The dreams that make up this collection come from Franz Kafka's diaries and letters, they are recordings of dreams in the form of reminders or exorcisms: "Do not turn against me. Only in dreams am I so strange".
Kafka, as his diaries testify, suffers from insomnia and particularly restless sleep, and he watches and records in detail these nocturnal experiences, often as an all-night struggle that leaves him exhausted. In the context of this difficulty with sleep, the deeply ambivalent relationship he develops with dreaming becomes understandable, as it often involves the deprivation of refreshing sleep: "After all, I am not going to sleep, only to dream".
The dreams are presented as torment but also inspiration and fulfillment, a source of happiness but also fear - "although the first is much rarer than the second".
At the same time, they are elaborate, retrospective narratives, in which the dream itself often becomes the subject of reflection: "When I wake up, I find all the dreams gathered around me, but I avoid thinking about them again".
It is obvious that with this collection, "Kafka's dreams" are not presented per se, but careful narrative constructions in which the reader will recognize the creative imagination that established Kafka as one of the most important writers of the 20th century.