The researcher Antonio Zadra, who studies sleep disorders and dreams, is now exploring cinema, not only as a sometimes unconscious manifestation of our dreams but also as a language which can make it possible to better understand them.
Sophie Leclair-Tremblay
Why and how do we remember our dreams? How is the content of dreams connected to our waking life? Why do we dream? These are the questions which drive the research of Antonio Zadra, a full professor of psychology and director of the Laboratoire de recherche sur les rêves at the Université de Montréal. The researcher has been interested in dreams since his CEGEP days, an interest that has led him to study not only different types of dreams, such as lucid dreaming and nightmares, but also related sleep disorders, including sleepwalking and night terrors.
More recently, he has turned his attention to cinema, where he and Santiago Hidalgo, director of the cinEXmedia partnership, are leading a vast three-part project.
First, the two professors are exploring the way in which researchers working on dreams use film language to describe them. Antonio Zadra explains, for example, that there are ellipses in dreams, because we don’t remember all the images in them. “We can have a ten-minute dream and have the impression of having experienced a story that stretched over several months”, he says. Cinema accomplishes the same thing. In this way, both cinema and dreams are products of the imagination, or “stories we create and which can take unusual forms”, he adds.
The second part of their project consists in analysing the impact on sleep and dreams of the different kinds of media we consume before going to bed. They are collecting data on the devices we use (mobile telephones, laptop computers, televisions, etc.), on the reasons for using them (such as consulting social media, playing video games or watching films), and the setting in which we use these devices, particularly if we look at these screens while we are actually in bed. In addition, this study by Zadra and Hidalgo seeks to qualify earlier research conclusions on the topic by recognizing that the use of screens before sleeping can also have positive effects, depending on the type of content consumed. Nevertheless, these effects have not yet been determined.
The third and final part of the project consists in showing to participants two very different kinds of films, in terms of their topic, rhythm, dialogue and camerawork, in order to evaluate the different effects of these viewings on participants’ dreams. With many people reporting that their dreams are influenced by the films they watch, the two researchers are attempting to understand what aspect of cinema have an effect on dreams by examining the reason for and means by which this influence is felt from one person to the next. Among other things, they are looking at the interaction between films and the individual’s personality and habits. “Are we engaged by the characters, by the story, by the emotions we experience?”, Zadra wonders. “Sometimes, people experience the same emotion in their dream as that felt watching a film, or they dream about one of the characters, but only this element is taken from the film in question”.
Parasomnias
Generally, Antonio Zadra specializes in research into parasomnias: uncontrollable and undesired experiences or behaviour which occur during sleep. What interests him most is acquiring a better understanding of what happens in the brain when parasomnias are generated, so that he may evaluate them clinically and find effective treatments. He also hopes to observe the impact these disorders can have on well-being and on sleep in general.
Antonio Zadra was deeply affected by a lucid dream he had when he was a CEGEP (senior high school) student. A lucid dream is a dream during which one is conscious of dreaming. He began to read about sleep and about laboratory research into dreams. He then became interested in recording of the brain’s electrical activity during sleep, along with sleep disorders related to dreams, particularly somnambulism and night terrors. His interests then extended to nightmares, lucid dreams, recurring dreams, children’s dreams and more. For a long time he has had a great interest in the things which influence dreams, including artworks, and in the way dreams are depicted in works of literature or cinema.
“All that fascinates me: knowing how dreams and the ideas people have about them influence their artistic vision. Dreams lead us to create fantastic places, characters and worlds”, he concludes.
