From living metaphors in impactful dreams to sublime disquietude and sublime enthrallment.

INTRODUCTION

The continuing impact of spontaneously recalled dreams sometimes depends upon the same kind of unfolding semantic complexity that literary scholars attribute to poetic literary metaphors.

METHODS

We present the results of two online studies of impactful dreams (i.e., nightmares, existential dreams, and transcendent dreams) that reinforce this account.

RESULTS

In both Study 1 (N = 147) and Study 2 (N = 157), assessment of dream experience indicated that (a) existential dreams transition into sublime disquietude (inexpressible realizations, self-perceptual depth, disquietude) and (b) transcendent dreams transition into sublime enthrallment (inexpressible realizations; self-perceptual depth, reverence), while (c) nightmares, in contrast, transition into inflexible vigilance.

DISCUSSION: Because existential dreams and transcendent dreams support a type of metacognition that enables continued attunement to tension between the metaphoric ("is") and literal ("is not") truth-value of metaphoric dream images, these two types of impactful dreams may precipitate the epistemic-and aesthetic-significance of unfolding semantic resonance within the dream.