Art Funkhouser was born in 1940 in Indiana and grew up in Oklahoma. He has lived in Switzerland since 1973 and is the father of three children.

His first degrees were in physics (MIT, '62) (coherent optics) and he was involved with the early work in holography (Univ. of Mich, '67). He worked in metrology for NBS (now NIST) from 1967 to 1971. He earned his doctorate in the field of digital picture processing at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in 1979. From 1981 to 1993 he worked as a physicist in the eye department of the Insel University Hospital in Bern, Switzerland.

In 1973 he began his training to be a psychotherapist at the C. G. Jung Institute in Zurich which he completed in 1981. Since then he has had a private practice as a therapist in Bern where, in addition to seeing clients, he leads a Tuesday evening dream group. Since 1989 he has led a seminar in dreamwork at the C. G.Jung Institute near Zurich. He has also led workshops in dreamwork in Switzerland, Australia and the U.S. A few years ago he was the co-director of a research project into the effects of dream-telling, supported by a grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation (link).

On May 20th, 2006 Art married Esther (they were both 65!). Wedding pictures can be seen at link.

I had long heard about the (then) ASD, but when it held a conference in Leiden, The Netherlands, that was close enough that I thought I could afford to go and have a look. That was now many years ago and I have been "hooked" on the organization ever since (even serving for a time on the board of directors)! What I love most about the IASD is that I get to know people from all over who are as fascinated with dreams and dreaming as I am. There is still a "family" feeling among the members and an attitude of mutual support. I hope this won't change too much as the organization grows.

One of his hobbies is research into déjà vu and precognitive dreams. For those interested, there are two articles he wrote about déjà vu: Three Types of Déjà Vu and Dreams and Déjà Vu. There is also now a website dedicated to déjà experience research.