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August 21, 2026; Liverpool, UK
XI International Scientific and Theoretical Conference «Theoretical and practical scientific achievements: research and results of their implementation»

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THE DREAM MOTIF IN FRANZ KAFKA’S DIARIES AND LETTERS: FROM PERSONAL EXPERIENCE TO ONEIRIC POETICS

Published 21.08.2026

  • Barno Ergasheva Rustamjanovna
    •

Barno Ergasheva Rustamjanovna
Namangan State Institute of Foreign Languages, Uzbekistan

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Abstract

Franz Kafka’s diaries and letters occupy a distinctive position between autobiographical documentation and literary creation. Alongside observations of everyday life, reflections on writing, and literary sketches, these private texts contain numerous references to dreams, sleep, insomnia, anxiety, bodily sensations, and experiences in which the boundary between waking reality and dream becomes unstable. Such records are particularly significant for understanding the development of Kafka’s artistic imagination. The dream in Kafka should therefore be examined not only as a psychological or biographical phenomenon but also as a potential source of his literary poetics. The purpose of this study is to examine the representation of the dream motif in Kafka’s diaries and correspondence and to determine its relationship to the formation of his oneiric mode of writing. The central argument is that Kafka’s recorded dreams constitute a transitional field between personal experience and literary creation.

Author Biography

Barno Ergasheva Rustamjanovna

PhD Student

References

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  5. Kafka, Franz. Letters to Milena. Translated by Philip Boehm, Schocken Books, 1990.
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