As we retire to slumber at the end of the day, the mind travels to another space – to an an untapped land in the cosmos of dreams where we lose all commands on our identity. The unconscious mind, which has the ability to transform symbols into events, comes into play. Dreams transpose minute perceptions into intense sensations. Beautiful or appalling, every dream is personal and in its own way extraordinary. They provide us the opportunity to move away from habitual stereotypes; they concede us to caress those rims, play with those senses and feelings which we would not normally gamble into cognisance.
We come face to face with our lives every day, from daybreak to darkness and beyond. Life is crammed with emotions and anticipations which we have no choice but to experience. Some of these things make our life happier, some fail to do so. Regardless, we accept these events and move on.
From the point of view of science, dreams are formed by a series of emotions, images and sensations that enter the mind during some specific stages of sleep. Although the content and the purpose of dreams are not fully understood, they are a topic of scientific speculation, as well as a subject of philosophical and religious interest. Sigmund Freud’s theory of dreams suggested that dreams were a representation of unconscious desires, thoughts and motivations. In his famous book The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud wrote that dreams are “…disguised fulfilments of repressed wishes.”
To me dreams are a gateway to my unconscious. The events in dreams are mostly outside of ones control and that is what excites me about them so much. When I decided to document my dreams through photography, I went through the series of dreams which visit me the most often, or the ones I am able to recollect more clearly. This series of photographs was mostly taken in a closed room and I have used myself as the model. There are some good dreams and there are some bad ones. I think and hope that although these dreams are highly personal the viewer may be able to find a common link with some of their own dreams. In a way these are my Netherworld Delusions.
Anindya Chakraborty is a self taught photographer from Kolkata.