SOURCE: Tuttle, Lisa. “Every Fear Is a Desire.” In Clive Barker's Shadows in Eden, edited by Stephen Jones, pp. 215-25. Lancaster, Penn.: Underwood-Miller, 1991.

In the following essay, Tuttle examines the connection between horror and fantasy in Barker's work, relating a conversation she had with the author just prior to the publication of Cabal.

Common sense tells us that nightmares and pleasant dreams are poles apart. One comes roaring out of the subconscious, a terrifying monster; the other floats tantalizingly above the surface of daily life, a beautiful castle in the air.

Freud rejected this division, arguing that all dreams enacted a wish-fulfillment. Sometimes these wishes are quite obvious: an erotic dream, a dream of success, or love, or fame. But dreams which appear to be quite innocuous, or even actively unpleasant and distressing, may be hiding, behind this manifest content a latent content—which is the wish—which...