The Forgotten Language: An Introduction to the Understanding of Dreams, Fairy Tales, and Myths by Erich Fromm

Author:Erich Fromm [Fromm, Erich]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781480402041
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2013-03-25T16:00:00+00:00

It is not surprising to find that the philosophers of the Enlightenment were skeptical about all claims that dreams were sent by God or could be used for purposes of divination. Voltaire denounces the idea that dreams predict and prophesy as superstitious nonsense. But in spite of this view he holds that, while dreams often are the expression of somatic stimuli and of excesses “in the passions of the soul,” we also often make use of our highest rational faculties during sleep:

We must acknowledge with Petronius: quidquid luce, tenebris agit. I have known advocates who have pleaded in dreams, mathematicians who have sought to solve problems; and poets who have composed verses. I have made some myself, which are very passable. It is therefore incontestable that consecutive ideas occur in sleep, as well as when we are awake, which ideas as certainly come in spite of us. We think while sleeping, as we move in our beds, without our will having anything to do either in the motive or the thought. Your Father Malebranche is right in asserting that we are not able to give ourselves ideas. For why are we to be masters of them, when waking, more than during sleep?37

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