Hotel Room #2
Hotel Room #2: Communal Dreams transforms the MIT Museum into a living dream laboratory. Created by artist Carsten Höller, dream scientist and DUST co-founder Adam Haar, and MIT Museum Studio director Seth Riskin, the installation invites three participants at a time to fall asleep inside a sculptural environment where pulses of light, sound, and motion guide their dreams.
Drawing on breakthrough research from MIT Media Lab and Harvard Medical School showing that dreams can be shaped in real time, the piece turns sleep itself into an artwork — a shared theater of the mind where perception extends beyond waking life.
Inside the work, sleepers experience subtle rhythms of red light, overhead motion, and whispered sound designed to steer dreams toward movement and connection. These sensory cues are based on cutting-edge Dream Engineering methods that communicate directly with the unconscious mind. Research shows that in the sleep-onset stage (known as NREM1) the brain remains open to external stimuli even as dreams begin, and Targeted Dream Incubation can guide 92% of subjects to dream of a particular, chosen theme.
CAD prototype of the installation
Premiering as part of the MIT Museum’s exhibition Lighten Up! On Biology and Time, the piece continues Höller’s exploration of perception, consciousness, and sleep. Following the celebrated Dream Hotel Room #1 at Fondation Beyeler and LUMA Arles, which guided museum visitors to dream of flying, Hotel Room #2: Communal Dreams invites visitors to move beyond looking at art;
Rather than simply witnessing, participants become both the subject and the site of investigation. The result is both intimate and collective: dreamers begin to share imagery and sensations, entering fragments of a communal dream that blurs the line between self and other, art and neuroscience, science and imagination. producing emergent threads of collective imagery.
Hotel Room #1: Flying Bed at Fondation Beyeler and LUMA Arles.
Results
Please submit your dreams if you would like them to join our collection of Dream Hotel Room reports. This is of course entirely voluntary.
Dream Incubation at Home
To keep incubating dreams at home, try the DUST mobile app. Developed by MIT dream researchers, this app enables Targeted Dream Incubation, Lucid Dreaming and Targeted Memory Reactivation. Sign up to be a beta tester
About the MIT Museum
The MIT Museum aims to connect curious minds to MIT’s unique culture of problem-solving and playful creativity, bringing together science, technology, art and design in surprising ways to explore our future.
“How does the rhythm of day and night affect our bodies and those of other living creatures? Why do we sleep? Why do we dream? Like the rising and falling tides, circadian rhythms punctuate our lives and the lives of all living organisms, profoundly influencing our behavior and health. By considering the nature of biological time, the exhibition Lighten Up! brings artists, architects and chronobiologists together to explore the nature of circadian rhythms in a series of artistic experiments and installations posing fundamental questions about the rhythms that define our lives. We are thrilled to partner with the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland on showing this major exhibition Lighten Up! at the MIT Museum.” Shared Michael John Gorman, The Mark R. Epstein (Class of 1963) Director, MIT Museum.
In addition to exhibitions, programs, a maker hub and learning labs, the museum invites visitors to take part in on-going research while demonstrating how science and innovation will shape the future of society. In October 2022, a reinvented MIT Museum opened in a new location in the heart of Kendall Square in Cambridge, MA.
The MIT Museum is open daily 10 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Address: MIT Museum, Gambrill Center, 314 Main Street (MIT Building E28), Cambridge, MA 02142.
Press Inquiries:
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carstenholler@purplepr.com
