A scientist's dream

BURKE, Vt. -- Stepping into the dimly lit old dairy barn, on a muddy road in the remote Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, feels like drifting into a peculiar dream. Maybe it's the mannequins with terra cotta heads, tucked snugly into bed behind a plexiglass barrier. Maybe it's the human brain stored in a jar, or the video screens overhead that show sleeping couples tossing and turning in a series of slide projections.

It is a dream of sorts, this unexpected blend of science and old farm architecture. The barn, built in 1860 in the shadow of Burke Mountain, belongs to sleep researcher J. Allan Hobson , a Harvard psychiatry professor who divides his time between Boston, Sicily, and Vermont. On Jan. 1, the barn will be reborn as the Dreamstage Sleep and Brain Science Museum , the centerpiece of Hobson's fledgling campaign to revolutionize science education for the schoolchildren of Vermont -- and, he hopes, the world.

"Of course, this is my dream," the amiable, white-haired scientist says in his videotaped introduction to the museum, which will play on a continuous loop in the barn's entryway. "I've dreamt of it all my life."

An award-winning researcher who lectures around the world, Hobson explores the complexity and importance of brain activity during sleep. By giving middle school students a glimpse of his methods and findings, Hobson said he hopes to impart a simple message.

"I want them to know that they have a brain, and it's delicate and fragile and amazing," he said. "Once you know that, it's something you have to take care of."

If teenagers can learn a kind of reverence for their own brains -- "the most elegant creation in all of nature," Hobson said -- he believes the lesson may have life-changing effects, discouraging drinking, drug use, and other reckless behaviors and encouraging more healthy habits.

To spur himself to finish the museum, Hobson has planned a grand opening celebration for New Year's Day, when he will open the museum to curious neighbors and friends. Visits from area schoolchildren will not begin until spring, when the museum will also open to other groups by appointment.

On an unseasonably warm day earlier this month, the new museum buzzed with activity -- as much as any place this far off the beaten path can buzz -- as Hobson's caretaker and multimedia production specialist put finishing touches on the building and exhibits. The smell of shellac and sounds of hammering filled the air.

Inside the cavernous, unheated barn, the roof peak soars some 30 feet overhead, and each wide spruce floorboard is perfectly, lovingly buffed. The barn's restoration was a decade-long project, directed by Hobson and executed by his caretaker, Bob Limlaw .

The quality of the renovation is more remarkable to some of Hobson's rural Vermont neighbors than his scientific vision.

"They've done one hell of a job cleaning that thing up," said Herman Hoyt, 79, zoning administrator for the town of Burke. "It's nice to see how something that's gone out of use can be made into something useful."

Hobson himself seems as happy extolling the virtues of the building as the concept behind his museum. He bought North Star Farm, with 15 acres and 10 "handmade buildings," for $10,000 in 1965, after spotting an ad in The Saturday Review for land in Vermont at $25 an acre.

"I thought I was going skiing, but really I became the steward of this artisan creation," he said of the farm. "I could visualize the process of building it, and the human effort, the care that had gone into it, impressed me. I learned how to take care of it, building by building, and I became reverent about it."

When the state closed the aging Massachusetts Mental Health Center in Mission Hill in 2003, Hobson was evicted from his longtime lab. He relocated decades of artifacts to Burke, a town of 1,500 three hours north of Boston, and, as he did, the idea for the museum was born.

The exhibits in the barn are made largely from the remains of the experimental Dreamstage show Hobson created at Harvard in the 1970s. The show featured a real person sleeping in a soundproof chamber, and illustrated the drama of dreams and sleep by translating the sleeper's brain activity into displays of light and sound broadcast live to an audience. (The "sleep chamber" now contains dummies with clay heads.)

Hobson, who worked with two Vermont teachers to develop lesson plans based on his work, intends to set up a website where educational materials will be available to teachers.

He said his approach to science education has an edge because it emphasizes process over results and allows students to conduct their own experiments, such as keeping dream journals and sleep logs and observing the sleep of others. "Science is not just the facts," he said. "It's getting there."

Scott Graham , superintendent of schools in northern Caledonia County, Vt., said he was amazed when Hobson called to tell him about the museum. The school district is pursuing grant money to create a new drug and alcohol curriculum based on the scientist's work.

"This is something really different, that might catch their eye and make students sit up and take notice," he said. "It's amazing the people you find in your own backyard."

Jenna Russell can be reached at jrussell@globe.com.