...a few days before the outbreak of the Second World War, George Orwell was struggling to reconcile his revolutionary socialist convictions with the urgent need to defend Britain against German aggression. The resolution to this conflict came in a dream: one day before thc announcement of the Treaty of Non-Aggression between the Nazis and the Soviets, Orwell dreamed that the war had begun:

It was one of those dreams which, whatever Freudian inner meaning they may have, do sometimes reveal to you the real state of your feelings. It taught me two things, first, that I should be simply relieved when the long-dreaded war started; secondly, that I was patriotic at heart, would not sabotage or act against my own side, would support the war, would fight in it if possible.

EDITOR'S NOTE

Orwell was a fierce critic of imperialist wars (and would be again after WW2, in 1984) so backing Britain in a war shocked and shamed him quite as much as sex shocked and shamed Freud's repressed clients. But Orwell's dream saw Hitler wasn't just business as usual; he had to be stopped.

Orwell's dream is personal for me. I grew up a leftist and pacifist, shaped by the Vietnam War; yet my dreams distinguish between modern wars; I simultaneously support Ukraine against Russian invasion, yet protest Israel's massacre in Gaza. And have friends who call me inconsistent for that.

Ribeiro uses Orwell's insight to argue dreams are pragmatic--they foresee by extrapolating trends, and test responses (more safely than acting them out in daylight); only traumatized dreamers obsess on the past or repressed desires, a la Freud.

But Ribeiro thinks all dream predictions are extrapolation or guesswork. Not me. Like many longterm dreamworkers, I've had too many specific, bizarre crazy predictions turn out to be true, as well as apparent telepathic or shared dreams; second sight. Still, I agree with Ribeiro's (and Orwell's) main point: most dreams are pragmatic--they ponder futures, so we can choose our path now. Even if no choice is clean.

--Chris Wayan

SOURCE: Sidarta Ribeiro's The Oracle of Night: the History and Science of Dreams p.224-5. Primary source: George Orwell's "My Country Right or Left", in The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters, v.1, a page or two from the end. I checked, curious to see if Ribeiro omitted any details of the dream itself. Nope, this is all Orwell wrote.

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