Hypnagogia is a series inspired by the idea of the hypnagogic state. The term hypnagogia was coined by Alfred Maury to describe the state between wakefulness and sleep. Hypnagogia can often produce fleeting, fragmented visions prior to sleep. Psychoanalyst Herbert Silberer described one of the processes of Hypnagogia as “autosymbolism”; a loosening of the ego which turns subconscious abstract ideas into tangible images. This fleeting state has been recognized for hundreds of years as a source of creative thought and intuition by a long list of philosophers, artists, and scientists.

I have used visual doubling and in-camera image splitting to visually depict the sometimes opposing aspects of the psyche. They are the images that I envision appearing briefly, like a flash of lightening, before disappearing into the black wall of the subconscious.

The effects for this series were created in-camera using various reflective surfaces, handmade magnifiers, reflectors, screens, projectors and other in-camera distortion techniques. Several of the images were shot and then reshot through handmade distortion devices.