Raymond Hains' hypnagogic photograph, late 1940's
And since, according to Antiquity, it is the imagination which forms dream images, this explains the particular relationship to truth which dreams have in the ancient world (like divination per somnia) and to efficacious knowledge (like medical treatment per incubationem). This is still true in primitive cultures. Devereux reports that the Mojave (not unlike other shamanistic cultures) believe that shamanistic powers and knowledge of myths, as well as the actions and chants that refer to them, are acquired in dreams - and, moreover, that if they were acquired in a waking state, they would remain sterile and ineffective until they were dreamed.
(Giorgio Agamben, from "Infancy and History: An Essay on the Destruction of Experience", 1993)
Demdike Stare, Bardo Thodol
Oneohtrix Point Never, Young Beidnahga