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There are two opposite views concerning dreams. According to the first one, dreams are dangerous. This view is very common in our times and is based on the idea that dream and escapism are akin. According to the second, dreams are important and useful. To work out our own opinion we need to give a definition of dream. Webster's School Dictionary gives among others such meanings as a visionary creation of the imagination and a state of mind in which person is lost in fancies and reveries. It's clear that we deal with two completely different states of mind. The second is obviously dangerous and harmful while the first needs discussing. The example of a completely positive attitude is given by J.R.R. Tolkien in his essay On Fairy Stories. Writing about literature he also touches upon the subject of dreams and imagination. He thinks that dreaming and use of imagination are useful. But we must not forget that he was speaking mainly about literature and meant some creative dreams that help to relax and restore not only to you but to other people as well. I want to save the name given to such dreams by Tolkien and will call them spell. I think I can mark out two other kinds of dreaming. I will call them productive dreams and day-dreams. Productive dreams are undoubtedly useful and important. They are closely connected with planning your life. It's such a kind of dream when dreaming is connected with realization of your goal. Working hard you also imagine how you will live when you achieve your goal. And when you achieve it, you are ready to use it's products. Spell is a kind of dream, which is closely connected with art. Painters, poets, musicians and writers - Tolkien calls them fairies or elves - use spell to create a secondary world. The more powerful the spell and richer the imagination of the artist are the more believable and unusual this world is. Spell is also connected with reading, listening to or looking at the creation of the artist. Spell is useful for both author and reader/spectator/listener. I mean, of course, not such cases when the author sublimates his/her dark energy and creates the world of ugliness, disharmony and nightmare, but when s/he writes with love to people and to the world and describes a world of beauty, heroism, harmony - not without grief and tragedy, of course. I think, there is nothing bad when we read about other worlds, more beautiful and splendid than ours - and at last understand that our own world is almost the same, that it is also splendid and beautiful and worth living in - and fighting for good. They usually confuse this kind of dream with day-dreams and call them both escapism. But I don't think that they are the same. Reading or writing a book we work hard and communicate with other people - author or reader. Communication can be called neither dangerous nor harmful, because it is a virtue and even a goal of a human being. On the contrary, day-dreaming is the real escapism, it resembles American movies - doing nothing yourself but thinking how perfect you can be or watching other people realizing your dream. So, the problem of dreams is much more complicated than it seems at first sight. |
