DREAMS HAVE BEEN WIDELY LINKED TO WRITING. In a much quoted incident about Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 – 1834), it is said that he wrote his well-known poem, Kubla Khan, on waking up from a dream. His other poem, The Ancient Mariner, also has this dream quality.
Franz Kafka’s (1883 – 1924) Metamorphosis opens with this passage:
‘When Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from troubled dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous insect. He was lying on his hard shell-like back and by lifting his head a little he could see his curved brown belly, divided by stiff arching ribs, on top of which the bed-quilt was precariously poised and seemed about to slide off completely. His numerous legs, which were pathetically thin compared to the rest of his bulk, danced helplessly before his eyes. ‘What has happened to me?’ he thought. It was no dream.’
In Isabel Allende’s novel, The House of the Spirits, the main character, Clara, has the faculty of dreaming of events before they occur.
Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca begins:
‘Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. It seemed to me I stood by the iron gate leading to the drive, and for a while I could not enter for the way was barred to me. There was a padlock and a chain upon the gate. I called in my dream to the lodge-keeper, and had no answer, and peering closer through the rusted spokes of the gate I saw that the lodge was uninhabited. No smoke came from the chimney, and the little lattice windows gaped forlorn. Then, like all dreamers, I was possessed of a sudden with supernatural powers and passed like a spirit through the barrier before me . . .’
Finally, Lewis Caroll’s Alice in Wonderland:
‘‘Hold your tongue!’ said the Queen, turning purple. ‘I won’t!’ said Alice. ‘Off with her head!’ the Queen shouted at the top of her voice. Nobody moved. ‘Who cares for you?’ said Alice (she had grown to her full size by this time). ‘You’re nothing but a pack of cards!’ At this the whole pack rose up into the air, and came flying down upon her; she gave a little scream, half of fright and half of anger, and tired to beat them off, and found herself lying on the bank, with her head in the lap of her sister, who was gently brushing away some dead leaves that had fluttered down from the trees upon her face. ‘Wake up, Alice dear!’ said her sister. ‘Why, what a long sleep you’ve had!’ So Alice got up and ran off, thinking while she ran, as well she might, what a wonderful dream it had been . . .’
Here are some quotes about dreams by writers, thinkers, poets from around the world:
‘Nothing happens unless first we dream.’ – Carl Sandburg (1878 – 1967)
‘When we are dreaming alone it is only a dream. When we are dreaming with others, it is the beginning of reality.’ – Dom Helder Camara (1909 – 1999)
‘Dreams are often most profound when they seem the most crazy.’ – Sigmund Freud (1856 – 1939)
‘Throw your dreams into space like a kite, and you do not know what it will bring back: a new life, a new friend, a new love, a new country.’ – Anais Nin (1903 – 1977)
‘Yet it is in our idleness, in our dreams, that the submerged truth sometimes comes to the top.‘ – Virginia Woolf (1882 – 1941)
‘I want to keep my dreams, even bad ones, because without them, I might have nothing all night long.’ – Joseph Heller (1923 – 1999)
‘I never paint dreams or nightmares. I paint my own reality.’ -Frida Kahlo (1907 – 1854)
‘I know how men in exile feed on dreams.’ – Aeschylus (c. 524/525 BC – c. 455/456 BC)
‘I prefer to be a dreamer among the humblest, with visions to be realised, than lord among those without dreams and desires.’ – Khalil Gibran (1883 – 1931)
‘I’m aware of the mystery around us, so I write about coincidences, premonitions, emotions, dreams, the power of nature, magic.’ – Isabel Allende (1942 – )
‘Only in dreams, in poetry, in play do we sometimes arrive at what we were before we were this thing that, who knows, we are.’ – Julio Cortazar (1914 – 1984)
‘All art is exorcism. I paint dreams and visions too; the dreams and visions of my time. Painting is the effort to produce order; order in yourself. There is much chaos in me, much chaos in our time.’ – Otto Dix (1891 – 1969)
Are dreams important to your writing?
Do you use dreams in your writing?
If you use dreams in your writing, do you write these as they occurred in the dream or do you try to make these more realistic?
Which writers/poets/painters use of dream in their work inspires you?
– Golden Langur
