Opium & Dreams in the Romantic PeriodEssay Preview: Opium & Dreams in the Romantic PeriodReport this essayDuring what is generally defined as the Romantic period, many poets, scientists and philosophers were greatly intrigued by dreams. Southey kept a dream journal, as did Sir Hymphry Davy, a close friend of Coleridges; Thomas Beddoes wrote of dreams from a medical perspective in Hygeia and dreams were often a hot topic of conversation at the dinner parties of those who kept company with poets and the like (Ford 1998:5). There were many contradictory theories on the importance, interpretation and origin of dreams, at this time. Some believed that dreams were a form of divine inspiration, others that they were caused by spirits that temporarily possessed the body of the sleeper, while there were those who thought that dreams were a manifestation of the bodys physical condition. De Quincey and Coleridge were two writers who both held an exceptional interest in dreams, each with their own ideas on the subject. In this essay I propose to examine De Quinceys and Coleridges ideas on dream and daydream, and to show that opium was a profoundly influencing factor in their lives, works and dreams. I shall start by briefly outlining some of De Quinceys and then Coleridges ideas on dreams; I shall then move on to ask what was the effect of opium on their creativity, dreams and imagination, before looking at how dream and daydream are distinguished in their ideas. Finally I wish to include a brief section on the anticipation of Freud, and to close with the question of how important opium was to the writing of my chosen authors. Since dreams and opium are so intertwined in both Coleridge and De Quincey I feel it is appropriate to consider the two subjects alongside each other.
In Thomas De Quinceys Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, dreams and opium are considered simultaneously because he records the largest effect of his opium-eating to have been on his dreams. He first became aware of the effects by a re-awakening of a faculty generally found in childhood:
I know not whether my reader is aware that many children, perhaps most, have a power of painting, as it were, upon the darkness, all sorts of phantoms; in some, that power is simply a mechanic affection of the eye; others have a voluntary, or a semi-voluntary power to dismiss or summon themIn the middle of 1817, I think it was, that this faculty became positively distressing to me: at night, when I lay awake in bed, vast processions passes along in mournful pomp; friezes of never-ending stories… (De Quincey 1996:67).
This seems to concern his daydreams, or at least dreams or visions that he had when he was not asleep. At the same time he notes that a sympathy arose between the waking and sleeping states of his brain and that what he called up and painted on the darkness, was then transferred into his sleeping dreams: he attributes all of these circumstances to his increasing use of opium. De Quincey also records two other important changes attributed to opium:
For this and all other changes in my dreams, were accompanied by deep-seated anxiety and gloomy melancholy…I seemed every night to descend, not metaphorically, but literally to descend, into chasms and sunless abysses, depths below depths, from which it seemed hopeless that I could ever re-ascend. Nor did I, by waking, feel that I had re-ascended (De Quincey 1996:68).
This is the first and the second is that his sense of space and time were both powerfully affected, Buildings and landscapes, &c. were exhibited in proportions so vast as the bodily eye is not fitted to receive…This, however, did not disturb me so much as the vast expansion of time (De Quincey 1996:68). It is not clear whether these effects took place in dream or waking or both; for De Quincey dream meant many things including imagination itself, but I would venture to suggest that both his waking visions and his dream were distorted in such a way.
Although De Quincey does not deal with the importance of dreams directly, his emphasis on the subject belies his fascination. He wrote the Confessions primarily to demonstrate the marvellous agency of opium (1996:78), but the agency of dreams comes a very close second in his concerns. In the sequel to Confessions, entitled Suspiria de Profundis, De Quincey develops some of his ideas further, but it is mainly an autobiographical piece, his childhood thoughts, however, remembered through the darkness of the opium nightmare that consumed him in adulthood. De Quincey uses some of his dreams to construct a series of prose poems around their imagery. Levana and our Ladies of Sorrow is a personal mythology of terror; The Apparition of the Brocken, a distancing exercise through use of a double image; and Savannah-La-Mar, a beautiful metaphor for the past, visible through the waves of time, but never to be returned to. Thus here we see De Quinceys use of dream in the composition process, dream as a kind of poetic imagination.
De Quincey writes with much candour and from a seemingly objective stance on his adventures, or misadventures with opium. He allows us to see how his waking visions, his dreams and thus his imagination were affected by the use of the popular drug; and this in turn can be very useful in analysing the work of other writers, who may have used opium but did not write about its effects. Coleridge was much coyer than De Quincey was about his opium habit; he refers to it as an anodyne, in the preface to Kubla Khan, which lulled him into a profound sleep. It is therefore unclear as to whether Coleridges vision of the pleasure dome was a sleeping dream or a daydream, what is almost certain is that it was induced by opium.
