The Awakening of the Soul and the Sleep of the Spirit: Hegel’s Philosophy of Dreams

In his Anthropology, Hegel uses two apparently contradictory terms to refer to the soul: one is the “awakening of the soul” (Erwachen der Seele), and the other is the “sleeping of the spirit” (Schlafen des Geistes). In this paper, I will discuss how the soul awakens and, at the same time, remains a sleeping of the spirit. In this context, the problem of the distinction between waking and sleeping, or even dreaming, arises. We argue that in order to explain the non-contradiction between the awakening of the soul and the sleeping of the spirit, it is necessary to pay attention to the differences that Hegel establishes between wakefulness and sleeping or dreaming. I further argue that it is the intermediate position of the soul, between nature and spirit, that makes it possible for it to be both an awakening and a sleeping at the same time.