The Twin Within: Dreaming and Intuition

Room: Information Commons Room 6, 1st Floor

While working on a research film about dreaming in South Africa and having my dreams interpreted by traditional healers, I learned that within Zulu culture, there is a belief that each child is born with an ancestral twin. At birth a ritual is performed in acknowledgment of this metaphysical entity and it is believed that is this twin will influence ones interaction with the outer world and guard one during difficult times for duration of ones life. This twin can be looked one’s intuitive self, and is said to be encountered in dreams. Join me in conversation about dreams and how to sharpen our intuitive instincts by acknowledging the twin within. 

Alisa Minyukova is a Russian born artist, researcher and educator based in Brooklyn, New York. She is co-creator of the Dream Mapping Project which works to bridge dream science with the creative process resulting in an ongoing series of collaborative art, film and performance works. Her drawings, film and mixed media installations explore Slavic and Jewish mythology, symbols of the collective unconscious and that which is caste out of awareness. Her research covers the topics of memories, dreams, emigration, heritage and the loss thereof and the exploration of the human condition by way of ancestral memory. Her current creative focus is on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the collective memory of war.