Dreams

Dreaming is a part of the human experience that is not fully understood, but is certainly much discussed and studied. From Sigmund Freud's Interpretation of Dreams to the recent NYT bestseller, Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker, Ph.D., there is a perennial interest in the purpose and meaning of dreams. Presented here is an original anthology of dreams that appear in literature, both fiction and nonfiction. The selections reflect the experience of dreams from within by the characters or the authors, and all come from material published up until Sigmund Freud presented his controversial and influential theories. The excerpts are presented in the following loose categories and offer a unique and expansive survey of the power and prevalence of dreams in literature: I: Novels and Short Stories--includes excerpts from Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, and the full stories, "Sleepy," by Anton Chekhov, and "A Country Doctor," by Franz Kafka - II: Mythology, History and Religion--Joseph, in the Bible; Homer's The Illiad; and Ovid's Metamorphoses - III: Philosophy and Psychology--Rene Descartes, The Meditations; Voltaire, "Of Dreams" - IV: Poetry and Drama--Louisa May Alcott's "Mary's Dream"; Edgar Allen Poe's "Dream-Land"; and Shakespeare's Macbeth - V: Memoirs and Essays--G.K. Chesterton, "Dreams"; Helen Keller's The World I Live In; and Robert Louis Stevenson's "A Chapter on Dreams."