For the 72-hour duration of the performance Fornieles stayed awake, in a wooden lifeboat, on a sea of salt that filled the gallery. During the performance, Fornieles took messages from the audience addressed to people or things lost to them, and broadcast them in Morse code.

The piece was inspired by the final work of Dutch performance artist Bas Jan Ader, In search of the Miraculous, in which he attempted a solo crossing of the Atlantic. Sailing from America with the intention of arriving in Holland, he was lost at sea. From the Deep Waters of Sleep takes its title from a poem written by Ader's mother, .