Oneironauts are people who can lucidly dream. That is, they can control the characters and environment in their dreams, as well as their own actions within their dreams. The occurrence of lucid dreaming has been scientifically verified.

Research also shows that most of us spend about six years of our lives dreaming. And that 12% of people dream only in black and white. And that around the world, people dream of mostly the same things, such as running slowly in place, being chased, falling, embarrassing moments, teeth falling out and falling in love with random people.

But perhaps the most satisfying of all dream study and analysis comes to us from the art world. Nothing can move us or describe our spiritual, creative and subconscious existence the way art can. It's no wonder that people have been exploring dreams through art since the beginning of recorded history.

For thousands of years, Native Americans have woven twigs, sinew and feathers into dream catchers to encourage peaceful, beautiful dreams and harness the "good forces" while foiling the bad.

In 1691, German artist Michael Leopold Lukas Willmann painted Landscape With the Dream of Jacob, depicting the ancient Biblical story, Jacob’s Ladder, about a dream in which angels travel upon a ladder that stretches between Heaven and earth.

In the 20th century, Spanish artist Salvador Dalí gave us the surrealistic painting Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening. Through symbolism, the work visually describes the phenomenon “dream incorporation,” in which external stimuli -- such as sounds -- can penetrate our subconscious state and affect our dreams before waking us.

Another artist who explores the subject of dreaming is our own modern-day Lie Fhung, who hails from Indonesia and currently resides in Hong Kong. With these images above, Fhung treats us to a glimpse of her latest artwork in progress, the first in a collection of "portals" she calls Dream Archives. She is creating it with Kolo Havana Boxes in her Discovery Bay art studio. Previously, Fhung had cut a hole into the lid of the box...

...Now I have screwed in a brass bookplate with a pull... You can get a tiny glimpse of what is inside... It's sort of like when you are trying to remember a dream you just had the night before...

More about this project next week, as it progresses. (To see the first stage of Dream Archives, go here. To read about Fhung’s experience cutting a hole in the lid of a Kolo Havana Box, go here.)

See more of Fhung's work on her sites here and here.

And for a more erudite discussion of dreams, check out Wikipedia's meaty entry here. But beware, it is fascinating and you could get lost in link land there.