Sleep is one of the most important aspects of our lives, yet also the least understood. Compared to the drives for food, drink, and reproduction, understanding the purpose of sleep is much more difficult and demanding. Dreaming creates a virtual reality space where the brain combines past and present knowledge, inspiring our creativity. Dreams have fascinated philosophers and artists for centuries. They were perceived as divine messages and, since the rise of psychoanalysis in the 19th century, have been the key to understanding our subconscious. The first recorded description of an artist’s personal dream in Western art is Albrecht Dürer’s “Dream Vision” (1525). This watercolor, seemingly hastily applied after waking, depicts a deluge of water descending upon him from the sky. However, Dürer’s personal depiction is a notable exception. Although the Renaissance encouraged ancient philosophy’s interest in dream studies, it clashed with the dominant Christian ideology, which disapproved of pagan interpretations. Most dream images were biblical in nature. Dreams as themes in painting largely fell out of favor during the rational Age of Enlightenment, but in the 18th century, one of the most famous depictions of a dream, Henry Fuseli’s “The Nightmare” (1781), emerged. This painting still resists interpretation, although some see it as a precursor to Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theories. In the dreamlike scenes filled with unease by Giorgio de Chirico or the surreal images, collages, or multimedia works of Max Ernst, dreams take the form of puzzles that challenge the viewer’s perception of reality. The primary inspiration for Surrealism stemmed from Freud’s “Interpretation of Dreams.” According to Freud, dreams are expressions of hidden desires distorted by self-censorship into images that make no sense to the dreamer upon waking. He believed that interpreting their hidden meanings through psychoanalysis could cure the patient of whatever troubles them. Unlike Surrealist paintings, where the dreamer is usually not depicted and the viewer directly faces the inner logic of the dream, my works created over the past year and inspired by this theme focus on the figure of a sleeping person. Through visual representations of the sleeping, with minimal detail, simple compositions, and calm color palettes, I attempted to convey an atmosphere of tranquility and carefreeness to the viewer. As the stressful and fast-paced lifestyle of modern man directly reflects on the quality of sleep, this series of paintings and drawings highlights the importance of this unconscious (and somewhat neglected) state in our lives. Although sleep has fascinated people for centuries and is the subject of constant research by many scientific disciplines, its physiological functions are not entirely known and largely fall under hypotheses, even though humans spend approximately onethird of their lives sleeping. Ultimately, this series of paintings and drawings is not just an artistic exploration of the theme of sleep but also a reminder that through dreams we can temporarily distance ourselves from harsh reality and free ourselves from the shackles of other people, situations, or circumstances that hold us back. Dreams can offer us hope that we can at least temporarily overcome the limitations we face in difficult situations in everyday life. Petar Mošić, Beograd, 2024.