Sentience Issue 1

Issue 1

May 2020

Sentience Agata rodriguez

introduction Sentience is a zine compiling my illustrations based on my recorded dream journal, focusing on expressing in a surrealistic style what it felt like to be there. Given the COVID-19 lockdown, my dreams have been influenced by my everyday thoughts and desires, and it has often taken the form of outdoor nature fantasies, which is what I have been missing dearly and reminiscing about these months.

Next to each illustration is the short description of it that I wrote down when I woke up in the morning.

I will continue this zine monthly recording my dreams, which will be based on my current inner landscapes, influenced by what I live everyday, as I improve my custom of remembering dreams and details within them.

Sentience

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Dream journal

March 17th

Dream 1

Tonight I flew into another land, a land with a very old sea and ancient beings living in the rocks. The water was warm, and the sun felt like a breeze on my skin even though it burned after a while. I knew I was in a different place, nothing felt the same as home - I could hear a background rumble of thoughts, like whispers, coming from nowhere. It took me a while to realise it was the rocks.

They towered upon me, mystical and powerful, but they were only rocks and they couldn’t do anything. I explored around, but I didn’t find anything else alive: no fish, no plants, no insects: it was just the rocks that were left, and a red sky turning nightime with a faint cold breeze seeping in through the cliffs around me. I remember looking at the surface of the rocks around me, and realising it was something’s skin - even if it didn’t move, it was conscious.

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Sentience

March 21st Dream 2 3

I was looking for stones with different shapes, until I waterfall, so I aimlessly wandered around the hillsid nothing much, but it was a calm scene, and I wanted sat down by it and looked up at the sky: it had been a

Dream journal

I realised how tired I was. I could hear the faint sound of a river rushing down a de, paying more attention to what was far away than what was close. There was to rest for a bit: I found a small ravine entertwining with the dirt near my feet. I while since I had heard silence so loudly.

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Sentience

march 25th Dream 3 5

Tonight I visited a hot swamp, where everything inc up. There were iridescent gasses evaporating from th around which led me to believe that the water mustn’ this swamp up until my eyesight could tell, so I went

Dream journal

cluding the water and the rocks was so hot to touch that it almost made me tear he thick, warm water - the whole thing seemed like acid, but there was vegetation ’t be poisonous. The floor was burning my feet, and there was nothing other than into the water in hopes that it would adjust my body temperature, like a bath.

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march 28th Dream 4 7

I was in a very thick forest, crawling with animal life grew so high it was impossible to distinguish the sky, knots, carefully picking the branch I stepped on, and and the sun was looking over at the forest brimming

Dream journal

e, bird noises and soft footsteps all around me. The trees and plants around me or what was around me other than immediately. I climbed a very large tree full of when I reached the top, I was awed at the sight: I was near a lake with red water, with life that I was in, with a bored and unsatisfied look.

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Sentience

March 30th Dream 5 9

I was again in nature, surrounded by some strange lo wards the sun. The way the wind blew through them, patch came with an ominous feeling as I squeezed in insect life around me, but I somehow knew there was

Dream journal

ooking flowers that seemed to be peering at me, in the way a sunflower turns to, it was like they were shivering with fear... or was it just the cold? The sunflower n between the flowers, looking for a way out. I could hear criquets, I could sense sn’t another person around for miles.

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Sentience

April 2nd Dream 6 11

The atmosphere was humid and slightly sickening: i looked around tirelessly for the source of the sweet s It was coming from there! I crouched down on the w smelled strongly of candy. Just as I was about to drin

Dream journal

it smelled like a candy factory, mixed with the punzant odour of maple syrup. I smells, but I couldn’t locate it for quite a while until I came closer to the water. waterside and dipped my hand into the pink river: it had a thick consistency and k from it, I saw a snake swimming in it and stepped away.

