The characters of VN's play Sobytie ("The Event," 1938) include Lyubov', the wife of the portrait painter Troshcheykin. The action in VN's play Izobretenie Val'sa ("The Waltz Invention," 1938) seems to take place in Lyubov's dream that she dreams in "the sleep of death."

The characters of Ilf and Petrov's novel Zolotoy telyonok ("The Golden Calf," 1931) include Khvorob'yev, a monarchist who can not escape from the Soviet reality even in his dreams. According to Ostap Bender (the main character in The Twelve Chairs and in The Golden Calf who happened to treat his friends and acquaintances using the Freudean method), "a dream is nothing. The main thing is to eliminate the dream's cause. The chief cause [of Khvorob'yev's bad dreams] is the existence of the Soviet régime. But at the present moment I can not eliminate it. I simply have no time. You see, I am a sportsman-tourist who has to make some repairs in his car... And as to the cause, do not worry about it. I will eliminate it on the return journey. Only let me finish the motor-race." (Chapter VIII: "The Crisis of the Genre")