florian mueller simulates a dazed dreamer in a surreal, sleeping state

‘exploring dreams has always fascinated me,’ photographer florian w. mueller professes. ‘especially the dreams in which one has the impression that it could be a dream, but is not sure — just this feeling that something is wrong.’

with this in mind, mueller has investigated a specific aspect of sleep in his latest iteration of a project that has been ongoing for more than a year — REM. rapid eye movement is a unique phase of sleep characterized by irregular motion of the eyes, low muscle tone throughout the body, and the inclination of the sleeper to dream vividly.

as part of the ongoing ‘REM’ project, mueller envisions an environment that is at once familiar and surreal. a densely forested landscape is seemingly ordinary, aside from a few irregular elements that would indicate to a dreamer that they were in a sleeping state. ‘the environment is not uncommon, there is no foreign body present, but something is wrong,’ mueller describes. digitally manipulated photographs of nature — barks, trunks, and overgrown vegetation — have been deliberately altered to appear out of the ordinary. floating pieces of dismembered trees float amongst the landscape, hovering between earth and sky, reality and delusion. 

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