Dreams in Buddhism and Western Aesthetics: Some Thoughts on Play, Style and Space
Asian Philosophy March 1, 2007 DOI: 10.1080/09552360701201189 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Buddhism |
| Citations | 2 |
| Key points | Argues that the dreamer and the player recognize that human space always means the entire cosmos, a view shared across certain Buddhist schools and Western artists and thinkers, with consequences for a philosophy of space. |
Abstract
Several Buddhist schools in India, China and Japan concentrate on the interrelationships between waking and dreaming consciousness. In Eastern philosophy, reality can be seen as a dream and an obscure ‘reality beyond’ can be considered as real. In spite of the overwhelming Platonic–Aristotelian–Freudian influence existent in Western culture, some Western thinkers and artists—Valéry, Baudelaire, and Schnitzler, for example—have been fascinated by a kind of ‘simple presence’ contained in dreams. I show that this has consequences for a philosophy of space. According to the authors discussed, the dreamer and the player recognize that human space always means the entire cosmos.