Dreams frighten and attract us because of their otherness, their

manifold

deviations from the world we know when we are awake. One

of the most consistently used techniques of coming to terms with this

otherness has been the attempt to make sense of dreams, to consider

and portray them as messages which can and have to be deciphered.

On the other hand (and much more rarely), dreams have been considered

as a welcome source of entertainment, or as a key instrument

to expand the limitations of a rational and conventional world view.

This book analyses aspects of this dialectic in factual dream reports

and in fictional representations of the dream in literature, film, music,

and painting. Examples are taken from a great variety of cultures and

historical periods. Their authors and artists include: Adorno, Agualusa,

AndreasSalomé, Apollinaire, Artmann, Beckmann, Benjamin,

Breton, Carroll, Carter, Diderot, Droste-Hülshoff, Flaubert, Goethe,

Gondry, Grandville, Ji Yun, Johannot, Kafka, Keller, Klinger, Kubin,

Li Gongzuo, Liu E, Ma Jian, Meyrink, Michaux, Minnelli, Montaigne,

Mora, Ofenbauer, Okri, Oppenheim, Plath, Proust, Pushkin, Rousseau,

Schopenhauer, Scott, Seghers, Sorel, Soseki, Wagner, Walser,

Wang Jian, Weiner, Wu Jianren, Yuan Mei, Zschokke, and many others.