Analyze films and dreams side by side to uncover shared symbolic languages that evoke emotion, insight, and deeper understanding of the human experience
- In-person
- Duration: 6 Weeks
- Day of the Week: Thursdays
- Date: September 17th to October 22nd 2026
- Time: 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
- In-person on campus at the University of St. Michael’s College in the University of Toronto, room TBD
- $345.00 (includes HST & materials)
This course explores the intersectionality between dreams and cinema as it pertains to symbolic images moving in time. While filmmaking is a human-made storytelling device, dreaming is a spontaneous human phenomenon described across cultures as a spiritual message delivery system. As such, great films and dreams invite analysis and interpretation by oneself or exploration with others.
Through lectures, film screenings, guided discussions and workshops, this interdisciplinary course engages participants in the power of dreams and the moving image through the lens of history, literature, psychoanalysis and film studies.
Learning Outcomes
In this course, you will:
- Conceptualize dreaming and filmmaking and viewing as related “activities” rooted in meaning-making.
- Discuss the history of dream interpretation and its role in human society.
- Analyze film works in conjunction with the symbolic language of dreams.
- Develop a practice of dream awareness to improve one’s understanding of impactful storytelling.
Week 1: Dreams, Symbols and the Cinematic Experience
What is dreaming? An overview in science, literature and religion contrasted with movie making and viewing. We also explore the language of symbols and archetypes through interdisciplinary Swiss psychologist Carl Jung’s work.
Week 2: Moving Images in the Ancient World
We learn about the rich oneiric culture of ancient Mesopotamia, the first civilization to develop dream divination and a complex understanding of time.
Week 3: Universal Storytelling
Filmmaking technology has become accessible to all, but not everyone can tell a story that resonates. We investigate how impactful dreams and music videos can reveal universal truths about the human condition.
Week 4: Film Analysis, Dream Analysis
Dreams, like movies, have genres – which are based on elicited emotions. We explore interpretation as meaning-making and as memory practice.
Week 5: Eyes Wide Open
American director Stanley Kubrick mastered the art of symbolism in his dream-like films. We view parts of “2001: A Space Odyssey” and analyze its meaning.
Week 6: AI and the Future of the Moving Image
Could dreams and the moving image be converging in neural networks of the collective conscious? We assess the future of the moving image with “artificial intelligence”.
About the Instructor
Hala Alsalman, M. Fine Arts
Hala Alsalaman is an interdisciplinary artist and filmmaker with a strong background in journalism. For almost two decades, she worked in the media across North America and the Middle East in English, French and Arabic. Her fiction films have screened at international festivals including the Rendez-Vous du Cinéma Québécois, Newport Beach, Venice, Busan and Cairo film festivals. As an educator, Hala has given filmmaking presentations and workshops at OCAD University, VCU, NYU and with the British Council in Baghdad.
Hala holds a BA in Communication Studies from Concordia University and an SSHRC-funded MFA from OCAD University. Her master’s thesis proposes dreaming as a vehicle for time travel within the context of ancient Mesoptamian history and scholarship, presented in an art exhibit that combined cinema and ceramics. This course draws from her thesis research as well as her international experience in filmmaking.
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