since you asked #3
The final
blue_aardvark question: "Since we have been on the topic of dreams. Are dreams an expression of the subconscious part of the brain and therefore revelatory and meaningful, or are dreams simply a story put together by the storytelling part of the brain from the random firings of neurons and therefore random and meaningless?"
Personally, of the theories I've encountered, Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams is still most persuasive: dreams are, on some level, wish fulfillments. Because they often encapsulate multiple, fleeting, possibly unrelated, or even rationally contradictory wishes that we have not yet verbally/consciously recognized, they can displace and condense feelings into symbolic experiences that feel bizarre and even off-putting. The most obvious forms might be very biologically immediate wishes, for example, needing to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and dreaming that you are relieving yourself, or feeling hungry and dreaming of a banquet.
Here is a more elaborate example, written up in a style that pays homage to Freud's. One of my friends has parents who are alternately inappropriately harsh and neglecting. For a long time he had difficulty assuming adult responsibilities, and those problems took center stage during his daytime hours. Once he dreamed that he was being chased by a crocodile through his childhood neighborhood, and through immense effort, he finally made it home and locked the door. He begged his parents to keep him safe from the crocodile, but his parents didn't believe that the monster existed, and so he hid himself in a closet. Through the crack in the door he saw his parents answering a doorbell -- it was the crocodile! And not only did they shake hands and laugh, but his parents pointed out the secret closet to the crocodile -- and so the dream ends.
Did my friend wish to be chased by a monster, mistrusted and betrayed by his parents, and then eaten by a crocodile? Obviously not. But let us suppose that the crocodile represents the real life pressures of school and work and time (remember the crocodile who swallowed the clock in Peter Pan?); my friend might believe that he can't cope with these problems, and if they are obviously monstrous, like a crocodile, no reasonable person would criticize him for running away and hiding at home. But no -- the people who he thinks can and should take care of him don't agree that the monster is real. They tell him that he is crazy, and he must hide further, not just among his family circle, but all by himself, in a closet, in order to stay safe. Finally, when the monster comes calling, his parents' betrayal cements his inevitable tragedy: with parents like these, who can survive against the monster? Some wishes that this dream might express are the wish to escape his present situation, the wish to be acknowledged as trying his best to do so, the wish to find help with family, the wish to be proven right that his family is actually more hurtful than helpful, and the wish to give into the monster, not through lack of fighting, but through the sheer weight of factors against him. In the dream, he's just a little boy, not a voting citizen! He can't be held responsible for the messes in his life!
Notice how the dream condenses and displaces unrelated and contradictory desires. At the time of the dream, the friend had not lived with his family for almost a decade, although they still supported him financially. He tended to describe his "school and work" problems as being completely separated from his "family" issues, and to a large extent, especially at the day-to-day level, it was true. But in his dream these two concerns were merged into one scenario, even with some causal links thrown in. His dream also expressed both his wish to be protected by his loved ones, and his wish to be vindicated in his perception that what he had was not protection, but a double dose of enmity. Note I wrote nothing about sexual desires -- they might or might not be a part of this dream, but not being privy to that part of his life, I have no idea. Freud tended to write about sex and death (or aging) a lot, and I would guess these were thoughts that particularly plagued him and his patients. Regardless of his predilections, I think Freud's basic premise and methods represent one sound approach toward understanding dreams.
To me, dreams, like all events that invite interpretation, can be infused with or made resistant to signification, depending on the interpreter's point of view and needs at the moment. Part of the human hardware, I believe, predisposes us to perceive patterns/gestalts. Whether this tendency will continue to help more than hinder the specie's ability to pass on its genes is a question for evolutionary biologists.
Hey! A more-or-less non-personal post! (Of course, given the next comments to which I want to reply, we shall return tomorrow to our regularly scheduled programming of all framefolly, all the time).
PS: I earned this long post. I finished THING#THREE this morning. One more THING to go!
blue_aardvark question: "Since we have been on the topic of dreams. Are dreams an expression of the subconscious part of the brain and therefore revelatory and meaningful, or are dreams simply a story put together by the storytelling part of the brain from the random firings of neurons and therefore random and meaningless?"
Personally, of the theories I've encountered, Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams is still most persuasive: dreams are, on some level, wish fulfillments. Because they often encapsulate multiple, fleeting, possibly unrelated, or even rationally contradictory wishes that we have not yet verbally/consciously recognized, they can displace and condense feelings into symbolic experiences that feel bizarre and even off-putting. The most obvious forms might be very biologically immediate wishes, for example, needing to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and dreaming that you are relieving yourself, or feeling hungry and dreaming of a banquet.
Here is a more elaborate example, written up in a style that pays homage to Freud's. One of my friends has parents who are alternately inappropriately harsh and neglecting. For a long time he had difficulty assuming adult responsibilities, and those problems took center stage during his daytime hours. Once he dreamed that he was being chased by a crocodile through his childhood neighborhood, and through immense effort, he finally made it home and locked the door. He begged his parents to keep him safe from the crocodile, but his parents didn't believe that the monster existed, and so he hid himself in a closet. Through the crack in the door he saw his parents answering a doorbell -- it was the crocodile! And not only did they shake hands and laugh, but his parents pointed out the secret closet to the crocodile -- and so the dream ends.
Did my friend wish to be chased by a monster, mistrusted and betrayed by his parents, and then eaten by a crocodile? Obviously not. But let us suppose that the crocodile represents the real life pressures of school and work and time (remember the crocodile who swallowed the clock in Peter Pan?); my friend might believe that he can't cope with these problems, and if they are obviously monstrous, like a crocodile, no reasonable person would criticize him for running away and hiding at home. But no -- the people who he thinks can and should take care of him don't agree that the monster is real. They tell him that he is crazy, and he must hide further, not just among his family circle, but all by himself, in a closet, in order to stay safe. Finally, when the monster comes calling, his parents' betrayal cements his inevitable tragedy: with parents like these, who can survive against the monster? Some wishes that this dream might express are the wish to escape his present situation, the wish to be acknowledged as trying his best to do so, the wish to find help with family, the wish to be proven right that his family is actually more hurtful than helpful, and the wish to give into the monster, not through lack of fighting, but through the sheer weight of factors against him. In the dream, he's just a little boy, not a voting citizen! He can't be held responsible for the messes in his life!
Notice how the dream condenses and displaces unrelated and contradictory desires. At the time of the dream, the friend had not lived with his family for almost a decade, although they still supported him financially. He tended to describe his "school and work" problems as being completely separated from his "family" issues, and to a large extent, especially at the day-to-day level, it was true. But in his dream these two concerns were merged into one scenario, even with some causal links thrown in. His dream also expressed both his wish to be protected by his loved ones, and his wish to be vindicated in his perception that what he had was not protection, but a double dose of enmity. Note I wrote nothing about sexual desires -- they might or might not be a part of this dream, but not being privy to that part of his life, I have no idea. Freud tended to write about sex and death (or aging) a lot, and I would guess these were thoughts that particularly plagued him and his patients. Regardless of his predilections, I think Freud's basic premise and methods represent one sound approach toward understanding dreams.
To me, dreams, like all events that invite interpretation, can be infused with or made resistant to signification, depending on the interpreter's point of view and needs at the moment. Part of the human hardware, I believe, predisposes us to perceive patterns/gestalts. Whether this tendency will continue to help more than hinder the specie's ability to pass on its genes is a question for evolutionary biologists.
Hey! A more-or-less non-personal post! (Of course, given the next comments to which I want to reply, we shall return tomorrow to our regularly scheduled programming of all framefolly, all the time).
PS: I earned this long post. I finished THING#THREE this morning. One more THING to go!