The Sleeping Subject

Merleau-Ponty on Dreaming

Bibliographic Data

ID20401488
AuthorsJames Morley (0000-0003-2380-6747, North East Wales Institute, Wrexham)
Year1999
Volume9
Issue1
Pages89-101
Publication date1999-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueTheory & Psychology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0959-3543 • E-ISSN: 1461-7447
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0959354399091005
OpenAlexW2071263990
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited3

This paper presents the place of dreaming in Merleau-Ponty's thought. It elicits the view of dreaming developed in three seminal texts: Phenomenology of Perception, the passivity fragment from the Themes from the Lectures at the College de France, and The Visible and the Invisible. In each of these texts, Merleau-Ponty releases dreaming from the secondary status conventionally granted to it in relation to waking perception, and maintains, instead, the integrity of the phenomenon as an authentic mode of experience. At the same time, he insists upon the interrelatedness of dreaming and waking by positing for both the lived body as a common ground that precludes dichotomization. Merleau-Ponty's elevation of the imaginary in general, and dreaming in particular, is especially relevant to contemporary psychology in its quest for theoretical foundations that will accommodate the full spectrum of psychological phenomena

Epistemology · Lived experience · Perception · Phenomenon · Psychoanalysis · The Imaginary · Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy · Philosophical and Theoretical Analysis · Philosophy · Philosophy, Ethics, and Existentialism · Psychology

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