1998671171-172On Freud's “CreativeWriters and Day-Dreaming.”.
2 One arena in which the adult daydream achieves regular public display, albeit in disguised form, is in creative writing. While Freud rather disingenuously claimed that “[b]efore the problem of the creative artist analysis must, alas, lay down its arms,”3 he nonetheless wrestled in numerous studies, including this one, with the psychological provenance of artistic creativity, and he provided brilliant insights into its nature. In his 1908 paper he stated, “A strong experience in the present awakens in the creative writer a memory of an earlier experience (usually belonging to his childhood) from which there now proceeds a wish which finds its fulfilment in the creative work.”4 This is consonant with Thomas Aquinas's perception that fantasy is a collection of memories, an insight which was extended by Freud: “a piece of creative writing, like a day-dream, is a continuation of, and a substitute for, what was once the play of childhood.”
Freud, S. (1908): Creativewriters and day-dreaming. S.E.
(b) English Translation:
‘The Relation of the Poet to Day-Dreaming’ 1925 C.P.
An examination of it would then give us a hope of obtaining the beginnings of an explanation of the creative work of writers. And, indeed, there is some prospect of this being possible. After all, creativewriters themselves like to lessen the distance between their kind and the common run of humanity; they so often assure us that every man is a poet at heart and that the last poet will not perish till the last man does.
And now for the creative writer. May we really attempt to compare the imaginative writer with the ‘dreamer in broad daylight’,1 and his creations with day-dreams?
But I must point out that the psychological analysis of individuals who are not creativewriters, and who diverge in some respects from the so-called norm, has shown us analogous variations of the day-dream, in which the ego contents itself with the role of spectator.
1996
42
3
517-518
Ethel Spector Person, Peter Fonagy, Sernelo Augusto Figuieira (Editors) (1995) On Freud's “CreativeWriters and DayDreaming” Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 196 pagine.
1996
4
2
372-376
On Freud's “CreativeWriters and Day-dreaming,”
E Person, P.
A Fitzpatrick Hanly
27 Whitney Avenue
Toronto, Ontario M4W 2A7
This collection of papers, based on Freud's “CreativeWriters and Day-Dreaming” is most welcome, for Freud opened up a connection between child's play, phantasy, and creativity that has remained fruitful
372
throughout the century.
Trossman questions the value of making a distinction between daydreaming and unconscious phantasy, seeing that the unconscious components of the phantasy play a role in the intensity of all creative preoccupations
Blum expands on the clinical usefulness of understanding day-dreams that have punitive or dysphoric aspects, for these can indicate unconscious masochistic fantasies. Moreover, in treatment, “the day-dream always has a transference dimension, and the patient's attitude toward the daydream, the telling of the daydream, and the style of daydreaming, are replete with significance.”
Moises Lemlij's essay on Freud's “CreativeWriters and DayDreaming” evokes a nostalgia for a community in which life was closer to a poetry of ritual and belief than most modern life permits.
As a lead-in, I want to commend Freud for his inability in “CreativeWriters and Day-Dreaming” (1908) to maintain a sharp distinction between popular fiction and “those writers most esteemed by the critics” (p.
Written only a few months earlier than “CreativeWriters and Day-Dreaming,” Gradiva was also an exploration of fantasy and creative writing, and even included a concise summary of the main idea that Freud later expanded in “CreativeWriters and Day-Dreaming,” about accessing and altering fantasy material (1907, p.
This contrasts with four references to “CreativeWriters and Day-Dreaming,” only one of which was from Freud to Jung, two letters from Freud to Abraham, and one letter from Ferenczi.
656
Time for me to draw all this together. In “CreativeWriters and Day-Dreaming” (1908), Freud focused on the unconscious fantasy source of material for creativewriters.
(1908). Creativewriters and day-dreaming. Standard Edition (Vol.
In “CreativeWriters and Day-Dreaming,” Freud suggests that adult daydreaming is a substitute for the play of childhood.
In this paper, I want to leave aside the more problematic aspects of “CreativeWriters and Day-Dreaming” in order to focus on the important contributions Freud makes to an understanding of the creative process.
Returning to “CreativeWriters and Day-Dreaming” (1908a), I have come a long way from Freud's picture of the creative writer's process.
Figuera (Eds.), On Freud's CreativeWriters and Day-dreaming (pp.
(1959 [1908a]). Creativewriters and day-dreaming. In Standard Edition (Vol.
2021
78
4
631
Fantasy, Creativity and the World We Live In: Responses to Freud's “CreativeWriters and Day-Dreaming” (1908)
Editor's Note: The three papers printed here were first delivered at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute on February 27, 2021, at a conference dedicated to Christopher Bullock. The conference was moderated by Murray Schwartz, and introduced with the following statement:
Taking Freud's seminal paper, “CreativeWriters and Day-Dreaming” (1908), as a starting point, this conference will offer reflections on psychoanalytic understandings of creative processes as they have evolved over time and as they relate to our inner and outer worlds today.
Since Freud, many other psychoanalytic writers have added their reflections on the nature and functions of creativity (e.g.
How can we understand creative processes today? How are fantasy and creative imagination related to one another, to therapeutic processes, and to our shared outer worlds?