Your Metaphor for Literature: ‘Dream’

Your Metaphor for Literature: ‘Dream’

Literature is like a dream because it exists in a realm between the real and the imagined. It is not tangible, yet it reflects profound truths about reality—truths that may not be immediately visible when we are awake. Like a dream, literature brings forth realities hidden beneath the surface of everyday life. It is a dream of a community, capturing collective emotions, struggles, and aspirations in ways that blur the line between what is real and what is imagined. Psychologists speak of two minds—the conscious and the subconscious. A dream, they say, reflects the subconscious mind, bypassing the ego to reveal deeper truths. In literature, something similar happens: the ego of the writer, or even the reader, is set aside, allowing for a more honest exploration of the human condition. Literature, like a dream, brings to the surface insights that may seem more real than reality itself.

This metaphor has a deep connection to my life. As I look back on my journey with literature, I see how it has unfolded much like a dream, unearthing the hidden, sometimes uncomfortable truths about myself. Literature, in its many forms, allows me to confront emotions and desires that I may not fully understand or acknowledge in my waking life—the ambitions I suppress, the fears I hide, the darker parts of my psyche that I might prefer to ignore. In this way, literature acts as a mirror, reflecting the deepest parts of myself that I often fail to recognize. When reading works that are raw, emotional, or philosophical, I often feel as though the story is my own—yet told in a way that is more expansive and descriptive than I could ever articulate. The experience feels like a dream, where my reality intertwines with the fictional, allowing me to better understand myself and my place in the world.

A key moment in my literary journey occurred when I read The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. The novel’s exploration of identity and belonging resonated deeply with me, and at times it felt as if the characters were living inside me. The emotions they experienced, their struggles with culture and family, mirrored my own—yet the novel gave voice to those feelings in a way I had not been able to express myself. It felt like a dream in which I was both the observer and the participant, moving through the narrative as if I were in the characters' shoes. Similarly, when I first encountered Kafka and Camus, their works felt surreal, as though I were in a dream where reality and absurdity collided. The sense of alienation in Metamorphosis or the existential questioning in The Stranger mirrored my own feelings of disconnection, but through these writers, I was able to engage with these emotions in a deeper, more structured way, making the experience of literature feel more real than life itself.

In dreams, events often merge across time and space, and the same happens in literature. There are moments when a story feels not just like a narrative, but like a fusion of various moments from different points in my life. I am not merely reading about the characters; I am living their experiences, as if I have crossed into their world. This merging of time, space, and emotion allows me to see myself in the story, to uncover parts of my own reality that I might not have been aware of before.

Literature, like a dream, holds up a mirror to our unconscious, revealing the truths that we may be unable to face in our waking lives. Through the stories of others, we discover our own reflections, and in this process, we gain a deeper understanding of who we are. In many ways, my personal journey with literature has been a journey of self-discovery. Each book, each author, has offered me a new lens through which to view myself and the world around me. Literature has brought me closer to my true self, unveiling the hidden parts of my psyche, and allowing me to confront them in a way that is both cathartic and transformative.