Christa Giles

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Wilde’s and Huysmans’ interest in the world of the
irrational, the dream, or drug-induced fantasies is a
product not only of their interest in altered perceptions
through artifice or the workings of the unconscious. For the
very assertion of the importance of dreams validated the
need to express the free play of the imagination beyond the
rules and codifications of society and the principles of
reality which dominate it. Moreover, the focus on the
dream made it possible to explore and express the inner life
of the self, to use it as subject matter. Therefore, the dream
functioned in their work not merely as an escape from
reality, but also as a means of focussing upon an internal
reality.