after The Garden of Forking Paths
Yuko Shiraishi — 2024
after The Garden of Forking Paths is a project inspired by a dream that emerged as a
prophetic message.
Over the past two years, I had been invited to solo exhibitions in gallery spaces in both London and Tokyo, yet I was uncertain about what to do. Then, one night this January, two images vividly appeared to me in my sleep: one representing the space in London, and the other in Tokyo. They appeared to me during REM sleep.
I have always been fascinated by dreams, or the relationship between dreams and the functioning of the brain.
As an extension of my ongoing project, Imaginary Architecture, The Garden of Forking Path evolved from dream into reality.
I spoke of “prophetic messages” from dreams because in ancient Egyptian, Greek mythology, as well as Japanese folklore and mythology, they were often regarded as divine or otherworldly messages.
I often find resonance with the writings of the Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges, particularly in his reflections on dreams:
All this the dreamer sees in a single glance, in the same way that God, from His vast eternity, sees the whole cosmic process. And what happens when we wake? What happens is that, as we are accustomed to a sequential life, we give a narrative structure to our dream, though our dream has been multiple and simultaneous.
Nightmare, Jorge Luis Borges
Borges’ stories often take us into worlds of multiverses and parallel universes. The title of my project is derived from one of his short story collections.
I knew that the emotional regions of the brain are up to 30 percent more active during REM sleep than when we are awake. And we utilize areas of the brain that remain dormant during wakefulness.
All living beings, even fruit flies, experience sleep.
Could it be that we are indeed receiving messages from somewhere else?