Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Tuesday 22 March
6:30 PM - 7:30 PM
While scientists and philosophers have pondered the question for years, still no one knows why, exactly, we dream. Some say dreams are a way to catalogue our memories, to develop our creative capacity, to train our emotional responses. To dream is to let consciousness and unconsciousness co-exist – but to what end?
As part of our Present Sense series – which explores the mysteries of human consciousness – this panel event takes a look at the science of dreaming and the role of an unchained imagination in making leaps in intelligence.
Host Hilary Harper will be joined by Professor Tom Drummond, Melbourne Connect Chair of Digital Innovation at the University of Melbourne, whose research focuses on machine learning in simulated environments, and Jenny Windt, philosopher at Monash University whose work explores spontaneous thought, for a discussion of just how far our minds can take us when they are allowed to wander.
Presented in partnership with Melbourne Monash Consciousness Research
Featuring
Jennifer Windt
Jennifer Windt is a senior research fellow at the Department of Philosophy and Monash Centre for Consciousness and Contemplative Studies at Monash University.
Through her research, funded by the Australian Research Council, she seeks to understand what our minds do when left to their own devices, for example when we fall asleep and dream, or when our thoughts and attention wander away from ongoing tasks and activities in the here and now. What do we think about and how does experience change when we dream or daydream? How well do we understand the fluctuations in kinds of mental states, but also between conscious and unconscious states in sleep and waking? And how does the ubiquity of spontaneous thoughts change our scientific understanding of sleep and wakefulness?
Jennifer is the author of Dreaming (MIT, 2015), which received the 2018 William James Prize awarded by the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness. She promotes independent, high-quality open access publications that are free of charge for both readers and authors. She co-edited the open access collection Open MIND (also published by MIT in 2016), and is co-founder and editor-in-chief of the open access journal Philosophy and the Mind Sciences.
Tom Drummond
Professor Drummond is the Melbourne Connect Chair of Digital Innovation for Society at the University of Melbourne. Prior to July 2021, he was Head of Department of Electrical and Computer Systems Engineering at Monash University, where he was also Chief Investigator and Monash Node Leader for the ARC Centre of Excellence in Robotic Vision.
His research interests include Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, High Performance Computing and Computer Vision, with a particular emphasis on real-time systems for Augmented Reality, Robotics and Assistive Technologies. He has received the Könderink prize and the ISMAR 10 year impact award for his research and has been awarded ARC and EU Framework research grants totalling in excess of $35M AUD as well as numerous funded industry collaborations.
Hilary Harper
Hilary Harper has a degree in English Literature and Cultural Studies, a Graduate Diploma in Professional Writing and Editing, and 30 years’ experience in radio. She’s been at the ABC since 2005. She has ...