ABSTRACT
Using the theoretical assumptions articulated in the previous chapter, the author argues that fantasy is at least as ethically complex and nuanced as waking experience. The Viennese writer Arthur Schnitzler’s novella Dream Story is explored at length as a reflection both of the ethical complexity of fantasy and of the difficulty of distinguishing imaginal experience from waking experience. References to the Stanley Kubrick film Eyes Wide Shut, which was based on Schnitzler’s Dream Story, are included in the discussion. Both stories are found to illustrate some of the ways in which waking experience is simultaneously imaginal experience.
