Caleidoscopio onirico: il formato e la narrazione del sogno nei "Träume" di Johann Gottlob Krüger

The work Träume (1754) by the Halle physician and naturalist Johann Gottlob Krüger (1715-1759), understood as a literary construct consisting of an archipelago of dreamlike visions, represents a form of escape from a historically and locally defined context, in which the cross veto between doctors, philosophers and scientists, and between the exponents of these three categories divided by different school positions, implied repeated theoretical duels on the most varied subjects. Krüger's dreams, therefore, in addition to offering nocturnal experiences crowded with strange visions, allow us to face, even in an ironic way - in a free zone and without paying attention to academic protocols - philosophical-scientific theories and debates that occupied the first German Enlightenment.
The 'dreamer' becomes the visual, acoustic, tactile, olfactory receptor of the experience and leaves the reader's point of view the possibility of developing an opinion on the situation being staged. This narrative form owes much to the Menippean satire, on which this essay focuses specifically; ample space is given to the analysis of the short form and to Krüger's attention to the vibration theory, a source of scientific (and musical) considerations on the relationship between sympathy and empathy.