According to Erberwein, psychoanalyst Bertram Lewin introduced the term “dream screen” to refer to a primal screen upon which every individual perceives his own oneiric world. He contends that in viewing films we regress to an infantile state of experience akin to dreaming. As in infancy or in nightly dream states, while watching films, images and other stimuli occur which allow for tension release.

The first part of the book discusses the idea of the dream screen in a theoretical way with emphasis on physiology. In part two, Erberwein discusses scenes from actual films depicting the dreams of leading characters and the special effects which produce dreamlike states, such as voice-overs, fades, dissolves, and superimpositions. There is a very moving discussion of “The Elephant Man” (who is able to survive by holding within him the comfort he associates with his mother), and an interesting one of “Secrets of a Soul” (produced in 1926, it is the first narrative film created to