House of Nightmares: Dostoevsky’s Mystical Psychology in the Context of German and British Romantic Traditions

Abstract

This dissertation examines the works of Dostoevsky in the light of Naturphilosophie, a significant but often forgotten school of thought in the early history of psychology. Using the writings of Gotthilf von Schubert in particular, as a basis, it argues that the model of the mind proposed by Naturphilosophie offers a new and compelling framework for interpreting a wide variety of Dostoevsky’s most celebrated and lesser-known works. More specifically, it discusses how the psychological binary of the ‘nervous vs. ganglious’, or, in broader terms, of the ‘individual vs. collective’ aspects of the psyche are more contextually pertinent and often better applied to Dostoevsky’s works than the ‘conscious vs. unconscious’ model. According to this binary, the conscious, rational, individual-oriented self is in conflict with a ‘deeper’ self, not only of extreme emotion, sexuality and violent impulses, but also, significantly, of union with others, spirituality, and pursuit of the transcendent. This dissertation thus reads Dostoevsky’s celebrated depictions of spirituality and transcendent meaning as a redemptive force in continuity with his equally known representations of emotional frenzy, sexual obsession, megalomania, delirium and violence. Because this ‘deeper’ self is especially accessibly through hallucinations and dreams, Dostoevsky’s depictions of both literal and figurative nightmares throughout his works are given particular attention, and divided into four categories, which form the structure of the dissertation: the self-annihilation/public humiliation nightmare, the execution nightmare, the apocalypse nightmare and the frying-pan nightmare. The thesis ultimately argues that, under the influence of Naturphilosophie, Dostoevsky understood access to the transcendent as fundamentally intertwined with the very materially oriented, often destructive aspects of the psyche, all governed according to the same concealed laws of a collective order. It thereby attempts to overcome the tendency to interpret his work in terms of a ‘spirituality vs. materiality’ or ‘good vs. evil’ paradigm and proposes that the mystic and the psychologist in Dostoevsky should not be understood as depicting and commenting on separate and irreconcilable phenomena, but that this works should instead be read as those of a mystical psychologist.