Shana Nys Dambrot signing books at Chungking Studio
[Shana Nys Dambrot](https://www.instagram.com/shananys/?hl=en) debuts _Zen Psychosis,_ her project containing not fiction but a personal memoir of dreams. The Los Angeles-based art critic, curator, and now author has taken scenes from her unconscious and transposed them into something tangible and inventive. Inspired by Carl Jung and his theories on psychoanalysis, Dambrot is compelled to decipher the meanings of her dreams using Jung’s same technique applying it to her inner self. The 172 paged experimental fiction novel is accompanied by [Osceola Refetoff’s](https://instagram.com/ospix/) surreal pinhole photographs. Collectively, the duo brings the idea of the abstract to something more concrete with their visual depiction of dreams. Below we spoke with Shana about Jung, dreams, and the intangible.
**What inspired you to write _Zen Psychosis?_ What was your vision for this project?**
It’s funny because at the time it felt like a natural, spontaneous experiment. I wanted to see if I could write as an author, rather than an art critic. And I’ve always been interested in dream interpretation. I’ve often said that if I weren’t a critic I’d be a psychoanalyst, and I think it’s actually quite a similar job -- decoding intentions, looking into deeper meaning, confronting paradox, honoring the role of the subconscious, tapping into cultural archetypes, de/constructing identity, operating at the border of self and other… Anyway, a confluence of events prompted me to keep a dream journal, and then one day I sort of realized/wondered whether it could function as a memoir, and whether when it comes to telling the truth about one’s life, whether a record of one’s dreams could be just as accurate as a conscious construction. I thought, well, let’s find out!
**How was Henry Miller’s “Into the Nightlife: A Coney Island of the Mind” of _Black Spring_ a catalyst of _Zen Psychosis?_**
This short story collection is a gorgeous volume of scenic narrative vignettes from Miller’s life in Paris and the surrounding countryside. It’s introspective, edgy, sensual, daily life kind of stuff. Then right in the middle, with no warning, he drops this story and about a page and a half in, you realize it’s a dream. Not because he says so or is in anyway odd in his tone. Rather because he continues with the usual raspy matter of fact poetry of his voice, even when the laws of physics and time start to fall apart. It took my breath away. That’s when I started writing my dreams down. It wasn’t long before I recognized Miller was right -- they’re the same as things that happen to us in waking life, revealing/making us who we are.
**Why do you think we dream? What do you believe our dreams tells us?**
My experience is that we dream for two main, related reasons. One is to give the subconscious mind a chance to process and sort the events of the day and overall passages of your life, not unlike how the physical body heals during sleep. The other is to then send its findings, messages, insights, and visions back toward the conscious mind, to be interpreted, understood, claimed, and used in our lives, with intention.
**How would you describe the relationship between experience and imagination?**
I think the question lies partly in the realm of interpretation -- to not only receive but actively engage with experiences, to make every effort to understand their meaning and their impact on you, both in the moment and maybe days or decades later. This requires imagination, or at least, open-mindedness.
**How has Carl Jung inspired what you believe about symbols and clues in our dreams?**
His work first understanding how much it was possible to learn from dreams as the voice of the subconscious mind, then researching and collating the symbolism of the collective unconscious to identify archetypes that connect humanity for millennia -- it’s powerful stuff.
**How did you go about collaborating with Osceola Refetoff?**
The photographer Osceola Refetoff is my partner, but here’s where Jung’s theory of Synchronicity really comes into play… We’ve been together for about six years. I wrote this book about 15 years ago. The portfolio of pinhole exposures which accompany the text were largely made about ten years ago. It was after we met that we realized we each had these pieces of work which also belonged together. I’m a critic who had never published literature; he’s known as a landscape photographer in a twist on classical/WPA-era resource and land-use idioms. Each of our parts of _Zen Psychosis_ represent something we’re not known for, but that means a lot to us. Now, they have this new life together. It’s a dream come true, pun intended.
**How was your experience collectively depicting something so surreal, intangible, and idiosyncratic as dreams with Refetoff?**
So for me, as inspired by Miller, the idea is that dreams don’t announce themselves as being odd, they present as normal and proceed to go off the map. Refetoff got his MFA in film from NYU, and even way back then was deeply interested in the aesthetic motifs and choices about how dreams are represented in film. Similarly to my thinking, he noted that while dreams themselves look normal, film and television had developed a visual shorthand -- black and white or supersaturated palette, soft focus, motion blur -- to let people know they were looking at a dream or a memory. He too wondered how one could replicate that, and his work in pinhole exposures examines that dynamic; it may look like a dream, but it’s photography, which means it’s all true.
**What do you hope readers will take away after finishing?**
That when it comes to what makes us who we are, everything matters. And that we have the answers to all our questions within us, if we pay attention.
**How has being an art critic affected the process of creating _Zen Psychosis?_**
Well, I’ve been interpreting signs and symbols and trying to figure out “what things mean” for 30 years in art history school and then my work as a critic, so that’s my happy place. But I’d say that art has offered an important key to its main thesis, and that is the power of art to express and contain paradox. So when folks ask me if it’s autobiography or fiction, I can say it’s both and neither, because that’s what art can do.
**Do you find that writing about dreams or reality is easier?**
I reject the premise of your question. \[smiley face\] \[heart\]
**What has been your most memorable dream? And how has it impacted your reality?**
I’ve had several recurring dreams at various periods, but one interesting thing is that there’s this one town, a seaside town like you’d find in Wales or Greece, coastal with rock walls and amazing boardwalks, ocean views, but not too picturesque; and every couple of years, I have a dream that takes me to that place and I immediately (in the dream) recognize that it’s the place from the other dreams, and that the story is about to continue. I’m always lucid/conscious for what happens in this city. What transpires there has meant a lot to me over the years. I can’t wait to return.
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