Creations in the dark

Press, 20 February 1988, Page 25

Creations in the dark

Theatre of Sleep: An Anthology of Literary Dreams. By Guido Almansi and Claude Beguin. Picador/Pan, 1987. 378 pp. $19.95 (paperback.) (Reviewed by Ralf Unger) It is doubtful whether anyone can honestly and precisely recount their own dreams. The process of secondary elaboration takes place immediately they are recalled and produced for other people, and thus the emotion with which they are laden is mainly left with the dreamer rather than the listener, this probably being responsible for the intense interest in them by one and the polite participation by the other. The exceptions are when there is a patient and a psychoanalyst looking at deeper meanings, or lovers wanting to know all the most intimate recesses of each other’s thoughts, or famous people’s dreams and their linkage to their creative work. This book concentrates mainly on the last category and one must know something about the literary productions of the dreamers to be able to see the well-springs of their genius. When one dreams, one is at the same time the theatre, the actors, the beholder, and the author of the dream. One might suggest therefore that dreams constitute the most ancient and complex of literary

genres. It is not surprising that the authors collect hundreds of dreams back to those of Plato, the Bible, and through Voltaire up to the present day of Bob Dylan and Kurt Vonnegut. Dividing dreams into instinctive, realistic, symbolic, and fantastic, they come to the conclusions that dreaming and waking are the same book but in two different editions, and every attempt at interpretation is impeded by the radical divergence of editorial criteria. Childhood, especially its terrors and raptures, once more assumes "wings and brightness in our dreams like glow-worms in the little night of the soul.” The link with ancient myths and tales the world over is made clear by the commmon dream of flying with wings on feet and heels and seven league boots to bestride the land. All in all, an interesting collection which does not attempt to explain dreamwork any more successfully than did Sigmund Freud, but at least gives some thoughts of the unbidden muse at night inspiring the creative author by day. In fact “dreaming permits each and every one of us to be quietly and safely insane every night of our lives” and come back to an at least temporarily distorted world for a short time next day, which can give insight and a novel perspective.