Dreaming and wakefulness are two ways of being yourself
The definition of consciousness is harder to pin down than you might think, argues cognitive neuroscientist Elizaveta Solomonova.
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Nadja is one of the co-founders of Massive. She is a science media producer, documentary filmmaker and former research scientist in neuroscience and paleoanthropology.
Massive sat down with Elizaveta Solomonova, a Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Montreal, to talk about the complicated boundaries between different states of consciousness such as dreaming and wakefulness. She views these states as existing on a spectrum of consciousness.
In this beautiful visual rumination on her words by animators Brian Smee and Isabelle Aspin we are transported into dream states and waking nightmares, transposed onto waking realities. Solomonova describes the evolutionary bias that that has emphasized the idea of waking consciousness as more important than dreaming.
"I don't think that waking consciousness and dreaming consciousness are supposed to be in any contradiction, nor do I think that dreaming consciousness has to somehow be subservient or serve a function in order to maintain waking consciousness. I think these are just different qualities of being."
Solomonova is pursuing a degree in Cognitive Neuroscience and Philosophy. Her work is focused on interdisciplinary research of consciousness and experience across wake-sleep states. This animation by Brian Smee and Isabelle Aspin is a visual take on the Massive audio series Condensed Matters.
