From living metaphors in impactful dreams to sublime disquietude and sublime enthrallment.

INTRODUCTION: The continuing impact of spontaneously recalled dreams sometimes depends upon the same kind of unfolding semantic complexity that literary scholars attribute to poetic literary metaphors. METHODS: We present the results of two online studies of impactful dreams (i.e., nightmares, existential dreams, and transcendent dreams) that reinforce this account. RESULTS: In both Study 1 (N = 147) and Study 2 (N = 157), assessment of dream experience indicated that (a) existential dreams transition into sublime disquietude (inexpressible realizations, self-perceptual depth, disquietude) and (b) transcendent dreams transition into sublime enthrallment (inexpressible realizations; self-perceptual depth, reverence), while (c) nightmares, in contrast, transition into inflexible vigilance. DISCUSSION: Because existential dreams and transcendent dreams support a type of metacognition that enables continued attunement to tension between the metaphoric ("is") and literal ("is not") truth-value of metaphoric dream images, these two types of impactful dreams may precipitate the epistemic-and aesthetic-significance of unfolding semantic resonance within the dream.