Plan: Dreams and philosophical realism

Postclassical and medieval history

Some Indigenous American tribes and Mexican civilizations believe that dreams are a way of visiting and having contact with their ancestors.^[34] Some Native American tribes used vision quests as a rite of passage, fasting and praying until an anticipated guiding dream was received, to be shared with the rest of the tribe upon their return.^[35][36]

The Middle Ages brought a harsh interpretation of dreams in some cultures.^{[citation needed]} They were seen as evil, and the images as temptations from the devil. Many believed that during sleep, the devil could fill the human mind with corrupting and harmful thoughts. Martin Luther, the Protestant Reformer, believed dreams were the work of the Devil. However, Catholics such as St. Augustine and St. Jerome claimed that the direction of their lives was heavily influenced by their dreams.^{[citation needed]}

In art



Jacob's Dream, Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, 1860

The depiction of dreams in Renaissance and Baroque art is often related to Biblical narrative. Examples are Joachim's Dream (1304–1306) from the Scrovegni Chapel fresco cycle by Giotto, and Jacob's Dream (1639) by Jusepe de Ribera. Dreams and dark imaginings are the theme of several notable works of the Romantic era, such as Goya's etching The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (c. 1799) and Henry Fuseli's painting The Nightmare (1781). Salvador Dalí's Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening (1944) also investigates this theme through absurd juxtapositions of a nude lady, tigers leaping out of a pomegranate, and a spiderlike elephant walking in the background. Henri Rousseau's last painting was The Dream. Le Rêve ("The Dream") is a 1932 painting by Pablo Picasso.

In literature

Further information: Dream world (plot device)

Dream frames were frequently used in medieval allegory to justify the narrative; The Book of the Duchess^[37] and The Vision Concerning Piers Plowman^[38] are two such dream visions. Even before them, in antiquity, the same device had been used by Cicero and Lucian of Samosata.

The Cheshire Cat vanishes in Wonderland

They have also featured in fantasy and speculative fiction since the 19th century. One of the best-known dream worlds is Wonderland from Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, as well as Looking-Glass Land from its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass. Unlike many dream worlds, Carroll's logic is like that of actual dreams, with transitions and flexible causality.

Other fictional dream worlds include the Dreamlands of H. P. Lovecraft's Dream Cycle^[39] and The Neverending Story's^[40] world of Fantasia, which includes places like the Desert of Lost Dreams, the Sea of Possibilities and the Swamps of Sadness. Dreamworlds, shared hallucinations and other alternate realities feature in a number of works by Philip K. Dick, such as The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch and Ubik. Similar themes were explored by Jorge Luis Borges, for instance in The Circular Ruins.