Apollonian Dreamworld

The Apollonian dreamworld is known as pure and beautiful filled with light and cognition. These elements are those of the greek god Apollo, god of the Apollonian dreamworld. Apollo is the “god of sun and light who reveals himself in radiance” with “beauty [as] his element […] [and the] dreamworld [as] his domain” (Nietzsche, 30). This god’s influence is what created this world of pure beauty and art. This stable and permanent environment of dreams and pleasure is what deviates from reality. In this view there is no pain because the god Apollo “serves as a beautiful cover for the painfulness of [the] world” (Nietzsche, 12). There is also no suffering because it is “a style devoted to beauty and serenity” also a cover for the “inherent suffering
Greeks guarded themselves within this world to never experience the unnecessary pain of life. Nietzsche describes this Apollonian dreamworld as a substance ontology, one that wants to “grasp the reality of being, but the world of becoming does not allow for such grasping”(5). This is a perfect description of the Apollonian world which tries to cover up pain and suffering to help with reality but in doing so it drifts away from reality hiding away part of the world, which does in fact include suffering and pain. It is through it’s physical art that this world becomes dominant in greek thinking. The “epic artwork and the unblemished sculpture” is how the god Apollo is experienced to his followers (Nietzsche, 13). The worship of imagery, paintings and sculpture is a key element to the Apollonian dreamworld causing it to be pure art and no reality. A threat to the Apollonian culture was Silenus, a companion of Dionysus, who spoke of “the truth of suffering that lies beneath Apollo’s beautiful seeming” (Nietzsche, 14). Although the Apollonian culture was able to preserve its beauty, the interference of Silenus is what introduces another