quotations about dreams & dreaming
My dreams are the problems of the day stepped up to absurdity, a little like men dancing, wearing the horns and masks of animals.
JOHN STEINBECK
The Winter of Our Discontent
The realities of the world affected me as visions, and as visions only, while the wild ideas of the land of dreams became, in turn,--not the material of my every-day existence--but in very deed that existence utterly and solely in itself.
EDGAR ALLAN POE
"Berenice"
Since symbols are permanent or constant translations, they realize, in a certain measure, the ideal of ancient as well as popular dream interpretation, an ideal which by means of our technique we had left behind. They permit us in certain cases to interpret a dream without questioning the dreamer who, aside from this, has no explanation for the symbol. If the interpreter is acquainted with the customary dream symbols and, in addition, with the dreamer himself, the conditions under which the latter lives and the impressions he received before having the dream, it is often possible to interpret a dream without further information--to translate it "right off the bat." Such a trick flatters the interpreter and impresses the dreamer; it stands out as a pleasurable incident in the usual arduous course of cross-examining the dreamer. But do not be misled. It is not our function to perform tricks. Interpretation based on a knowledge of symbols is not a technique that can replace the associative technique, or even compare with it. It is a supplement to the associative technique, and furnishes the latter merely with transplanted, usable results. But as regards familiarity with the dreamer's psychic situation, you must consider the fact that you are not limited to interpreting the dreams of acquaintances; that as a rule you are not acquainted with the daily occurrences which act as the stimuli for the dreams, and that the associations of the subject furnish you with a knowledge of that very thing we call the psychic situation.
SIGMUND FREUD
"Symbolism in the Dream", A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis
In ... dreams there is a language that is older than the spoken word at all. The idiom is another specie and with it there can be no lie or no dissemblance of the truth.
CORMAC MCCARTHY
Cities of the Plain
Dreams are as simple or as complicated as the dreamer.
BRIAN HERBERT & KEVIN J. ANDERSON
Dune: House Harkonnen
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams.
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
One difference between those who make it and those who don't--regardless of their field of endeavor--is not the "talent" difference. Those who go over the top have a dream and the dream has them. They make the commitment and pursue that dream with dogged patience and persistence. Commitment produces consistent, enthusiastic effort that inevitably produces greater and greater rewards.
ZIG ZIGLAR
Over the Top: Moving from Survival to Stability
Rich men have dreams. Poor men die to make them come true.
GLEN COOK
Water Sleeps
In dreams, as in the Gospels, one usually possesses the gift of tongues.
ROBERTO BOLAÑO
2666
The general function of dreams is to try to restore our psychological balance by producing dream material that re-establishes, in a subtle way, the total psychic equilibrium.
CARL JUNG
Man and His Symbols
Dreams make all men authors.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
People have dreams all the time. It don't mean nothin.
CORMAC MCCARTHY
The Crossing
Much of our waking experience is but a dream in the daylight.
GEORGE ELIOT
Theophrastus Such
There is no one so insufferable as a person who gives no other excuse for a peculiar action than saying he had been directed to it in a dream.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Foundation's Edge
The blackest murder is the killing of the Soul's aspirations!
EDWIN LEIBFREED
"The Song of the Soul"
When we can't dream any longer we die.
EMMA GOLDMAN
Mother Earth Bulletin
Dreams, as we all know, are very queer things: some parts are presented with appalling vividness, with details worked up with the elaborate finish of jewellery, while others one gallops through, as it were, without noticing them at all, as, for instance, through space and time. Dreams seem to be spurred on not by reason but by desire, not by the head but by the heart, and yet what complicated tricks my reason has played sometimes in dreams, what utterly incomprehensible things happen to it!
FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY
The Dream of a Ridiculous Man
Keep your dreams, you never know when you might need them.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
The Shadow of the Wind
Dreams fade with morning light,
Never a morn for thee,
Dreamer of dreams, goodnight.
JOYCE KILMER
"The Poet's Epitaph"
Don't let your reality change your dreams, let your dreams change reality.
ANONYMOUS