Literary notes about experiences (AI summary)
In literature, "experiences" functions both as a record of personal events and as a metaphor for internal, psychological transformations. Novelists use it to capture moments of intensity or change in a character’s life—as when extreme actions reveal hidden depths of feeling ([1]) or when recollected events evoke a bittersweet sense of loss or growth ([2]). Meanwhile, psychoanalysts and philosophers employ the term to analyze how daily encounters shape dreams and self-understanding ([3], [4], [5]), and educators and psychologists discuss experiences as essential components of learning and memory ([6], [7], [8], [9]). Thus, across genres, "experiences" operates as a versatile term linking the external world with inner life, serving as both narrative substance and a tool of theoretical reflection.
- She may have had experiences of which I am ignorant, but she could not have gone to this extremity if she had been in her own right mind.”
— from The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner - He was not ashamed of it, but put it away as one of the bitter-sweet experiences of his life, for which he could be grateful when the pain was over.
— from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott - The dream is a sleep-reaction of psychic life upon these experiences of the day.
— from A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud - At that time very intense emotional experiences are brought into play and directed towards the Oedipus-complex, or utilized in the reaction to it.
— from A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud - Symptoms are not built up out of conscious experiences; as soon as the unconscious processes in question become conscious, the symptom disappears.
— from A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud - Some of these meanwhile may be representative of other experiences indefinitely remote.
— from The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1 (of 2) by William James - Mr. Galton found that experiences from boyhood and youth were more likely to be suggested by words seen at random than experiences of later years.
— from The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1 (of 2) by William James - Even the almost fortuitous connections among our experiences cease to be classed as memories when they have become thoroughly familiar.
— from The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1 (of 2) by William James - Every such continuous experience or activity is educative, and all education resides in having such experiences.
— from Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education by John Dewey
