Water and Dreams single work   essay  
Issue Details: First known date: 2022... 2022 Water and Dreams
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Everybody dreams. No one is entirely sure what dreams might mean, but still there is a mountain of commentary on the topic – as there always has been. Edward Slosson opens his introduction to Henri Bergson’s Dreams (1914, p. 6) by announcing: “Before the dawn of history mankind [sic] was engaged in the study of dreaming”. Medical science has its own footprint in this corpus, especially evident in the writing of the ancient Greeks who had a great deal to say about the functions of dreams in physical health and wellbeing. Religion too turns its attention to dreams, particularly in conceiving of dreams as texts for interpretation, as channels of divination. The Old Testament prophet Daniel, for example, made a living from his skill in dream analysis. The Neoplatonist Hypatia seems to have approved the idea, promulgated by her pupil Synesius, that dreams convey the will of god; and Homer seems confident that dreams are actually messages from the gods [1]. Even Plato, that philosopher of reason and self-control and scepticism, writes that Socrates seems to have taken dreams seriously. Along with other ancient scholars, Plato (2013, 31c, p. 44) identifies Socrates’ trust in dreams, and aligns this with the master’s daimonion (divine sign) – the something that is beyond conscious thought.' (Publication abstract)

Notes

  • Epigraph:  A great work of art is like a dream;
    for all its apparent obviousness it does not explain itself
    and is never unequivocal.
    – Carl Jung, 1974

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon TEXT Special Issue Writing Dreams : Reconceptualising the Literary Dream in Storytelling no. 68 2022 25657992 2022 periodical issue 'This Special Issue of TEXT explores the capacity of dreamscapes to function as powerful literary devices within an array of creative writing forms, while also informing and shaping creative arts practice more broadly. Its authors demonstrate diverse curiosities about creative practice as a kind of dreaming, where a practitioner’s engagements might constitute a quasi dreamwork-on-the-page. In addition to this, creative thinking itself can pass via registers reminiscent of the dream and of its atmospheres and formation, broaching unconscious material, experiences, and paradigms. Suffice to say, an inherent connection between dreams, storytelling and the production of artwork more generally is tested and expanded upon in these articles. The unconscious processes that unfold during dreaming may harvest their contents and compositions from the conscious processes engaged and activated intentionally by established practitioners when working in literary, narrative and poetic forms, but also vice versa. The poietic strategies fundamental to crafting dream sequences for written forms entail far more than a simple duplication of any real dreams’ narrative potential, associative chains, structures, or uncanny atmospheres: they require writers to translate dream-like elements into tangible sequences, rhythms, or scenes, to bring material substance to the oneiric.' 

    (Publication abstract)

    2022
Last amended 17 Jan 2023 08:44:20
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