This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung
Within each one of us there is another whom we do not know. He speaks to us in dreams and tells us how differently he sees us from how we see ourselves. When, therefore, we find ourselves in a difficult situation, to which there is no solution, he can sometimes kindle a light that radically alters our attitude, the very attitude that led us into the difficult situation.
Carl Jung, fully Carl Gustav Jung
The two fundamental points in dealing with dreams are these: First, the dream should be treated as a fact, about which one must make no previous assumption except that it somehow makes sense; and second, the dream is a specific expression of the unconscious.
If my dreams left their footprints in the road, the path beneath my love’s window would be worn down, though it is stone. Alas, in the country of dream, no roads endure, no traces remain.
The best reason for having dreams is that in dreams no reasons are necessary.
Lu Xun, or Lu Hsün, pen name of Zhou Shuren
Revolution is a bitter thing, mixed with filth and blood, not as lovely or perfect as the poets think. It is eminently down to earth, involving many humble, tiresome tasks, not so romantic as the poets think… So it is easy for all who have romantic dreams about revolution to become disillusioned on closer acquaintance, when a revolution is actually carried out.
Acquaintance | Dreams | Earth | Revolution |
Anaïs Nin, born Angela Anaïs Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira Nin y Culmell
What the psychoanalysts stress, the relation between dreams and our conscious acts, is what poets already know. The poets walk this bridge with ease, from conscious to unconscious, physical reality to psychological reality.
To laugh is to risk appearing the fool. To weep is to risk appearing sentimental. To reach out for another is to risk involvement. To expose our feelings is to risk exposing our true self. To place your ideas and dreams before the crowd is to risk loss. To love is to risk not being loved in return. To hope is to risk despair. To try at all is to risk failure. But risk we must, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing. The man, the woman who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing.
Despair | Dreams | Failure | Feelings | Hazard | Hope | Ideas | Life | Life | Love | Man | Nothing | Risk | Self | Woman |
There is not much to do but bury a man when the last of his dreams are dead.
One-half of life is admitted by us to be passed in sleep, in which, however, it may appear otherwise, we have no perception of truth, and all our feelings are delusions; who knows but the other half of life, in which we think we are awake, is a sleep also, but in some respects different from the other, and from which we wake when we, as we call it sleep. As a man dreams often that he is dreaming, crowding one dreamy delusion on another.
Delusion | Dreams | Feelings | Life | Life | Man | Perception | Truth | Think |