Why were dreams important to Surrealism?

In the context of Surrealism, dreams were considered vital because they were believed to be the clearest manifestation of the unconscious mind. Influenced by the theories of Sigmund Freud, Surrealists viewed the unconscious as the primary source of human imagination.12

The movement, led by André Breton, sought to move beyond the "rationalism" that had dominated European culture and contributed to the devastation of World War I. By tapping into the dream world, artists and writers aimed to reunite the conscious and unconscious realms of experience. They sought to merge fantasy and the irrational with everyday reality to create an "absolute reality," or "surreality".2

Consequently, Surrealist art often utilized dreamlike imagery—such as the paradoxical or shocking scenes found in the works of Salvador Dalí and René Magritte—to force viewers to acknowledge the significance of the irrational and the logically inexplicable.12