A MANUAL ON FALLING AND DREAMING

2026 / Essay and Voice Recording

This essay traces Luxem’s journey of exploring dreams, leading to the creation of the film ON FALLING, which attempts to uncover the structure of dreams and use it as a framework for future artistic work. The concept of falling — both physically and metaphorically — serves as a central motif, illustrating how moments of losing control can radically alter one’s perception of time, self and reality. Through striking personal anecdotes and phenomenological reflection, the essay describes falling as a state of expanded consciousness, wherein sensory experience heightens, time dilates and new modes of interaction emerge. This experience echoes Camus’ Sisyphus and his embrace of absurd struggle, connecting personal transformation to universal philosophical themes.

Falling facilitates emotional, political and metaphysical shifts, ultimately hacking time and allowing for profound empathy and transformation. The essay champions ambiguity as an essential resource — now depleted in current life — and argues that the dream’s structure and openness are vital for reviving it. By observing, listening to and replicating the architecture of dreams and falls, the author envisions a new approach to creativity and living, one that prioritises ambiguity, interconnectedness and long-term thinking as pathways to a more metaphysical and liberated existence.

Antonia Luxem’s essay 'A Manual On Falling And Dreaming' is published by Burley Fisher Community Press. Available to purchase at Burley Fisher Books London.