The Endemic Dream presents YOU - A 12 City Event

The Endemic Dream is an international scientific dream experiment, intended to culminate in a quantifiable result.

We know very little about the actual mechanisms behind our dreams. We are puzzled by complex and eerie stories that unfold in our minds at night, without our knowledge or consent. From where inside us do these images, emotions, ideas, and events that we have never encountered originate?

Carl Jung called this place the collective unconscious; I am looking to quantify one method of its collection. I believe part of the answer may lie in the scent trail.

No one knows how long a dog can track something in a forest. Some scenthound trainers claim their dogs can follow a trail for up to a year, assuming conditions are wet enough. Why would conditions need to be wet for your trail to be detectable? It is because the pieces of yourself that you leave behind live independently of your body, and need water to survive.

The scent trail carries with it information of which we are consciously unaware, information that our bodies use in ways we are far from understanding. I believe that everywhere we go, we leave much more than a way to be found if we are missing. We leave thoughts, ideas, and dreams behind that other people and animals are able to interpret by various methods.

We accept foreign thoughts and images as random accumulations, information our minds piece together from things we have already learned. I am proposing a different hypothesis, that these foreign concepts appearing in our dreams [sights, smells, sounds, tastes, knowledge and emotions we have not experienced in waking life] are in part comprised of information we have contracted from other people and places. Just as a virus may not always express itself immediately following contraction, the information we accumulate (through sensory experience and contagion) might not express itself immediately as an element in your dreams. It may take time to interpret the results of this study.

I am in collection phase, and as this is a social experiment, I am conducting an event to elicit a maximum number of participants. Please come down to Artlandish Gallery on 1019 E. Walnut St. on Wednesday, October 28th of 2009, from 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., and attend the reception of the Endemic Dream, which is the beginning of the study.

In Columbia, Missouri we are in a unique position to send our dreams out into the world. Please come participate and share a part of your psyche with 12 cities across the United States and Canada. Make sure to contact friends and relatives living in the following cities, and ask them to meet you in the dream world:

-Columbia, MO at Cafe Berlin
-St. Louis, MO at Coffee Cartel in the West End
-Overland Park, KS at PaintGlazeFire Cafe
-Murray, KY at Terrapin Station
-Los Angeles, CA at Cafe Collage in Venice
-Boise, ID at Shangri-La Teahouse
-Red Oak, IA at the Public Library
-Portland, OR at Northstar Coffeehouse
-Salt Lake City, UT at Centered City Yoga on 918 East 900 South
-Denver, CO at Isis Metaphysical Books and Gifts
-Kingston, Ontario, Canada at The Mansion
-Watch for the traveling poster at musical events across the country