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About this quote

What does it mean?
Imagination compensates for reality by unfolding events that never physically occurred.
In plain terms
Things that don't happen in real life get dreamt or imagined later.
What can you take from it?
Use imagination to process events that never happen.

Where it applies

  • creative writing
  • processing trauma
  • dream analysis

Putting it to work

  • explore dreams
  • write fiction
  • reflect on reality

Questions to consider

  • How do dreams process reality?
  • What happens to unrealized possibilities?

Another view

Dreams do not alter actual historical facts.

More from Isaac Bashevis Singer

  1. What nature delivers to us is never stale. Because what nature creates has eternity in it.

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  2. We know what a person thinks not when he tells us what he thinks, but by his actions.

    Permalink to quote #47
  3. There will be no justice as long as man will stand with a knife or with a gun and destroy those who are weaker than he is.

    Permalink to quote #46

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