The Practical Use of Dreams in Jane Eyre
I’ve been told dreams are easy. Sleep. Daydreams. Sudden zomibification. A Scrubs moment over a pretty girl. What’s there to it? You stay up late interpreting The Interpretation of Dreams and you pass out onto the open book-- dream. Is there really anything meaningful happening there? I say there is, and it’s just the kind of stuff you get in Jane Eyre.
As Ernest Hartmann says in his book Dreams and Nightmares, “every morning we awake from an important state in our minds in which we spend a great deal of time and which can sometimes help us accomplish great feats” (1). Exceptional novels, feats of architecture, and essential technology have all been created by people who dreamt. This is the practical aspect of dreaming. Sometimes you get something out of it.
This happens a lot in Jane Eyre. Jane has quite a few dreams, trances, and other fantasies. As Mr. Rochester says, she “[exists] in a kind of artist’s dreamland” (132). Jane keeps her head in the clouds because she uses dreams practically. People have things they mull over in their waking life that they just can’t figure out. They’re just too close to the problem to do the simple math to solve it. Sleep gives the brain a chance to relax and put two and two together. When Jane is confronted with a problem in her waking life, she first participates in some sort of sleep activity- be it a dream, or a daydream, or something as simple as putting her head to her pillow- before she acts on her problem. This is a psychological way of life for her because it allows her to address, sometimes even solve, her problems.
*upper left- dreams are easy... for Richard Nixon.
*lower right- a truly classic Classics Illustrated rendition of Jane Eyre
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