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Inside ‘Bedlam': the hospital opens its doors to art and dreams

Inside ‘Bedlam': the hospital opens its doors to art and dreams

Timesa day ago
I awake disorientated with a lurch, tearing myself from a half-remembered dream into an unfamiliar space. I am as prone to nightmares as any other middle-aged man with teenage children and a weakness for cheese, but this evening's disturbed night's sleep has a more specific cause: I am sleeping on the floor of Bethlem Royal Hospital in southeast London, the world's oldest hospital for the mentally ill, having spent the evening talking about sleep, dreams and psychosis.
This unusual sleepover has been arranged with the exceedingly game Colin Gale, the director of the Bethlem Museum of the Mind, before a new exhibition titled Between Sleeping and Waking: Hospital Dreams and Visions, featuring paintings by former patients or artists with a history of mental health issues.
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