The article portrays the motif of dream and its symbolic meanings in Vladimir Nabokov’s short story Terror, what has not been the subject of detailed research so far. It has been determined that the experience of dream in the analysed story denotes the protagonist’s attempt to escape from the surrounding world and a shift into the sphere of the unconscious (mysterious anaesthesia). Thus the topos of dream/dream fantasy in Terror implies the existence of a hero in a particular kind of chronotope, and is connected with the semantics of the passage – from demonic chaos and metaphysical terror to restoration of cosmic (microcosmic) order and to “becoming oneself” (Ricoeur). Moreover, dream in Nabokov’s text is intrinsically linked with the problem of compatibility/ incompatibility of the two worlds: the real and the oneiric one, existing in reality and reflected in a mirror, and also with the motif of a doppelganger which bears references to Dostoyevsky’s writings. Also, an oneiric image of a laughing woman is analysed in detail in the article. It has been proven that laugter (giggle) of the story’s heroine unveils ambivalent and demonic dimension of femininity and is a reference to Pushkin’s The Queen of Spades.

The article is an attempt to interpret selected works by Fyodor Sologub ( Церковь, В моей лампаде ясный свет..., Опять сияние в лампаде..., Моя верховная Воля), characterized by the lyrical I’s gradual departure, a turning away from God towards the forces of evil, deism and demonic solipsism. These works display the complex motifs typical of modernist aestheticism; inspired by the philosophical thought of A. Schopenhauer: his pessimism, disillusionment with the world, despair, existential emptiness, complete loneliness etc. The lyrical subject finds himself in a certain spiritual wilderness. His relationship with God undergoes a drastic change. The hitherto Christian figure of the merciful Father is replaced by the strict and cruel judge, the evil demiurge. The poet gives him the name of the Old Testament God – Adonai. However, by his actions (evil, insidious and vengeful), he rather resembles the Gnostic Jaldabaoth or Satan – the opponent of Christians. The interpreted texts also reveal the authorial lyrical speaker as fascinated with “the new genius” – Lucifer, whose image becomes positively redefined. He gains the status, as well as the features and powers traditionally ascribed to the Christian God.

This is an interpretation of Ireneusz Iredyński’s short novel Manipulation in the context of acedia, a state of depressive indolence and spiritual apathy. This psychological condition received its earliest description in the writings of the Desert Fathers (most notably Evagrius Ponticus), Christian hermits who lived in the Egyptian desert in the 3rd-4th Century A.D. The article lists and analyzes some of the acedic symptoms and motifs that recur in the experience of the main character of Manipulation (i.e. temptation by demons, suicidal fantasies, imprisonment in a cell); it also examines the temporal structure of the narration. For intertextual reference the discussion reaches out to the writings of Evagrius Ponticus and Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Possessed.