Narrative strategies of dream reports: focalization agencies
The Journal of V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University. Series: Foreign Philology. Methods of Foreign Language Teaching January 1, 2020
Dream reports in online English-language journals use two distinct narrative strategies—subjective and objective—that shape how dreamers describe their experiences. The subjective strategy treats the dreaming self as continuous with the narrating self, using internal focalization and minimal spatial cues, making the dream feel like personal experience. The objective strategy treats the dreaming self as separate from the narrating self, employing external focalization and detailed descriptions that signal the dream's distinct, non-real-world nature. Evidentiality markers help readers navigate between dream and waking narrative spaces.