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About this quote

What does it mean?
American society suppresses spontaneous dreaming to maintain control.
In plain terms
Control systems stop people from dreaming freely.
What can you take from it?
Freedom of imagination is threatened by rigid systems.

Where it applies

  • political critique
  • social commentary
  • philosophy

Putting it to work

  • valuing imagination
  • critiquing systems
  • resisting control

Questions to consider

  • How does society limit imagination?
  • Is control necessary?

Another view

The metaphor of non-dream may be too abstract for concrete analysis.

More from William S. Burroughs

  1. A paranoid-schizophrenic is a guy who just found out what's going on.

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  2. Artists to my mind are the real architects of change, and not the political legislators who implement change after the fact.

    Permalink to quote #18
  3. It would be certainly a very foolish thing: try paint the Internet, start making oil-on-canvas paintings out of the computer world.

    Permalink to quote #15

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