Abstract
This text is the introduction of a book entitled Nuits savantes. Une histoire des rêves (1800–1945) [Learned Nights. A History of Dreams (1800–1945)]. First, it proposes a reflection on the epistemology and historiography of dreams. Animals and men dream, but only human beings tell their dreams to other human beings and construct different dream cultures (religious, artistic, scientific etc.). This starting point enables us to propose a cultural, social and intellectual history reading dreams as narratives and highlighting their intertextuality. Scientists tested and illustrated their theories with the help of their own dreams, for during the nineteenth century the practice of scientific self-observation of dreams developed in a new way, giving rise to what I call “dreaming scientists.”
I would like to thank the Éditions de l’EHESS for authorising the publication of this text, which is a slightly modified and expanded extract from the introduction of my book, Nuits savantes. Une histoire des rêves (1800–1945), Paris, EHESS Éditions, 2012, and Ben Boswell for his acute translation of this text.
The table of contents from Nuits savantes includes the following chapters (translated from French): (1) “Physiology or Psychology. Record Our Dreams for Science?”; (2) “Dreams, Madness, and Somnambulism”; (3) “Alfred Maury’s Theatre of Contradictions”; (4) “The Magic Visions of Léon d’Hervey de Saint-Deny”; (5) “The Imaginative Dreams of Gabriel Tarde”; (6) “Joseph Delbœuf and Philippe Tissié. Between Dreams, Hypnotism, and Suggestion”; (7) “The Scientific Marvel of Dreams”; (8) “Interpretations of Dreams”; (9) “Observations, Literary Stories and Critical Narratives”; (10) “Unconscious, Subconscious, Sentiments. Sleep Without Dreams?”; (11) “Freud, Dreams, and French-Speaking Europe”; (12) “Two Dreamers During the Great War”; (13) “By Way of an Epilogue: Portrait of Maurice Halbwachs as an Erudite Dreamer.”
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- 1.
Translation note: Prior to the nineteenth century the French word songes referred to structured or spiritually directed dreams; the word rêves was associated with secular dreams viewed as a form of mental illness. In the nineteenth century the two words evolved into synonyms, and today the use of the word songes is considered more poetic or esoteric and used in some spiritual contexts.
- 2.
For histories of dreams in occidental cultures , see, for example, Barras et al. (2002), Besson and Schmitt (2017), Burke (1973), Carroy (2012), Carroy and Lancel (2016), Carroy (2017), Chandezon and du Bouchet (2014), Daston (2000), Dauvois and Grosperrin (2003), Dieterlé and Engel (2003), Dumora (2005), Foschi and Lombardo (2006), Foucault (1984, 2014), Gantet (2010a, b), Garnier (2013), Gautier (1988), Hacking (2001), James (1995), Le Goff (1985), Marinelli and Mayer (2003), Pick and Roper (2004), Porret (2001), Price (1986), Ripa (1988), Schmitt (2001) and Shamdasani (2003).
For anthropology and sociology of dreams, see, for example, Caillois et von Grunebaum (1967), Cecconi (2011), Duvignaud et al. (1979), Lahire (2018), Lahire and Mazurel (2018), Perrin (2011), and “Rêver” (1996).
- 3.
German texts use the same word, Traumbuch.
- 4.
Afterwards, in 1885, Joseph Delbœuf quoted some of his friend Tarde’s dreams.
- 5.
On Queneau’s text, see Gollut (2008).
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Carroy, J. (2019). A History of Dreams and the Science of Dreams: Historiographical Questions. In: Morgese, G., Pietro Lombardo, G., Vande Kemp, H. (eds) Histories of Dreams and Dreaming. Palgrave Studies in the History of Science and Technology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16530-7_2
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