When my brother, Al, was in the hospital to undergo surgery to remove a tumour from his brain, one of the professors told him that we humans know almost nothing ( just ten per cent) about how our brains work – The rest is still a puzzle! Therefore, unexplained phenomena, such as strange things like seeing ghosts, daydreams, or schizophrenia, are always fascinating topics for inquisitive minds.
According to Dr Carl Jung: …in schizophrenia, the complexes have become disconnected and autonomous fragments, which either do not reintegrate back to the psychic totality, or, in the case of remission, are unexpectedly joined together again as if nothing happened” (1939).
Franz Kafka Dreams >Wrestling matches every night<
During our trip to Serbia (I will write a post about it soon), I brought along some books as I do on any trip. This time, I discovered some surprises. While renovating the apartment, I found a book I couldn’t remember owning. Upon picking it up, I found a shopping receipt in the book dating back to 1995. It was clear that the book belonged to Al. Apart from a few novels, Franz Kafka wrote thousands of letters about his thoughts, dreams, and daydreams, and I was excited to have this particular book. The book is in German, and I translated a description and one of his letters about his dreams. I often considered the similarities between Kafka and Dostoevsky, as the latter frequently had daydreams like a schizophrenic. In this dream, Dostoevsky is interestingly present! I hope you will enjoy it.
According to Jean-Paul, dreams substantially affect a poet because he is used to fantasy. In contrast, Kafka’s dreams intensified his daytime fears. Taken out of context, his dreams form an interesting “storybook” of events and changes involving real people and places from his life. Kafka’s descriptive notes allow the reader to relive each dream-like episode as if watching a film vividly. This collection also serves as a documentary, presenting the dreams chronologically and reproducing Kafka’s comments on the phenomenon of dreams and dreaming.
Gregor Samsa woke up one morning to find himself transformed into a monstrous vermin. Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” challenges readers to accept this transformation as real, denying the possibility of dismissing it as merely a dream. This may frustrate those who rely on reason to understand the world and expect literature to assist them in this endeavour. In 1916, Franz Herwig criticized the rejection of realism and its associated positive aspects in an essay about the authors of the series “The Judgement Day,” in which Kafka’s story appeared. Gregor Samsa’s story “The Metamorphosis” challenges our understanding of reality and urges us to see the world in a new light. Kafka emphasizes that incomprehensible forces are shaping our lives, which may be more influential than we can rationally explain. According to his commentary on the story “The Judgement,” which he wrote in one go from ten o’clock in the evening to six o’clock in the morning, this is the only way to write in such a context—with a complete openness of body and soul! In this type of writing, the usual censorship of the mind is primarily eliminated. Everything can be risked, and a great fire is prepared for everyone for the strangest ideas, in which they perish and rise again.
Dream!
[To Milena Jesenska, August 1920; M 170-172]
Today, I think I dreamt of you for the first time since I’ve been in Prague. A dream towards morning, short and heavy, still caught up in sleep after a bad night. I know little about it. You were in Prague; we were walking along Ferdinand Street, a little opposite Vilimek, in the direction of the quay; some acquaintances of yours were walking past on the other side; we turned to look at them; you spoke of them, perhaps there was also talk of Krasa [I know he is not in Prague, I will find out his address]. You said as usual, but there was something incomprehensible, indescribable about rejection in it; I didn’t mention it but cursed myself, thereby only expressing the curse that was on me. Because we were in the coffee house, probably in the Kaffee Union (it was on the way, and it was also the coffee house from Reiner’s last evening), a man and a girl were sitting at our table, but I couldn’t remember them. Then, there was a man who looked very similar to Dostoyevsky but young, with a deep black beard and hair. Everything, for example, the eyebrows and the bulges over the eyes, were incredibly strong. Then you were there, and I. Again, nothing betrayed your aloof manner, but the rejection was there.
Your face was – I could not look away from the tormenting oddity – powdered, and it was overly obvious, clumsy, bad; it was probably hot, and so whole powder lines had formed on your cheeks; I can still see them in front of me. Again and again, I leaned forward to ask why you were powdered; when you noticed that I wanted to ask, you asked obligingly – the rejection was simply not noticeable – >What do you want?< But I could not ask, I did not dare, and yet I somehow suspected that being powdered was a test for me, a crucial test, that I should ask, and I wanted to but did not dare. And so the sad dream rolled over me. At the same time, the Dostoyevsky man tormented me. His behaviour towards me was similar to yours but still a little different. When I asked him something, he was very friendly, sympathetic, leaned over, and open-hearted. Still, when I didn’t know what to ask or say – this happened every moment – he would withdraw with a jerk, sink into a book, know nothing more about the world and especially not about me, disappear into his beard and hair. I don’t know why I found this unbearable, again and again – I couldn’t do anything else – I had to pull him over to me with a question and again and again, I lost him through my own fault! 💖🙏🤗
The Imagen at top: Youri Ivanov – Artiste Russe (Russian)
lampmagician 
Very nice
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🙏🤙
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I admire Kafka writing down his dreams. I find it difficult most of the time to keep it down in words, let alone in stories:) I forget most of the dreams as soon as I wake up.
