Frozen
When I was a child I had a recurring experience which was too real to write off as "just a dream." Often these incidents would come after a particularly strange dream. I would wake up from the dream but be unable to move or breathe, and while I was lying "awake" in this paralyzed state I would continue to see pieces of the dream played out in my bedroom. The paralysis and hallucinations would only last for a few minutes; sometimes I would manage to fall back asleep, other times I was able to wake fully from the experience. My sister would often describe something similar, and for years we attributed to the particular room this happened in, writing it off as "haunted."
As an adult I learned about a phenomenon called "sleep paralysis." Sleep paralysis is a condition characterized by temporary paralysis before and after sleep accompanied often by hallucinations. I was struck by how similar people's experiences were - hallucinations often centered around a malevolent presence either in the room or seated on one's chest, which accounts for the inability to breathe.
Sleep paralysis often plagues people during their childhood and goes away when they reach adulthood. This was the case with both my sister and me, and it was interesting to read an explanation for something we had attributed to a haunting. Our response was common - many UFO or ghost stories grow out of sleep paralysis incidents.
In "Frozen" I created clay masks from a plaster cast of my face (a terrifying experience in itself). Two of the masks were sculpted to represent my own experiences with this phenomenon, which often centered around my body being taken over and transformed into something else. One mask showed the face covered partially in branches, the other illustrated a face being taken over by a mechanical, metallic construction. The third mask was kept white and used as a projection surface. The video projection was a woman recounting experiences with sleep paralysis. The moving image on top of the "frozen" white mask illustrated the feeling of being alive under the paralyzed exterior.
Henry Fuseli's "The Nightmare," believed to be inspired by sleep paralysis.
special thanks to Jessica Kincer, Grace Bedard, & Lisa Haynes for their help on this piece