ONEIROLOGICAL ISSUES IN SPRINGS OF IVAN GALEB, A NOVEL BY VLADAN DESNICA

Springs of Ivan Galeb is a novel being Vladan Desnica’s crowning artistic achievement which represents the trend of psychological and contemplative prose. Among all manifestations of mental life of the primary character in the represented world, the most predominant is the oneiric experience in the form of daily dreams “with partly-shut eyes”. A daydreamer organises and controls the content of a dream in a conscious manner for the images from the beginning of the life, originating from imagination, are recollected in a defined order complying with the dreamer’s will. The dreams about the beginnings of life – this “well of being” – are set in specific space and time frames. The choice of childhood as a matter for dreams is not accidental here. The protagonist’s – bedridden violinist’s and globetrotter’s – turn towards the origins of his own life is an attempt to overcome the existential fear of suffering, death and nothingness. Therefore, daydreaming about the beginnings of life have therapeutic function in the work by Desnica. This article is an attempt to research the motif of imagined return to the land of childhood which is of key importance in Vladan Desnica’s novel. The detailed description of all spatial categories and interpersonal relations present in the work is based on Singer’s category of daydreaming, and Bachelard’s poetics of reverie