Dreams of treasure: Temporality, historicization and the unconscious

Abstract

This article observes that dreams of treasure may not only be about getting rich. In Greece, a country with an illustrious ancient past and a less glorious present, history represents a vital national resource and enduring topic of social concern, not to say anxiety. Dreams of treasure arise as unconscious by-products of this intense historical consciousness in Greece. The treasures considered here are secretions of history, deposited at the moments of rupture that historians subsequently use to demarcate historical periods. Drawing upon the formulations of Heidegger and Binswanger, I further view these dreams as apperceptions of the temporality of being. The dream of treasure involves a divinatory look into the future to discover a past that will enrich the present. The motivations of historicization and temporalization thus converge in this case to create the dream of treasure as a significant cultural phenomenon in Greece. Copyright © 2003 SAGE Publications.