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Unfortunately, so do I, my friend! However, it is fascinating to keep them in the wake mode. Thank you!
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That was a riveting post Aladin, thank you! The words that really caught my attention were the ones about writing with a complete openness of body and soul! This way of being resonates deeply with dreamwork I intuit, and how dreams are written by our personal and collective psyches.
Having had the pleasure of reading your brother’s novel, I believe he too wrote with this complete openness, without censoring his soul. How important, I’m thinking, the Divine Feminine was to him, and you too. Thank you for sharing your mind, body, spirit and soul. Love and light, Deborah.
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Your precise reading and thoughtfulness always amaze me! You read not only the lines but between the lines. I am so happy to have you as a friend, my lovely Angel. Like always, you have hit the point, and I feel we are still in the same synchronicity. Love and peace forever, Deborah.🙏🙏💖🤗🌹
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And I forgot to say, you are absolutely right; Al did write just as you described. Thank you!🥰😘😘💕
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I found a wealth of valuable insights and information in your post.
As always, I was fascinated by your writing
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Thank you so much, dear Luisa, as always appreciated. 🙏💖🌹
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You’re most welcome 🙏❣️🙏
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As usual this is so interesting. Talking about Kafka and those dreams… fascinating.
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Serious
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Oh yes! He’s really an extraordinary and fascinating man. Thank you for your kind words, my lovely friend. 🙏💖🌹
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Wow. This is riveting and very moving. Excellent.
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Thank you, my friend, for your encouragement.🙏🤙
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Thank you for sharing this fascinating dream about a fascinating man. What suffering Kafka and Dostoevsky must have endured! Thankfully for us, they somehow managed to transform it into some of the world’s most original and enduring works of art. But at what a cost! Kafka’s dream seems to speak of an extreme sensitivity to everything and everyone around him–so highly developed that it caused him acute distress that only some form of creative expression could relieve. Like Van Gogh, Sylvia Plath, Tolstoy, and so many other artists, his extreme sensitivity was a curse for him, but a blessing for posterity. We are such sad and beautiful creatures. Jeanie
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Thank you so much, dear Jeane. I hoped to read your interpretation and opinion about this dream, and my wish has come true! I completely agree with you; this sensitivity is very valuable, and seeing it manifest in such creative geniuses is terrific. I’m glad to know and read the phenomenal works of these artists and grateful to have you help me understand them better. Sending love to you, my lovely teacher.🙏🤗💖
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Kafka seems obsessed with his dreams. He was searching for meanings. He seems to have put together hypotheses.
I say “seems”, as I have read only about him, and not what he wrote.
I remember many of my dreams. They make sense, if I really look at my perceived truth within me. However, sometimes that truth is out of reach. I think in those cases I want it to be so.
My sister was schizophrenic. She was beyond difficult to be around, destructive, cruel. She was in an institution for a year, never cured. She lived her life on a mountain of medications.
I could never have built a relationship with her like you had with Al.
A most intriguing post Aladin. Your translation brought out a lot.
Thank you!
❦🌹🌟❦🌹🌟
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Oh, my lovely Resa, you might write your dreams cause it helps a lot to understand one soul. The dream served as a “guideline for the direction of therapy” and “a prediction of the outcome” in the Jungian sense that most dreams have a forward-looking momentum, a prospective dimension.
Dr Jung says: The dream is the small hidden door in the soul’s deepest and most intimate sanctum, which opens to that primaeval cosmic night that was the soul long before there was a conscious ego and will be a soul far beyond what a conscious ego could ever reach. Every human life contains a potential.
I’m sorry for your sister! We have such a dark, unknown corner in our inner minds, which, on the one hand, could help to heal and, on the other hand, can damage our senses!
Take care, my friend. 🙏💖🤗🌹
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Ah, the magic and mystical wisdom of dreams. I have dream journals beginning in 1967. Will I ever go back and read all these dreams? I don’t know, but some stay with me without any effort. Thanks for this powerful post.
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I think it could be interesting to get back to those dreams. I wish I could have written mine! Thank you so much, dear Elaine.
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:)The book by Kafka sounds very interesting. A book of dreams presented as realms to experience and decode sounds like a fascinating exercise. And in working through the author’s dreams we might be able to afford a kind of objective detachment that is hard to do with our own dreams. I love mulling over symbolism and the unending ways it can be interpreted. After a particularly vivid dream, there are always insight to be had that you can take with you into your day. 🙂
Matt – WithMeaning.net
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Well said! Thank you for your wise and kind comment. I appreciate that.🙏🤙
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