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possibility of awakening from recent history. If rejecting what Jameson calls the simu-
lacra of history, Benjamin feared that one also rejects an important source of utopian
energy in the present. One has rather to ‘pass through and carry out what has been in
remembering the dream! – Therefore, remembering and awakening are most inti-
mately related. Awakening is namely the dialectical, Copernican turn of remem-
brance.’ 37
By reconstructing and recycling ‘what has been’, the dream world of popular
culture media and commodities creates a potential gap between memories of the
recent past and the way it is depicted, which may give rise to what Benjamin referred
to as a ‘flash of awakened consciousness’. 38 The same holds for the fantasies of the
future that become a part of the contemporary dream world. Strivings for change,
emancipation and real progress are constantly projected on the future in the present
and become something one would eventually wake up from in due time. In this way,
the corporeal ‘here and now’ of media consumption is constantly intersected by a
‘dream time’ that harbours dreams of the past and of the future. This ‘dream time’
has also got the structure of a threefold present and direction of time, towards what
has been, what is, and what will be. These directions of time are reflected by medi-
ated time – the temporalities represented in the media – but also in the marketing of
commercial ‘dream time’.

NARRATING THE PRESENT, PAST AND FUTURE
In the same way as we perceive ordinary dreams as narratives, the dreams on display
in contemporary media are narratively structured. Narratives are at the core of
human existence, making sense of people’s lives and giving meaning to events. They
tell people who they are, where they come from, where they are going and what is
happening in the world. The ability to tell and understand stories is a basic existen-
tial for humans’ comprehension of themselves, others and reality. This involves a
temporal understanding in the form of ‘and then’, where the present is understood in
terms of what it has become and where it is on its way. The past is constantly being
reworked and ascribed different values through narratives that give sense to people’s
lives in the present, and on which they project their future being. Such narratives
unfold a threefold direction of time – a temporality that distinguishes between past,
present and future, and links them with the formula ‘and then’.
Every story is narrated by somebody, and there is always a distinction between the
time of narrating and narrated time. Hence, there is always more than one time layer
present in the telling of a story or the narrating of a narrative. A film may last two
hours but tell a story that stretches over two centuries. On the other hand, a book
like Ulysses by James Joyce takes several days to read, but tells a story about one single
day in the life of the main character, Leopold Bloom. Even when the time of
narrating and narrated time may almost coincide, they nevertheless differ in terms of
linearity. While the time of narrating has to follow a linear order, narrated time can
move forward and back, or in a time circle, like for example in Quentin Tarantino’s
film Pulp Fiction, or even go backwards as in Christopher Nolan’s Memento.

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