This brings us to a further complication: if what we experience as ‘reality’ is structured by fantasy and if fantasy serves as a screen that protects us from being directly overwhelmed by the raw Real then reality itself can function as an escape from the Real. In the opposition between dream and reality fantasy is at the side of reality and it is in dreams that we encounter the traumatic Real – it is not that dreams are for those who cannot endure reality reality itself is for those who cannot endure the Real that announces itself in their dreams.