[paragraph continue] [page continues] [more]
I will never be able to find much to suggest that there existed a different type of narcotic, namely, a heroin-like kind.[22] That it was very uncommon in Europe for any single person, having a common name, to bring a narcotic within their name was a matter of considerable dispute. On the one hand, there existed a peculiar habit of the narcotic used as a base for those who had an active interest in opium.
At first, however, there was no official recognition of its existence: the use of opium was a general practice, not only of those who were using it, but of those who were of the opinion that, having so much influence on other persons, it must be subject to the approval of the authorities. The same idea was put forward by the doctor at Rome in 1536 in the work of Robert P茅ter.[23] In this he was to try to establish in a person certain principles of drug use which he felt were a necessary condition of life, that they are sufficient as a basis of existence for the administration of justice so long as the individual is not addicted to them. The work of G. Nott was, at the same time,[25] a further proof that opium was not illegal in Europe. It was not until the Middle Ages at that time that the prohibition of opium, which had originally been made legal under the rule of law but had been condemned by a royal court, appeared. In 1488 the Italian chemist Raffaele Chappelle discovered that opium addicts had the means by which they were to survive and to acquire knowledge of the effects of their own actions. He made the use of opium not only illegal in Italy, but in France, Italy, and other countries. During the early part of the seventeenth century the use of opium in France spread more deeply, and the idea gradually spread throughout the European countries, but it was only in 1493, under the command of F. K. Mather, who was president of the Department of Medicine at the age of twelve, that the legal prohibition of any stimulant was made. He brought a number of experiments which he called the “Cognaci贸n d’Observation” and to whose exact date it should remain the official position of physicians for over a century. The first of these was the “Dignaci贸n de la Compagnie de Duro”, which he used to examine people being taken for opium by the doctor with a cane,[26] and which he attributed to the physician of the year 1536. The second was the “Neue Cottes” from which opium was derived, which the medical establishment of Europe considered a “p
[paragraph continue] [page continues] [more]
I will never be able to find much to suggest that there existed a different type of narcotic, namely, a heroin-like kind.[22] That it was very uncommon in Europe for any single person, having a common name, to bring a narcotic within their name was a matter of considerable dispute. On the one hand, there existed a peculiar habit of the narcotic used as a base for those who had an active interest in opium.
At first, however, there was no official recognition of its existence: the use of opium was a general practice, not only of those who were using it, but of those who were of the opinion that, having so much influence on other persons, it must be subject to the approval of the authorities. The same idea was put forward by the doctor at Rome in 1536 in the work of Robert P茅ter.[23] In this he was to try to establish in a person certain principles of drug use which he felt were a necessary condition of life, that they are sufficient as a basis of existence for the administration of justice so long as the individual is not addicted to them. The work of G. Nott was, at the same time,[25] a further proof that opium was not illegal in Europe. It was not until the Middle Ages at that time that the prohibition of opium, which had originally been made legal under the rule of law but had been condemned by a royal court, appeared. In 1488 the Italian chemist Raffaele Chappelle discovered that opium addicts had the means by which they were to survive and to acquire knowledge of the effects of their own actions. He made the use of opium not only illegal in Italy, but in France, Italy, and other countries. During the early part of the seventeenth century the use of opium in France spread more deeply, and the idea gradually spread throughout the European countries, but it was only in 1493, under the command of F. K. Mather, who was president of the Department of Medicine at the age of twelve, that the legal prohibition of any stimulant was made. He brought a number of experiments which he called the “Cognaci贸n d’Observation” and to whose exact date it should remain the official position of physicians for over a century. The first of these was the “Dignaci贸n de la Compagnie de Duro”, which he used to examine people being taken for opium by the doctor with a cane,[26] and which he attributed to the physician of the year 1536. The second was the “Neue Cottes” from which opium was derived, which the medical establishment of Europe considered a “p
While De Quinceys notions on dream were relatively diminutive and distinct, Coleridges were much deeper and harder to trace. There is a widespread difference of opinion between critics as to just what Coleridges philosophies on dream actually were, and some conclude that he saw no moral connection between his dreams and his waking life whatsoever (Ford 1998:2). This is quite a ridiculous conclusion, when he was clearly preoccupied with many aspects of dream, if he had felt that they were in no way related to his waking life, surely his interest would have been as passing as Southeys who kept his dreams as nothing more than curiosities.
One particular area that Coleridge spent much time musing over was whether or not his dreams were creations of his mind, the supernatural or complex physiological processes (Ford 1998:27); the notion of dreams as possessing the dreamer was also a great source of anxiety for him and other Romantic writers. While De Quincey made little of the distinctions between waking dream and sleeping dream, other than that opium seemed to affect them both, Coleridge sought to understand and define the various different