Gaston Bachelard is one of the greatest French philosophers and literary scholars of the 20th century. The book “Water and Dreams” represents the second part of Bachelard’s pentalogy about imagination and the elements. The main problem that interests the author is how our unconscious is induced by the elements, how correspondences arise between the life of nature and the mental life of man. This problem worried such seemingly incomparable authors as, for example, Taoist thinkers, Emmanuel Swedenborg and Charles Baudelaire. The subtitle “An Experience on the Imagination of Matter” deliberately leaves unclear the question of whether we imagine matter or, as Tyutchev said, we ourselves are just dreams of Nature. Contents V.P. BolshakovThe temptation of the elements6 Gaston BachelardWater and dreamsIntroductionImagination and matter16Chapter oneWaters are transparent, spring and flowingObjective conditions of narcissismWaters in love41Chapter twoWaters are deep, sleeping and dead75Chapter threeCharon complexOphelia complex107Chapter fourWaters in combination with other elements135Chapter fiveWater maternal and feminine163Chapter sixPurity and purificationThe morality of water187Chapter sevenThe superiority of fresh water over salt210Chapter eight Unbridled water219ConclusionThe word that became waters255< /p>