A Dream within a Dream

Prof. Elliot Wolfson (NYU) sets out to illustrate that the dream state and waking reality are on an equal phenomenal footing; that the sensory world is the dream from which one must awaken by waking to the dream in which one is merely dreaming that one is awake. By interpreting the dream within the dream, he articulates how a productive paradox emerges to reveal the wakeful character of the dream and the dreamful character of wakefulness.

The presentation draws on psychoanalysis, phenomenology, and neuroscience to elucidate the phenomenon of dreaming in a vast array of Biblical, Rabbinic, philosophical, and Kabbalistic texts.