'There is a wholly unique experience of dialectic. The compelling--the drastic--experience, which refutes everything "gradual" about becoming and shows all seeming "development" to be dialectical reversal, eminently and thoroughly composed, is the awakening from a dream. ... The new, dialectical method of doing history presents itself as the art of experiencing the present as a waking world, a world to which that dream we name the past refers in truth. To pass though and carry out what has been in remembering the dream!--Therefore:remembering and awakening are the most intimately related. Awakening is namely the dialectical, Copernican turn of remembrance.'
(Walter Benjamin, excerpt from "Dream City and Dream House, Drams of the Future, Anthropological Nihilism, Jung", The Arcades Project)
'Our programme must be: the reform of consciousness not through dogmas but by analyzing mystical consciousness obscure to itself, whether it appear in religious or political form. It will then become plain that the world has long since dreamed of something of which it needs only to become conscious for it to possess it in reality. It will then become plain that our task is not to draw a sharp mental line between past and future, but to complete the thoughts of the past. Lastly, it will becomes plain that mankind does not bring about any new work, but consciously brings about the completion of its old work.'
(Karl Marx, Letter to Arnold Ruge)
