Freud on Dreaming & Reading
(Entrancement I)
In his book about dreams, which Freud cites with approval (1900, pp. 9,67),
Hildebrandt (1975) writes that when we fall asleep, our whole being, with
all its forms of existence, "disappears, as it were, through an invisible
trapdoor". This, quite precisely, is the experience of the ludic reader
who sinks "through clamorous pages into soundless dreams" (Gass,
1972, p. 27)... Moreover, ludic reading shares its absolute effortlessness
with dreaming and daydreaming. Whatever work takes place in reading and
dreaming, it is subjectively effortless.
Nell, p. 201