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Sentience

april 7th Dream 7 13

In this dream I found myself looking at two small, you even got so high. As I watched them munch grass awa as if it were a choreographed dance, but they were fac ever - they lowered their mouths to eat at the same ti

Dream journal

uthful sheep eating at the top of a very steep landmark - I was amazed at how they ay, I realised they both moved in unison, their legs stepping forward or backward cing away from each other and they didn’t acknowledge their symmetry whatsoime as they watched the sun come up from their vantage point.

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Sentience

April 13th Dream 8 15

Last night I landed in a cave deep underground, so f nucleus than I had ever experienced before. The cave first one to ever visit this place, and that was a worryi would I ever get out of there? There were parts of the c

Dream journal

far down the Earth’s crust that it was much hotter inside, as it was closer to the was empty, as if no lifeform had ever entered it or seen it. I realised I may be the ng thought as I explored the cave system with caution, hoping not to get lost. How cave that were flooded, and I had to swim underwater to reach the next air bubble.

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Sentience

April 16th Dream 9 17

I found myself leaving town and running out to the c taining. I crossed different biomes, and as I jogged o looked down just in time to see I was about to step in the infinite hole without an end. Did I really just find

Dream journal

countryside, in an energy infused sprint that I somehow didn’t get tired of mainon, I was wondering what was behind the mountains I saw in the horizon, and I nto a giant hole in the ground. I stopped on my tracks, confused, and peered into d it by chance or did it call me here?

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Dream journal

April 23rd

Dream 10

Tonight I walked mindlessly through the forest, listening out for the small critter sounds and branches snapping in the dark as they rushed away from me. I was walking fast, feeling my energy boost my steps as I almost began jogging towards a clearing I could see in front of my eyes. A quiet cry reached my ears - was that a young girl? I had left everything behind, my house, my family, to come here and see what was causing this girl to cry in the middle of the forest at night. I finally reached the clearing, but there was no one there! I explored the moonlit opening in between the trees, but I couldn’t find more than a stream of tears falling down... I looked up, and to my surprise, saw the moon was the one making that sound. She seemed trapped, uncoherent and dearly upset, but I couldn’t reach her and she couldn’t come down.

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Sentience

April 28th Dream 11 21

The place I was in was a strangely composed masterp but a few dead leaves and rocks being pulled aimless really long ladder - I managed to pick it up and poin stairs, I reached the top. This was a really peaceful an

Dream journal

piece, with giant white rocks towering around me towards the sky, and nothing sly by the breeze at ground level. I found a ladder lying horizontal on the floor, a nt it towards one of the cliffs: after what seemed like an eternity of climbing the nd alive spot, and I watched the sun go down accompanied by the birds around me.

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Sentience

may 5th Dream 12 23

There were vast, vast planes of grasslands with nothin but not much of anything else. There was a strong win I finally reached a tall cliff over a beach below me. An petroleum to me. I wondered whether there would be

Dream journal

ng much to them for the most part of this journey: some footpaths here and there, nd coming from one direction, so I followed the source for a really long time, until n immense sea extended until the horizon, with thick, black water that resembled e life forms here, too, and how they would look like.

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Sentience

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Dream journal

may 12th

Dream 13

Last night I landed on another planet, one where all life withered under the harsh and unforgiving environment.

I didn’t see anything close to animal life forms, but there were some very interesting egg-like shapes that I found on a stroll around the wasteland. They extended for miles, and sort of ended abruptly in formation. Were they layed by a large animal? Were they just strange rocks formed by the winds? I tried to knock on them, but they didn’t sound hollow; when I pushed one of them, it wouldn’t move an inch. It was embedded in the ground, so resistant to push that I considered they may have a structure buried underground that was holding them in place. I was disappointed in the lack of findings about these eggs, but I took a while to breathe and listen to the silence in this strange planet and found it quite enticing in a nostalgic plane.

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NEXT ISSUE Stay tuned for the June issue!

Sentience is a monthly zine compiling illustrations based on my recorded dreams throughout the period. I am very interested in exploring surrealism and the subconscious, so I have been tracking my dreams through a dream journal for the past few months, and here are the illustrations that come from them!