Dreams in Adorno: a study on the Traumprotokolle

• Grant number: 24/16690-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: April 01, 2025
• End date: March 31, 2027
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Philosophy - Epistemology
• Principal Investigator: Vladimir Pinheiro Safatle
• Grantee: Julia Mancilha Carvalho Pedigone
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to produce an analysis of dreams in Theodor Adorno. This means we will conduct a thorough reading of the posthumously published book Traumprotokolle, which contains reports of the philosopher's dreams from 1934 to 1969, a few months before his death. This reading will be carried out in light of an investigation into the status of dreams in Adorno's work. With this, we aim to explore the theoretical reasons that led the philosopher to choose for the publication of this, so to speak, distorted version of a self-report. Starting from an explanation of the importance of Freud and the experience of the unconscious for Adorno's conceptual formulations, as well as the different passages where he speaks more explicitly about dreams in his work, we will proceed to an analysis of his dream reports. We will sharpen a reading hypothesis in which it is possible have a glimpse of the dream as an object of social critique, and for this, we will not dismiss a psychoanalytic reading that, through Adorno's pen, also opens up space for the material and objective - historical-social - dimension of the seemingly meaningless experiences of a dream.