘overfitted,’ or unable to make sense of new information.” Dreamlife, in this sense, represents the opening up our creative capacities for integrating the challenges of an unmoored world. (That in turn connects with my interest in A. N. Whitehead, the metaphysician of creativity.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For making sense of the new world represented by Anthropocenic climate change, we may need to “seed” our dreams with new imaginative possibilities, like the ones I refer to in my recent talk on navigating climate trauma<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Read Jarvis’s article here: https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2021\/11\/03\/magazine\/pandemic-dreams.html<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison, Tree Stories<\/em>, 1998<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The work of environmental\/climate humanists is premised on the assumption that the way we make sense of the world matters. This means that the dreams we have — Covid pandemic dreams, climate change dreams — also matter. The best artists, in turn, help shape our collective dreaming. The environmental arts and humanities aim to help […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[691847],"tags":[59633,628305,692698,16924,692697,692701,48887,660342,25078],"class_list":["post-12249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion-spirituality","tag-brain","tag-covid-19","tag-dream-research","tag-dreaming","tag-dreamlife","tag-emotional-practices","tag-mind","tag-pandemic","tag-psychology"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4IC4a-3bz","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1340,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/09\/13\/field-of-dreams\/","url_meta":{"origin":12249,"position":0},"title":"field of dreams","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"September 13, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I just watched Amy Hardie's recent film The Edge of Dreaming, a documentary about a year in her life during which this science documentarian and self-proclaimed skeptic becomes haunted by a series of dreams that appear to foretell her own death before the year is over. The film becomes an\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Cinema"","block_context":{"text":"Cinema","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/cinema_zone\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"myyear.jpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2010\/09\/myyear.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1019,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2009\/01\/21\/nightmare-is-over\/","url_meta":{"origin":12249,"position":1},"title":"nightmare is over","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"January 21, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I moved to the States from Canada in December of 2000, as the Bush-Gore election was being decided. (Almost turned back at the border, thinking, what am I doing?) Now, eight years later, the bad dream is over. Forty years after Martin Luther King's assassination, that bad dream seems over,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics"","block_context":{"text":"Politics","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/politics_postpolitics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1046,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2009\/04\/01\/dream-for-earth-fools-day\/","url_meta":{"origin":12249,"position":2},"title":"dream for Earth Fool’s Day","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"April 1, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I woke up this morning from a dream in which I had gotten lost in a part of the house (where I live) that had gotten disconnected from the rest of the building. I was wandering somewhere in what seemed like a large hotel or apartment complex looking for the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Eco-culture"","block_context":{"text":"Eco-culture","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/ecoculture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1317,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2010\/08\/06\/inception-the-anti-matrix\/","url_meta":{"origin":12249,"position":3},"title":"Inception: the anti-Matrix?","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"August 6, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been studiously avoiding reviews of Inception, Christopher Nolan's new metaphysical heist thriller, wanting to see it for myself (intrigued by its premise) before I start to see it through other people's eyes. Today I saw it, and I've now scanned some of the reviews and a bit of blog\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Cinema"","block_context":{"text":"Cinema","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/cinema_zone\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"inception-top.jpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2010\/08\/inception-top.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12676,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2022\/07\/14\/my-post-covid-birthday\/","url_meta":{"origin":12249,"position":4},"title":"My (post) Covid birthday","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"July 14, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"I\u2019ve sometimes imagined I would throw a big party when I turn sixty, the kind of party I used to throw in my twenties, when there was plenty to celebrate and plenty of people to celebrate with. (One of those was the \u2018End of the World party\u2019, which tells you\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Manifestos & auguries"","block_context":{"text":"Manifestos & auguries","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/manifestos-and-auguries\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2022\/07\/scan2000008.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2022\/07\/scan2000008.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/files\/2022\/07\/scan2000008.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":12628,"url":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/2022\/07\/29\/readings-on-ecofascism-and-far-right-ecologism\/","url_meta":{"origin":12249,"position":5},"title":"Readings on ecofascism and far-right ecologism","author":"Adrian J Ivakhiv","date":"July 29, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"While it's easy to overuse the term \"ecofascism,\" applying it to things that don't necessarily deserve it (the debate might be a little like the one I've been following over whether Putinist Russia qualifies as fascist), it's important for anyone involved in environmental issues to have a sense of where\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Eco-culture"","block_context":{"text":"Eco-culture","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/category\/ecoculture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/EcQmYSeE4rc\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12249"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12258,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12249\/revisions\/12258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/aivakhiv\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}