Dream is a second life.

It is the first sentence of Aurélia, in which Nerval recounts his bouts of madness and his visions. It is developed at once: “I have not been able to pass without a shudder through those gates of ivory or horn that separate us from the invisible world”, the gates through which, in Homer and Virgil, false dreams and true dreams pass. “The first moments of sleep are the image of death”, and there the self continues “in another form” the work of existence.

Nerval, confined several times since 1841, wrote Aurélia in his last months, in the hope of being cured by putting his visions in order. The first part appeared in the Revue de Paris on 1 January 1855; on 26 January he was found hanged in an alley. The second part appeared after his death.

The book describes what Nerval calls “the overflow of dream into real life”, and this opening sentence is its key. It has become the motto of all those who take dreams seriously, the Surrealists first among them, who adopted him as a forebear.

Aurélia, opening sentence, 1855

Original text checked word for word in the work; the translation is by quotesay.

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