Document Type
Article
Publication Date
3-2010
Abstract
The contradictions and non sequiturs often found in dreams (or, equivalently, dream-narratives) are not in fact logical errors, but express and work with a type of logic that characterizes the deepest dimensions of our waking reality. These are the dimensions in which we deal with ourselves as a whole, our lives as a whole, or with the sense of reality as a whole. We do so, for example, in situations of deep personal transformation, or of recognition of deep difference of outlook. The paper argues that the logic of these situations is validly one of contradiction and non sequitur, that dreams sometimes express and work with these kinds of situations, and that these kinds of dreams therefore validly involve the same kind of logic. These kinds of dreams consequently also express insight into the sense that our lives or existence as a whole has for us. In achieving that insight, they actively orient, situate, or resituate us in our relation to our lives or existence as a whole. In this respect they are in themselves a practice of philosophy.
Recommended Citation
Barris, J. (2010). The logical structure of dreams and their relation to reality. Dreaming, 20(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0018823
Comments
This is the author’s manuscript. The published version of record is available from the publisher at https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/a0018823. Copyright © 2010, American Psychological Association. All rights reserved.
This paper has been revised and an improved version appears as a chapter in Dr. Barris’ book Sometimes Always True: Undogmatic Pluralism in Politics, Metaphysics, and Epistemology. New York: Fordham University Press, 2015.