In film theory, the term oneiric (/oʊˈnaɪrɪk/ oh-NY-rik, adjective; "pertaining to dreams") refers to the depiction of dream-like states or to the use of the metaphor of a dream or the dream-state in the analysis of a film.
[3]: 53 Under this theory, no matter what is being shown on the screen — whether the literal representation of a character dreaming, or the fictional characters of a story going on about their fictional lives — the very process of viewing film itself "replicates activities associated with the oneiric experience.
"[3]: 81–82 Films and dreams are also connected in psychological analysis by examining the relationship between the cinema screening process and the spectator (who is perceived as passive).
Similarly, the French surrealist André Breton argues that film viewers enter a state between being "awake and falling asleep", what French filmmaker René Clair called a "dreamlike state".
Jean Mitry's first volume of Esthétique et psychologie du cinéma (1963) also discuss the connection between films and the dream state.