Eighth Lecture

These waking dreams differ from ordinary dreams only in that the images are more faded, more like mental images. But in terms of the mutual relationship of these images, waking dreams do not differ particularly from so-called real dreams. There are, of course, all degrees of people, from those who do not even notice that such waking dreams are present in the undercurrents of their consciousness, who thus let their thoughts run entirely along the lines of external events, to those who indulge in waking dreams and let them run in their consciousness, as, I might say, the thoughts there want to interweave and intertwine. There are, after all, all degrees of human nature, from those of a dreamy nature, as they are also called, to those who are very dry natures, who accept nothing but what exactly matches some factual course of events. And we must say that a large part of what inspires people artistically, poetically, and so on, comes from this undercurrent of waking dreams during the day.