Between Sleeping and Waking: Hospital Dreams and Visions - at Bethlem Museum of the Mind

This new exhibition at Bethlem Museum of the Mind provides a fascination and necessary interrogation of the ontological and phenomenological dimensions of dreaming, asserting that the mental processes occurring during sleep, and in liminal states between sleep and wakefulness, are not merely ephemeral fantasies, but substantive psychological events. The curatorial framework rejects the colloquial dismissal of dreams as insignificant, positioning them instead as vital manifestations of shared human experience.

Central to the exhibition is Kate McDonnell’s immersive installation, Night Tides, which renders the somatic and cognitive restlessness of insomnia tangible through sensory evocation. The work embodies fragmented thoughts, nocturnal anxieties, and the whispered introspections that characterize prolonged states of wakefulness, offering viewers an embodied engagement with disordered sleep.

Confronting this installation are historical artworks, drawn from patients of Bethlem Hospital and other sources spanning two centuries, that visualize archetypal dream motifs as identified by sleep science: being pursued, attending school unprepared, or arriving late. These recurring themes function as a collective subconscious lexicon, forging diachronic connections across diverse makers and audiences. The persistence of such motifs affirms a profound commonality within human psychology, transcending temporal, cultural, and psychological difference.

The exhibition further incorporates previously unexhibited archival material, including the dream diaries of the late Dr. Edward Hare, a Maudsley Hospital psychiatrist, and a compelling oneiric drawing by artist William Kurelek. These objects serve as evidentiary and aesthetic testaments to the enduring cultural and clinical fascination with dreaming.

Between Sleeping and Waking thus operates on dual registers: as a meditation on the universality of dream imagery, and as an exploration of sleep’s disruption, inviting reflection on how nightly voyages into the unconscious bind us together in shared vulnerability and imagination.

Venue details