“Life Begins by Dreaming.” A Dialogue between Zambrano and Merleau-Ponty
The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy October 21, 2026 DOI: 10.4324/9781042011384-4 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Dreaming |
| Key points | Argues that no systematic phenomenological account of quasi-imaginative experiences like dreaming exists, and proposes a phenomenology of the dream drawing on Maria Zambrano and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. The author contends that both thinkers treat the dream as a life-world continuous with waking life, comprehensible only through a non-rational gaze such as poetry and myth. |
Abstract
If you look for a detailed phenomenological analysis of peculiar kinds of quasi-imaginative experiences—such as dreaming—you will be disappointed by the fact that there is no systematic account of this phenomenon and its related forms. The aim of this chapter is therefore to sketch a phenomenology of the dream in what seem to be its most important features. To do this, I will mainly follow two authors, Maria Zambrano and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, distant thinkers who share a vision of the dream as a life-world in continuity with the waking world—comprehensible only by adopting a non-rational gaze, such as that offered by poetry and myth.
Comparable studies
Other theoretical and historical papers on dreaming, most cited first.
| Study | Year | Design | Participants |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dreaming: a conceptual framework for philosophy of mind and empirical research | 2016 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Metaphor and hyperassociativity: the imagination mechanisms behind emotion assimilation in sleep and dreaming | 2015 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Varieties of Lucid Dreaming Experience | 2000 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| Experimental Research on Dreaming: State of the Art and Neuropsychoanalytic Perspectives | 2011 | Theoretical or philosophical paper | |
| The Neurobiology of Consciousness: Lucid Dreaming Wakes Up | 2009 | Theoretical or philosophical paper |