You will need to complete a pre-booking form here before booking this experience.
![A group of people in a semicircle of reclined seating lie back with their eyes shut, with a large glowing light above them.](https://edinburgh-festival.transforms.svdcdn.com/production/Images/Whats-On/Event-Images/Event-Images-2022/Dreamachine-David-Levene.jpg?w=600&h=180&q=100&auto=format&fit=crop&crop=focalpoint&fp-x=0.4844&fp-y=0.7334&dm=1700557082&s=496feae03015a901161aeb4e59ceaf58)
Dreamachine: High Sensory (Relaxed)
A relaxed Dreamachine: High Sensory journey designed to make the experience more welcoming for anyone who would benefit from a more informal setting.
These sessions are for anyone who would benefit from a more informal setting where audiences members are free to make noise, move around, and enter and exit the experience whenever needed. This may include those with dementia, a movement disorder, anxiety, Tourette’s, bowel and bladder conditions, an autism spectrum condition, or a learning disability.
Please note – the experience contains fast flashing lights, known as strobe lighting, as well as 360 degree spatial audio. The High Sensory experience is not suitable for pregnant customers, some people with epilepsy or other potential sensitivities to fast flashing lights and loud sounds. Please consider booking for the Deep Listening relaxed experience if you have any of these sensitivities.
Sit back.
Get comfortable
Close your eyes…
Dreamachine is an immersive experience like no other. Join us on a once-in-a-lifetime journey to explore the extraordinary potential of your own mind.
This powerful new kind of collective experience will come from within, conjured entirely by light and music. The colourful world of the Dreamachine will unfold behind your closed eyes – created by your own brain and completely unique to you.
What will you see? How will you feel? Only you will know because every experience of the Dreamachine will be completely personal. You might see patterns and shapes, cities and landscapes, or abstract waves of shifting colours. It might feel like a rollercoaster ride, or a journey through time and space.
Dreamachine has been created by a team of leading minds in architecture, technology, music, neuroscience, and philosophy, including Turner Prize-winning collective Assemble and Grammy and Mercury nominated composer Jon Hopkins.
It's inspired by an extraordinary 1959 invention by artist Brion Gysin, described as the ‘first artwork to be experienced with your eyes closed’. Now, over 60 years later, the 21st-century Dreamachine has been radically re-imagined into a seated, multisensory experience with an immersive lightscape and 360 degree spatial sound.
Like a modern kind of campfire, you’ll share your Dreamachine journey with a group of up to 32 people at a time. After your experience, you’ll be invited to reflect on what you saw, what you heard and how you felt, by yourself or with others.
Join us on a magical journey into the extraordinary potential of your own mind.
Please complete a pre-booking form here before booking this experience.
There are two versions of the Dreamachine relaxed experience:
High Sensory
The High Sensory experience contains fast flashing bright lights, known as strobe lighting, and 360 degree spatial audio that has been used to create a deeply immersive experience. For many people, the effects of the lights and the music will generate colourful patterns and visuals behind your closed eyes.
Please note that the High Sensory experience itself has not been adapted – the experience contains fast flashing bright lights, known as strobe lighting, and 360 degree spatial audio that has been used to create a deeply immersive experience. For many people the effects of the lights and the music will generate colourful patterns and visuals behind your closed eyes. For people sensitive to loud music, ear defenders or ear plugs can be provided
Please complete a pre-booking form here before booking this experience.
Deep Listening
The Deep Listening experience has been designed to make the experience as accessible as possible to those who may have sensitivities to strobe lighting or high sensory environments. It is an immersive 360 degree spatial audio experience, with a gentle lightscape. It does not contain fast flashing lights. Find out more and book the Deep Listening relaxed experience.
Image gallery
A gallery carousel of 6 items
![Two silhouetted figures walk through a large doorway into a darkly lit tunnel](https://edinburgh-festival.transforms.svdcdn.com/production/Images/Whats-On/Event-Images/Event-Images-2022/Dreamachine-Urszula-Soltys.jpg?w=600&h=358&q=100&auto=format&fit=crop&dm=1700557081&s=9d7d20a6fd1834a9404f2b186be1ac7d)
Walking into the Dreamachine
© 2022 Credit : Urszula Soltys![A row of reclined people lie back with their eyes closed and hands folded over their stomachs, with one woman's smiling face in focus.](https://edinburgh-festival.transforms.svdcdn.com/production/Images/Whats-On/Event-Images/Event-Images-2022/Dreamachine-reclined.jpg?w=600&h=358&q=100&auto=format&fit=crop&dm=1700557081&s=26f733fb0621d92dca9c9f77e95d6801)
The reclined seating inside the Dreamachine
© 2022 Credit : David Levene![A man sits in the centre of a row of curved seats in an upright position with his arms resting on armrests, gazing up at a bright line shining down onto his face.](https://edinburgh-festival.transforms.svdcdn.com/production/Images/Whats-On/Event-Images/Event-Images-2022/Upright-Seating-Dreamachine-Brenna-Duncan.jpg?w=600&h=358&q=100&auto=format&fit=crop&dm=1700557155&s=e905c48a15b6c68b2d0a888c3007c9df)
The upright seating option inside the Dreamachine, which can be booked online for Access Pass members or by calling the Box Office
© 2022 Credit : Brenna Duncan![A wheelchair pictured next to a row of reclined black seating in a circular space lit from above.](https://edinburgh-festival.transforms.svdcdn.com/production/Images/Whats-On/Event-Images/Event-Images-2022/Wheelchair-Space-Dreamachine-Brenna-Duncan.jpg?w=600&h=358&q=100&auto=format&fit=crop&dm=1700557155&s=101d46288aca084bf830f2f4e3864a38)
A wheelchair space inside the Dreamachine, which can be booked online by Access Pass members or by calling the Box Office
© 2022 Credit : Brenna Duncan![A woman in a white t-shirt and a man in a blue jumper sit at a desk drawing abstract shapes on black pieces of paper](https://edinburgh-festival.transforms.svdcdn.com/production/Images/Whats-On/Event-Images/Event-Images-2022/Dreamachine-drawing-Urszula-Soltys.jpg?w=600&h=358&q=100&auto=format&fit=crop&dm=1700557080&s=3c7fa439f8c333a1608abc0a6328d444)
A chance to draw and reflect on what you saw inside the Dreamachine
© 2022 Credit : Urszula Soltys![A close-up image of a person's hand holding a pastel crayon and sketching out blue shapes on a black piece of paper](https://edinburgh-festival.transforms.svdcdn.com/production/Images/Whats-On/Event-Images/Event-Images-2022/Dreamachine-drawing-David-Levene.jpg?w=600&h=358&q=100&auto=format&fit=crop&dm=1700557082&s=638fad94af3f582166498a8e6735180d)
A chance to draw and reflect on what you saw inside the Dreamachine
© 2022 Credit : David LeveneThis immersive experience has been created by Collective Act, directed by Jennifer Crook, in a unique collaboration with Turner Prize-winning artists Assemble, Grammy® nominated composer Jon Hopkins, leading neuroscientists Professor Anil Seth and Dr David Schwartzman (University of Sussex), philosopher Professor Fiona Macpherson (University of Glasgow), sound designer Christopher Shutt, and technologists Dev Joshi and Holition.
Commissioned as part of UNBOXED: Creativity in the UK, with support from Belfast City Council, EventScotland and Creative Wales.
Photo: Dreamachine
© 2022 David Levene