EREHWON
This aims to document the experiences our bodies react and engage with whilst we are unconscious. Erehwon is nowhere backwards, where is nowhere? Is is a Utopia? Personally, I feel we all have our own Erehwon, it is captured in the storage box that is our brain that plays host to our night time adventures. A collage of past experiences, fears, curiosities, memories, knowledge, information and desires. All gathered in their own enviroments and time periods, composed together creates a wild read, Erehwon.
I am inspired hugely by Mireille Fauchon who created her own Erehwon and
Craig Bogey who had me pick up the pencil again by blowing my mind with his amazing illustrations.
The sleeve that holds the images like an old photo mount. Here some of the text can be seen also, the smaller fold holds my interpretation of 'Dreams.'
These are the images created as a response to different individual's dreams.
On the reverse of each card is the dream in text whilst this side shows an illustration I have created as my own interpretation and vision.
All colour has been applied using a Risograph machine and various colour drums.
About 5 months after my ex committed suicide I ended up having a dream about him. At this point in time my life was in shambles. I was unemployed, I had been kicked out of my dad’s house and my living situation with friends was kind of depressing. I dreamed that I was walking through the woods behind my dad’s house. As I looked around things seemed normal then from what seemed like nowhere my ex comes walking through the tree line to the path that I was on.
I remembered sitting down on a rock in shock and he sat with me. I remember him putting his arms around me, his familiar smell, and hearing his slightly lisped voice. He held me and told me that everything was gonna be alright. I just cried and cried. I told him I didnt know what to do and that I just wanted for all of it to be over to be with him. I remember the sad look on his face after I said that. He said again that everything is going to be alright, held my face and gave me a deep kiss.This was about the time that I woke up, tears streaming down my face and my heart pounding furiously.
I went out later that day to get a pack of cigarettes and a guy ended up asking me out on a date. Two weeks after that I signed up for college and ended up finding a job. Its been almost 3 years since I had that dream and I’m still with the man that asked me out on a random date and have almost completed my college course.
I was in a familiar place, not too far from my home town. There’s the sea, mountains, trees, some houses, everything was pretty accurate. Very picturesque location. I had just dreamt that I was at a store, buying some snacks and putting it in my pocket. I reached down to get it out of the pocket, when I realized that “Hey, it’s not there. What the h..” and then it just dawned on me that I was dreaming for some reason.
Everything was suddenly totally clear, very vivid and shiny, sort of sparkling, slightly similar to the alien scene in the movie Contact. I can feel the warm air on my skin (which of course is not accurate, as it’s never warm there at night), walking around looking at stuff. I walk along the road, down to the shore. The sea is perfectly calm (despite the gentle breeze), reflecting the orange/pink/purple clouds above, lit up by the midnight sun. Suddenly I notice a big butterfly sitting on the sea surface. Weird, that shouldn’t be possible.. I try to grab it, but it flies off, leaving ripples is the surface with little droplets of water dripping from its feet.
I turn around and there’s this white house there with a nice garden. It exists in real life, but I don’t think it’s as well maintained. The tree also has white flowers. I can see from a distance that they are glowing, and so is the house. I feel like checking it out, but instead of walking I simply will myself there, effectively being quickly pulled towards it. It looks incredible close up. I can see the veins in the leafs and petals as if I had a magnifying glass. Perfect detail. And of course everything still has that odd sparkling effect I’m not sure why, but I felt an overpowering sense of happiness during the whole thing, that I’ve never felt in real life. It would probably take some very potent, hallucinogenic drugs to recreate that feeling, but I’m not going there.
Then the lucid dream ended abruptly. My eyes were open, I felt awake, but I was completely paralyzed, on my back. I could feel someone’s hand on top of my left hand, warm and clammy. There were shadows in the ceiling that suddenly took the shape of a face. A bearded man, staring at me. Textbook sleep paralyzis/night terrors. Then gradually I regained control of my limbs and realized that the warm, clammy hand was my right hand.
When I was younger, round 8 or 9, I lost my copy of Pokemon Silver and it basically destroyed me. Then, about 1 year later, I had a dream that I found it out in the garage in a completely random spot. I woke up and sprinted out to the garage at like 3 in the morning and looked in the spot that my dream said it was and I couldn’t believe my eyes. Right there before me was my Silver game. I sat on the floor of the dusty garage and played til breakfast. I was the happiest kid ever that day.
Whenever my dad (who died when I was fourteen) shows up, I know it’s going to be a good dream. I remember one dream specifically where we went duck hunting, which I had never done before. It was just me and him, creeping around a swamp on a crisp fall morning. I don’t remember if we shot anything, but when we got back to the road, and we put the guns back in the car, we just stood there, talking.
By that time I had remember that this must be a dream; my father had died. But I kept talking to him. We talked about girls (something we never really got to do), about guns, and about cars. A few of the things we talked about were actually relevant to current problems of mine. Before he left, he gave me one final hug. It was the same hug he had always given me, this heavyset 6’2” man, and I could smell him again, his deodorant.
We stood there hugging for a while, and I cried. I knew that I could only ever see him in my dreams. He cried, too. I think he knew he was dead. Remembering it was a dream, I closed my eyes tight, held them shut, and when I opened them I was awake (as I often do).
I haven’t had a dream about him since.
This is a recurring dream that I get every couple of months or so, and it usually picks up where it left off and I’m always so pumped to be in this dream. In the dream I’ve somehow gotten a super nice, high-tech apartment in the middle of New York City for really cheap through connections, and basically the dream is me partying with various people I’ve met in my life in my new apartment. It’s always fully stocked with my favourite food and I’m constantly finding people I’ve forgotten about or never see anymore at my party, and everyone’s having such a fun time meeting each other and everyone can speak English fluently (I’ve travelled a fair bit and know people from around the world).
The apartment is huge and has all these weird features that can be accessed from a remote I always have on my person, like light-up floors, a “rain” feature that makes it rain indoors, walls you can write an order on and the food will appear in the kitchen, along with more “normal” things like remote-controlled blinds, tv, music, etc.
I always end up remembering most of it whenever I have this dream, so I must either have it a lot in order to remember some of the times or only have it when I’m near waking. It always gives me this huge feeling of contentment, that I have a nice place to live and lots of friends and food and I’m not broke. It’s really a downer when I wake up and come back to reality.
