Abstract

In this article, my objective is to confront a structural reading with an ontological reading concerning the genesis and clinical interpretation of dreams, regarding the formal operators who guide both readings, highlighting their differences. Beyond the “symbolic operator” - tasked with explaining the formation of unconscious desires that the dream would fulfill - it is my purpose to discuss the difference how - in each reading - the “real operator” is employed. In both, the real is pointed out as what would explain the emergence of anguish before which the dream would find a limit, leading the dreamer to awake. Therefore, according to each of the readings, the real concerns very different occurrences. And the question I intend to answer in this article is: how does each of these ways of understanding the real affect the comprehension of what anguish is in the dream field? In what sense, for Merleau-Ponty, can the dream be understood as a surreal passage?