The Guardians of Sleep

A teaser of the first season of The Guardians of Sleep, which investigates how the Covid-19 pandemic has affected the dream life of people living in the British capital.

Produced in partnership with the Museum of London (UK) and the Department of Psychosocial Studies at Birkbeck, University of London.

Hosted by Sharon Sliwinski and edited by Erin MacIndoe Sproule, with music by Andrew Braun.

In this episode we hear from Pinny, a documentary filmmaker, and her 9-year-old daughter, Iris. Mother and daughter share the ability to lucid dream.

This episode is part of larger project investigating how the Covid-19 pandemic has affected the dream-life of people living in the British capital, which was developed in partnership with the Museum of London (UK) and the Department of Psychosocial Studies at Birkbeck, University of London.

Hosted by Sharon Sliwinski and edited by Erin MacIndoe Sproule with music by Andrew Braun.

In this final episode of our first season, we present some of our concluding thoughts about how dreaming served as a mental resource during the Covid-19 pandemic. Topics include how dreams return us to early childhood memories, how they draw on shared cultural material, and symbolically shape new experiences.

This episode is the last in a larger project investigating how the pandemic has affected the dream-life of people living in the British capital, which was developed in partnership with the Museum of London (UK) and the Department of Psychosocial Studies at Birkbeck, University of London.

Hosted by Sharon Sliwinski and edited by Erin MacIndoe Sproule with music by Andrew Braun.

Have you ever wondered why—and when—dreams stopped being treated as an important source of knowledge in Western societies?

In this episode, host Sharon Sliwinski speaks with Edward McGushin, Professor of Philosophy at Stonehill College, about how dreaming became devalued during the Age of Reason. McGushin discusses the influence of René Descartes’s philosophy as well as the French historian, Michel Foucault, who revived the importance of dream life in his own late work. Foucault returned to the ancient idea of dreaming as a privileged ethical disclosure that holds a special relation to truth.

Season 2 of Guardians of Sleep is written and hosted by Sharon Sliwinski and edited by Erin MacIndoe Sproule, Mikayla Gallo, and Victoria Li, with music by Andrew Braun.

This episode features Abigail Echo-Hawk, an international leader in Indigenous public health research and the decolonization of data.

In this episode, Echo-Hawk speaks with Dr. Sofia Locklear about how her trailblazing work on Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls was inspired by a dream.

A member of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma, Echo-Hawk is the Executive Vice President at Seattle Indian Health Board and the Director of the Urban Indian Health Institute.

This season of Guardians of Sleep is written and hosted by Sharon Sliwinski and edited by Erin MacIndoe Sproule, Mikayla Gallo, and Victoria Li, with music by Andrew Braun.