'The dream does
never trouble itself about things which are not deserving
of our concern during the day, and trivialities which do
not trouble us during the day have no power to pursue us
whilst asleep.'
Sigmund Freud, On Dreams (1901), translated by M.D. Eder
"'Dreams mean nothing," Crick croaks, "just neural housecleaning. The quicker we forget our dreams the better." He's telling me my dreams, where I get my best sets and characters are meaningless. Meaningless to whom, exactly? They can't even think straight. As if "meaning" floats about in a vacuum, with no relation to time, place, or person.'
William S. Burroughs, from My Education: A Book of Dreams (Picador, 1995)
'Homer was aware that dreams are ambiguous and that it was not easy to distinguish between reliable ones, which reach us "through the gate of horn", and misleading ones that come "through the gate of ivory".'
Robert Flaceliere, from Devins et Oracles Grecs
'Dionysian metamorphoses are the scintillations of nature's high-energy perpetual-motion machine. Sparagmos and metamorphosis, sex and violence flood our dream life, where objects and persons flicker and merge. Dreams are Dionysian magic in the sensory inflammation of sleep.'
Camille Paglia, from Sexual Personae (Yale University Press, 1990)
'When the dream appears openly absurd, when it contains an obvious paradox in its content, it is so of purpose. Through its apparent disregard of all logical claims, it expresses a part of the intellectual content of the dream ideas.'
Sigmund Freud, On Dreams (1901), translated by M.D. Eder
'The casual connection between two ideas is either left without presentation, or replaced by two different long portions of dreams one after the other. This presentation is frequently a reversed one, the beginning of the dream being the deduction, and its end the hypothesis. The direct transformation of one thing into another in a dream seems to serve the relationship of cause and effect. The dream never utters the alternative "either/or", but accepts both as having equal rights in the same connection. When "either/or" is used in the reproduction of dreams, it is to be replaced by "and".
Sigmund Freud, On Dreams (1901), translated by M.D. Eder
"Islam is probably the largest night-dream culture in the world today. The night dream is thought to offer a way to metaphysical and divinatory knowledge to offer clarity concerning action in the world."
Iain Edgar, (social anthropologist, Durham University)
'There seems to be no "not" in dreams.'
Sigmund Freud, On Dreams (1901), translated by M.D. Eder
'If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?'
Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
Dream
If dreaming really were a kind of truce
(as people claim), a sheer repose of mind.
why then if you should waken up abruptly,
do you feel that something has been stolen from you?
Why should it be so sad, the early morning?
It robs us of an inconceivable gift,
so ultimate it is only knowable
in a trance which the nightwatch gilds with dreams,
dreams that might very well be reflections,
fragments from the treasure-house of darkness,
from that timeless sphere that does not have a name,
and that the day distorts in its mirrors.
Who will you be tonight in your dreamfall
into the dark, on the other side of the wall?
Jorge Luis Borges, from Selected Poems (Penguin, 1999)
Translation © Alastair Reid, 1999
'Dream long enough and dream hard enough / you will come to know / dreaming can make it so.'
William Burroughs, from My Education: A Book of Dreams (Picador, 1995)
Sigmund Freud, On Dreams (1901), translated by M.D. Eder
"'Dreams mean nothing," Crick croaks, "just neural housecleaning. The quicker we forget our dreams the better." He's telling me my dreams, where I get my best sets and characters are meaningless. Meaningless to whom, exactly? They can't even think straight. As if "meaning" floats about in a vacuum, with no relation to time, place, or person.'
William S. Burroughs, from My Education: A Book of Dreams (Picador, 1995)
'Homer was aware that dreams are ambiguous and that it was not easy to distinguish between reliable ones, which reach us "through the gate of horn", and misleading ones that come "through the gate of ivory".'
Robert Flaceliere, from Devins et Oracles Grecs
'Dionysian metamorphoses are the scintillations of nature's high-energy perpetual-motion machine. Sparagmos and metamorphosis, sex and violence flood our dream life, where objects and persons flicker and merge. Dreams are Dionysian magic in the sensory inflammation of sleep.'
Camille Paglia, from Sexual Personae (Yale University Press, 1990)
'When the dream appears openly absurd, when it contains an obvious paradox in its content, it is so of purpose. Through its apparent disregard of all logical claims, it expresses a part of the intellectual content of the dream ideas.'
Sigmund Freud, On Dreams (1901), translated by M.D. Eder
'The casual connection between two ideas is either left without presentation, or replaced by two different long portions of dreams one after the other. This presentation is frequently a reversed one, the beginning of the dream being the deduction, and its end the hypothesis. The direct transformation of one thing into another in a dream seems to serve the relationship of cause and effect. The dream never utters the alternative "either/or", but accepts both as having equal rights in the same connection. When "either/or" is used in the reproduction of dreams, it is to be replaced by "and".
Sigmund Freud, On Dreams (1901), translated by M.D. Eder
"Islam is probably the largest night-dream culture in the world today. The night dream is thought to offer a way to metaphysical and divinatory knowledge to offer clarity concerning action in the world."
Iain Edgar, (social anthropologist, Durham University)
'There seems to be no "not" in dreams.'
Sigmund Freud, On Dreams (1901), translated by M.D. Eder
'If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?'
Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
Dream
If dreaming really were a kind of truce
(as people claim), a sheer repose of mind.
why then if you should waken up abruptly,
do you feel that something has been stolen from you?
Why should it be so sad, the early morning?
It robs us of an inconceivable gift,
so ultimate it is only knowable
in a trance which the nightwatch gilds with dreams,
dreams that might very well be reflections,
fragments from the treasure-house of darkness,
from that timeless sphere that does not have a name,
and that the day distorts in its mirrors.
Who will you be tonight in your dreamfall
into the dark, on the other side of the wall?
Jorge Luis Borges, from Selected Poems (Penguin, 1999)
Translation © Alastair Reid, 1999
'Dream long enough and dream hard enough / you will come to know / dreaming can make it so.'
William Burroughs, from My Education: A Book of Dreams (Picador, 1995)