Second Muse

The thesis aims to closely study the relationship between "sleep and dreams" and "writing" in the great roman In Search of Lost Time."Sleep and dreams" is concerned with the following aspects:half-sleep/waking, the content of dream and the self-interpretation of dream’s meaning. Marcel Proust, who was the most sensitive, meticulous and genius writer in the debut of20s century, probably purposely left a blank of dreams in his diary and correspondence while he indulged himself in talking about his sleeping problems with his family and friends. All those intensive activities of "Unterbewusstsein"(unconsciousness) had not been written down as a part of memory to share with others, but instead they were written down in the disguise of creative writing. Thus, we could use all the related texts of dreams in the roman to compare with Proust’s biography and eventually to understand his life and thoughts. However, to do a more valuable research which is perhaps more to Proust’s wish, we should use them as key or tool to better understand his greatest works. The main body of "sleep and dream" is in fact-memory-the reconstructed/verbalized memory and the pursuit of past by memory or sleep/dream. In order to explore the "sleep and dream world" and its relationship with "writing/creating" in this roman, we should answer following questions:1, what is the "sleep and dream" according to the narrator and how it was interpreted in this book?2, what is the structural function of "sleep and dream"? Does it have any further function?3, does "sleep and dream" function as "involuntary memory"(memoire involontaire) iike the little Madeleine cake? If it does, does it direct the narrator to write? Thus in this way it is homogenous to the involuntary memory when the two domains both direct the narrator to CREATION/WRITING. Since creation is the only way for the narrator and for Proust himself to access and confirm his sense of existence and find the true self, the true past and the only true life, it would be necessary for us to understand how the narrator access to his reason of being (raison d’etre) with the help of dream and then finally achieved by literary creation.