Artist Photographs His Nightmares

Photographer Nicolas Bruno suffers from sleep paralysis, a condition where a person experiences the inability to move or to speak during waking or falling asleep, sometimes for a few seconds and sometimes for several minutes. In more frightening instances, one might experience hallucinations or imagined physical experiences that one is unable to react to. Bruno decided to show the world the effects of this puzzling condition.

Rather than being a victim of the nightmares that plague him during his episodes of sleep paralysis, the Long Island, New York photographer chose to take control and ownership of his experiences through art.

The images that Bruno creates are disturbing, powerful, and surrealist visions of what he experiences during episodes of paralysis. While creating the images, he often places himself in the roll of both victim and aggressor, which points toward the strange dichotomy of being both the victim of a condition he can't control, and the perpetrator of his own nightmares. Whether you have ever experienced sleep paralysis or not, his series is captivating and well worth your time.

His work can be seen on his Instagram account, which is also both dark and yet unexpectedly hopeful, in that one can take their struggles and create something profound.