Marieke McKenna
Philosophy, history of science & the study of dreaming

Philosophy & Research

Marieke McKenna trained as a philosopher and historian of science. Her research moves between metaphysics, phenomenology, consciousness studies and philosophies of nature, and she is particularly known for her work on dreaming and altered states of consciousness.

Marieke McKenna reading on the floor among stacks of books, beside an old travel trunk and a lamp
Photo: Danique van Kesteren

Academia, research & teaching

A ringed hand holding an apple against dark green velvet
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Monna Pomona (detail), 1864. Tate, London.

Max Planck Institute for the History of Science & Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour

Lead researcher, History of Lucid Dreaming Research: An Interdisciplinary Oral History

The first oral-historical examination of how lucid dreaming became an object of scientific inquiry. Funded by a Die Junge Akademie grant for outstanding emerging researchers, with laboratory training in the Donders Institute’s neuroscience sleep laboratory (EEG and fMRI research on the dreaming brain).

Interviewed more than forty researchers in the field and presented at conferences in Arizona, Hamburg, Berlin and Bern.

Advaya, London

Course creator & teacher

Dreams: How to enrich your waking life through your dreams, a six-module course for a learning platform with more than 100,000 subscribers. The modules: The Dreaming Brain; The History of Western Psychology & Psychoanalysis; Dream Cultures I and II; Lucid Dreaming; and Dreamtech.

With Saelyx Finna, the webinar Dream Technology: the emerging technologies that interface with, and sometimes aim to alter, the dreaming mind, their ethics and the industry behind them.

Isis, journal of the History of Science Society

Junior editor, book reviews

Selected books for review and managed the reviewing process for one of the leading peer-reviewed journals in the history of science (University of Chicago Press).

Foundations: 19th UK & European Conference on the Philosophy of Physics

Organising committee

An interdisciplinary conference in Utrecht with a public lecture by Nobel laureate Sir Roger Penrose.

Study

  • Utrecht UniversityResearch MSc History and Philosophy of Science · history of the natural sciences, philosophy of mind, metaphysics, philosophy of space and time, the quantum world, German idealism, animal consciousness and the history of dream research
  • University of GlasgowGeology and mineralogy, mysticism and spirituality in religious studies, and consciousness in cognitive science and neuroscience
  • University of AmsterdamBA Philosophy · aesthetics, logic, philosophy of science and mathematics, neurophilosophy, Chinese Buddhism, and astrophysics and cosmology · thesis: Sin & Evil in the Writings of Søren Kierkegaard and William Blake
A mandrake drawn as a human figure with leaves and red fruit, with Greek lettering
Mandrake, probably the Naples Dioscorides, c. 600–650. Biblioteca Nazionale, Naples.
A blue root with a human face and three green leaves
Erbario, northern Italy, 15th century. University of Pennsylvania Libraries, LJS 419.

In conversation

Interviews on dreams, consciousness and inner space, for Mangu.TV, Initiations, The World Needs Creatives and Follow the Mushroom, are gathered under Interviews & podcasts. Lectures, workshops and lecture-performances are listed under Public Speaking & Hosting.

A Romanesque stone relief: an angel touches the hand of one of three crowned kings sleeping under a single blanket
Gislebertus, The Dream of the Magi, capital, c. 1120–1130. Cathedral of Saint-Lazare, Autun.

From my cabinet of curiosities

A turning sphere of images I collect: sky discs, star charts, spirals, shells and suns.

Curious about the collection?