Feed

Use this activity to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity.

“The Bridge of Dreams”

In this activity, students will create a chart to analyze dreams in the novel, then write and illustrate a fictionalized dream for one of the characters.

Dreams are a significant motif recurring throughout the novel. This motif manifests in ways that explore the concept of dreams and how they function. For instance, the academic lecturer Titus hears on the feed describes the era as an age of dreams, an epoch that was preceded by the age of writing, which was preceded by the age of oral culture. With the feed, consumer culture means simply dreaming something—or imagining it—can make it become real and deliverable to the dreamer’s doorstep. Dreams can also refer to the longing or hoping for something. Additionally, they refer to the activities of the sleeping mind, though the feed causes dreams to function differently than in a brain with no implant. With the feed, dreams are a mix of firing synapses and external influences and communications. At the end of the novel, Titus references an ancient Japanese saying: “(L)ife is like walking from one side of infinite darkness to another, on a bridge of dreams. They say that we’re all crossing the bridge of dreams together. That there’s nothing more than that. Just us, on the bridge of dreams” (233).

Part A: Identify and analyze the dreams in the novel.

• Make a chart with 3 columns, heading each column as follows:

Dream Description

Rating

Outside Influences

• Revisit the text to find each instance in which Titus dreams.
• In the first column, briefly explain the dream.
• In the second column, rate the dream on a scale from 1-10 based on how much of the dream seems to be fabricated by entities outside of Titus’s mind. On this scale, a 1 is for a dream that is entirely Titus’s brain, and a 10 is a dream that has been created and forced into his mind.
• In the third column, list the outside influences and entities that are controlling or influencing his dreams.

Part B: Create your own dystopian dream for one of the characters.

• Choose any character in the novel.
• Write a brief scenario describing a dream that character might have within the context of the novel. Identify the outside influences or manipulators.
• Illustrate the dream using the creative method of your choosing. You might use a visual medium, such as drawing, sculpture, video, or collage, or you can write a poem or create a short play.

Teaching Suggestion: Students might work alone or in small groups for this project. This activity highlights the way dreams act as a method of brainwashing in the novel, which is essential to creating a dystopia full of complacent citizens. Consider connecting this activity to the theme The Corrupting Force of Technology since the implant of the feed makes users vulnerable to manipulation to the point of corroding their senses of self.

Differentiation Suggestion: For a quicker version of the project, Part B can be omitted or shortened to include either the dream description or the artistic expression instead of both.  Students who benefit from a supplied structure for writing projects might first create a bulleted list of the dream’s images, then use sentence frames to build a paragraph response (e.g., “[Character name] had a dream about _______________.”).

Paired Text Extension:

If you have read or choose to read The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline, consider the motif of dreams in the novel and make connections to Feed.

How do both novels identify and assign significance to dreaming (or not dreaming)?

• Compare and contrast the way dreaming functions in both novels using a T-chart or other graphic organizer.

Teaching Suggestion: Connect this novel to the themes of The Corrupting Force of Technology and Privilege and Poverty in Feed and ask students to consider the issues that arise in a world in which dreams can be taken away or are no longer private.

• The Marrow Thieves on SuperSummary