This book explores the intersections between dreaming and the literary imagination in light of
the findings of recent neurocognitive and empirical research with the aim to lay a groundwork
for an empirically informed aesthetics of dreaming. Drawing on perspectives from literary
theory philosophy of mind and dream research this study investigates dreaming in relation to
creativity and waking states of imagination such as writing and reading stories. Exploring the
similarities and differences between the 'language' of dreams and the language of literature
it analyses the strategies employed by writers to create a sense of dream in literary fiction
as well as the genres most conducive to this endeavour. The book closes with three case studies
focusing on texts by Kazuo Ishiguro Clare Boylan and John Banville to illustrate the diverse
ways in which writers achieve to 'translate' the experience and 'language' of the dream.
