Liminal Dreaming is a method of working with hypnagogia and hypnompompia, those floaty and sometimes uncanny trance states we pass through as we fall into sleep at night and climb towards waking in the morning. Such hypnagogic and hypnopompic visions—together called hypnoidal dreams—surf the line of consciousness, and they also emerge during delicious naps and delirious fatigue. My interest in liminal dreaming arises from my own incredible...

Urban Dreamscape: SF is a practice, a meditation on mapping, a psychogeographical research that breaks down divisions between internal and external spaces. It is a means of creating sacred space in the city. Through the practice, I explore the inner psychic spaces of my dream world, superimposing this intimate realm on top of the urban neighborhood in which I live. I developed the Urban Dreamscape during a steamy New York City summer more than a...

It’s midnight in a warehouse space in downtown Los Angeles. Instead of bouncing to a DJ, a couple dozen strangers snuggle down into sleeping bags piled and prepare to listen to a different sort of music. Somnium is a seven-and-a-half-hour composition by Robert Rich, specifically designed to optimize the dream experience. I hit play and climb into my own cozy nest. At the same moment, people around the world do the same, preparing to listen to the track in their own bedrooms. Tonight, we’re an intimately connected community of dreamers.

On a sweltering, sweaty day in June of 1993, I strolled down St. Mark's Avenue with my mind on a dream from the night before. I had some form of this dream regularly, still do, actually. It's annoying. In the dream, I discovered I'd never actually finished my B.A. and had to go back to university and live in the dorms for one more semester. As I walked and remembered, I happened to look up and notice an unusual relief carving of a family crest or shield on the pointy peak of a roof. It stopped me stock still. Even though I passed that way almost daily, I'd never noticed it before. And then the idea, the kernel of thought that turned into a practice. It felt like sudden revelation, though in retrospect I see how many books, reflections, and other practices funneled into the moment. Who knows how new ideas form. But in that second I perceived something very important: The best way to live in a sacred place is to make the place where you live sacred. I began that process then and there by mentally superimposing my dream onto the architectural feature I'd just noticed.

In my dream world, I had created alternate versions of places I know well and then juxtaposed them to create consistent settings, places I revisited so often that my dreaming self knew the layout as well as this waking me knows my neighborhood.