Dreams, literature, and fiction writing
Otto M. Rheinschmiedt
March 29, 2018 DOI: 10.4324/9780429481789-3 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that dreams and fiction writing are reciprocally connected: dreams are "autobiographical fictions" that narrate the dreamer's life history and cultural identity, while literature is a "solid dream" shaped by the writer's autobiographical context and capacity to record imagination during lucid dreaming and dream thinking. The author proposes that dream states and their writerly devices influence fiction writing, and that literary devices in turn inform dream life and a theory of dreams. |
Abstract
There is an irresistible affinity between the fictions of dreams and fiction writing. Dreams dazzle us by their vivid and succinct images, symbols, and metaphors, which come upon us when we are asleep. One might be tempted, given the dream’s constant supply of images, to call dreaming a nocturnal cinematographic event. Dreams are autobiographical fictions, they are the narrators of the dreamer’s life history, her insertion in transgenerational family themes, and her ethnic and cultural identity. Literature is a solid dream, which means that fictions originate in the writer’s autobiographical and cultural context and her capacity for putting down on paper her world of imagination during states of lucid dreaming and dream thinking. To close the circle of connectivity, not only do dream states, and their attendant writerly devices, impact on the creative process of fiction writing but writerly devices, as we find them in literature, inform dream life and a theory of dreams.