Dreams Come True

From exploring personal dreams, to creating virtual fantasies, escapism is a theme that art makers, designers and consumers are looking to experience, evoke and explore.

VR is becoming a space for artists to create immersive environments beyond reality. Dotdotdot recently created Somnai, an event that lets participants lucid dream and access their subconscious. Promising to ‘Awaken all your human senses’ through layered experience, you can control your dreams while in a semi-conscious state.

Creating a dream-like landscape needs multi-sensory stimulation, with tech often playing a crucial role. In May, a sensory pop-up called ‘The Oddly Satisfying Spa’ offered treatments recreating ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response) internet content trends. Satisfying sonic enthusiasts proved be a prominent pop-up, gaining traction among millenials and gen alpha.  

Visually dream-like store interiors use touch points such as overlay, patterns and pastel colour schemes, creating a human and dream like state, accessing an innate familiarity with bio-circularity, which feels immediately intimate. The Celine flagship in Miami, plays on the immersive experience with a fluid blue haze feel.

Artists from all over the world are creating dream inspired work, with Chinese designer Sheng Yin and artist Kai Yi collaborating to create ‘Black Dream’, described as ‘Furniture for the soul’. Musicians have been exploring airy aesthetic with bands like PEAKES, London Grammar and Woman’s Hour all accessing dream like sounds, both musically and visually inducing a listener into a sense of extreme comfort.

In a more literal sense of the term, the V&A will be exploring the relations between Christian Dior and Britain in ‘Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams’. Similarly The Barbican will be exhibiting Daria Martin, ‘Tonight In The World’ which continues to emphasise our obsession with identity, looking at how the dreams and memories of her history create a portrait of loss and resilience. With the opening of these upcoming exhibitions, February is sure to inspire more dream-like conceptions.

• The advancement of tech will allow artists and designers to recreate and envision multi-sensory experiences allowing consumers to experience a unique dreamscape.
• Reconnecting with identity will help us understand how dreams have expanded and changed, enabling us to inform new ones. Brands should harness this curiosity and help connect a consumer to their own personal identity.
• Retail should explore how to create stores that feel otherworldly, in order for consumers to feel connect to a brand’s unique identity and imagination.

• ‘Dreams money can buy’ // Retail must enter the world of dreams
• Retail’s Curiosity Craze