Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of Lucid Dreaming: The Place of Oneirogenesis in the Science of Deduction
Preternature Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural March 1, 2023 A. Chatterjee
This article argues that dreams and the brain's 'dream drugstore' faculty are an underappreciated aspect of Sherlock Holmes's investigative method. Holmes is portrayed as a 'dreamer' who can visit crime scenes 'in spirit,' a strategy that challenges Western rationality. The authors place Holmes in a lineage including Thomas De Quincey and the fictional detective Ezra Jennings. They contend that lucid dreaming plays a subliminal role in Holmes's deductions, and that adaptations ignoring this 'oneirogenesis' offer incomplete portrayals of the detective's human faculties.