Soporose is a musical performance, immersive art installation and social experiment researching deep relaxation and sleep.

Although many people will encounter a listening phenomenon at some point in their life, little is known about the environment or conditions that create these experiences. Soporose was a research into the altered listening experiences that can sometimes be had during deep relaxation and dreaming states. It revives the essence of early sleeping temples, like Asclepion from ancient Greece, and explores a form of secular spirituality through ritual and immersion. Each guest have an assigned bed where they can rest and sleep while being carefully navigated through a night of film screenings, guided meditation, and live performances from sound artists.

In conclusion of the research conducted on the Soporose participants, we were able to learn a great deal about the how the experience made an impact on sleep. Based on the feedback of our 20 participants, along with the physiological recordings collected from a subset of 10 individuals, Soporose demonstrated an ability to induce a quicker sleep onset and improve sleep quality throughout the evening when compared to the participants’ home environment. As a result the Soporose sleep experience led to a higher sleep efficiency overall. Data collection over the days following the event was limited and thus the long-term effects are currently unknown. Even though the conclusions determined from the Soporose experiment are based on a small data sample, the implications are both far-reaching and intriguing. You can read the full Soporose Research Report via the link.

PROGRAMME:

Psyché Tropes Film Programme

Lani Rocillo

Seth Horvitz

Pascal Savy

Aboutface

The Soporose team is hoping to expand upon our research in future events and are looking for collaborators and sponsors that are either: wearable technology companies that hope to use this as a testing ground or launch event for their products; festivals or health & wellbeing retreats that want to explore the positive social impact it can have; artists or practitioners that think their form of expression would be well suited in the Soporose environment. If you have any thoughts, please don’t hesitate to email us at info@eightfoldway.org

Stay tuned to our social media sites for more up to date information about future events. Special thanks to Sound and Music's Audience Labs for sponsoring this project. All art designs by Mira Varg. Shrine by Akari Yasuda. Photos by Fumika Geary, Akari Yasuda and Mira Varg.