Mr. Freud enters an interesting chapter about "typical dreams". Among the various types he discusses are naked dreams (dreams in which you are obviously naked, trying to conceal yourself, etc.), exam dreams (dreams in which you are taking a test, usually failing said test), and death dreams. He elaborates quite a bit on death dreams. Now, by death dreams, Freud doesn't mean your own death (though those are possibilities which he has not discussed as of yet); he means dreams about someone else's death (not someone who has died prior to the dream, but someone who is living who happens to die or be dead in your dream). Beyond that, there is one division of death dreams: whether or not you, the dreamer, are moved by the subject's death. You could be sad, angry, happy about the death (moved), or you could not care (unmoved).
Freud has nothing to say about unmoved death dreams, implying that unmoved deaths have little significance, on their own (recall that everything in a dream has some significance). Unmoved deaths are probably contributors to something larger, a larger symbol, an all-encompassing wish that somehow results indirectly from the death, etc. In short, unmoved death dreams are insignificant on their own, and I suppose this is why Freud just skips right over them.
Moved death dreams are explained in great detail (but Freud happens to go off on a tangent near the end). Like Freud mentions all the time, everything is a wish. Thus, death dreams are wishes. These wishes, he says, are typically wishes from one's childhood. Now, why would children dream about someone else dying? Well, think about it. Children only know death as silence, "The child knows nothing of the horrors of decay, of shivering in the cold grave, of the terror of the infinite Nothing...The fear of death is alien to the child; and so he plays with the horrid word". Children are unaware of how bad death is, so when they find it convenient, they wish for someone else's death as if it wasn't considered taboo. Freud adds an odd little comment depicting how naive children are with death and the like: ""Even at the age of eight, a child returning from a visit to a natural history museum may say to her mother: 'Mamma, I do love you so; if you ever die, I am going to have you stuffed and set you up here in the room, so that I can always always see you!' "
Back to the wishes behind dreams. These wishes often include the death of a family member (think sibling rivalry). Or, think father-son or mother-daughter rivalry for the opposite spouse, (Oedipus complex!). This is Freud's tangent and he just goes off from dreams and explains situations in which a child "desires" or ends up being the spouse to their own parent, e.g.: Hamlet and Gertrude, or Oedipus and Jocasta. In death dreams, we seek something (usually a childhood desire) that can be obtained through someone's death. That is the wish, the obtain that thing, whatever it may be: peace and quiet from a noisy sibling, the undivided attention of a parent, etc.
Friday, December 28, 2007
Friday, December 21, 2007
Stimuli
Freud has defined stimuli earlier in the beginning of the book. A stimulus is anything that can influence the sleeper. These range from actual dream-material I have talked about (i.e.: things that happened that day), which end up being called psychic stimuli because they are found within our minds. Our dreams draw upon them through our mind, thus they are psychic. Somatic stimuli are stimuli that relate to the internal body (i.e.: if you're sick, your sickness becomes a source of somatic stimuli because your body acts in a different way; your nose may be runny, your heart may be beating faster, your stomach may not feel well, etc.). Lastly, objective (sensory) stimuli are those things that happen outside of the body, like a cat meowing outside, or a pile of books falling on your leg (ow >.<). They are picked up by your sensory organs (ears, eyes, etc.).
Once that's done, Freud shares two theses on stimuli and dreams and then says this: "We have already taken the first step in this direction in advancing the thesis that the dream-work is under a compulsion to elaborate into a unified whole all the dream-stimuli which are simultaneously present." Essentially, our dreams are a patchwork of every stimulus available at the time of sleep. This implies that objective stimuli have immediate effects on dream-content (actually this is stated earlier in the book, but now it makes more sense why; objective stimuli are still stimuli and must be incorporated in some way into the dream, since a dream draws upon all available stimuli). Freud does note that some people are more resistant than others to the inclusion of objective stimuli, just as people are more resistant to attempts made to wake them up; some people are just deeper/stronger sleepers/dreamers than others.
Freud claims to be a strong dreamer, able to ward off sensory stimuli. For example, while sleeping one night, he dreamt that the Pope was dead. His wife, the next morning asked him, " 'Did you hear the dreadful tolling of the church bells this morning?' " Freud says that the Pope's death was content made to block out the bells, disturbing his sleep. Instead of the bells directly appearing in his dream, possibly waking him up, his mind apparently dreamt up something else to push the bells out of the picture. Or at least, that's how I interpreted what he said. He doesn't exactly make it clear. If you ask me, it would make sense if the bells did intrude his dream because they were church bells and the Pope is the head of the church.
Once that's done, Freud shares two theses on stimuli and dreams and then says this: "We have already taken the first step in this direction in advancing the thesis that the dream-work is under a compulsion to elaborate into a unified whole all the dream-stimuli which are simultaneously present." Essentially, our dreams are a patchwork of every stimulus available at the time of sleep. This implies that objective stimuli have immediate effects on dream-content (actually this is stated earlier in the book, but now it makes more sense why; objective stimuli are still stimuli and must be incorporated in some way into the dream, since a dream draws upon all available stimuli). Freud does note that some people are more resistant than others to the inclusion of objective stimuli, just as people are more resistant to attempts made to wake them up; some people are just deeper/stronger sleepers/dreamers than others.
Freud claims to be a strong dreamer, able to ward off sensory stimuli. For example, while sleeping one night, he dreamt that the Pope was dead. His wife, the next morning asked him, " 'Did you hear the dreadful tolling of the church bells this morning?' " Freud says that the Pope's death was content made to block out the bells, disturbing his sleep. Instead of the bells directly appearing in his dream, possibly waking him up, his mind apparently dreamt up something else to push the bells out of the picture. Or at least, that's how I interpreted what he said. He doesn't exactly make it clear. If you ask me, it would make sense if the bells did intrude his dream because they were church bells and the Pope is the head of the church.
Saturday, December 8, 2007
My Own Observations
Vitor, feel free to comment on this if you wish (the one due Friday is below this one), but this is actually meant for next Friday.
Though Freud hasn't exactly touched upon dream and REM sleep, yet (which he might get to, or I might get to in another text after Freud), I've had observations about dreaming, in general (this blog is not just about dream interpretation, it's about dreaming and all of its facets...which I might not have stated before). Therefore, I'd like to share some with you.
First, I believe I've read that we don't dream in REM sleep (i.e.: the sleep that comes first which also happens to incorporate your eyes going berserk..). 'Course that'll be clarified when I come upon a more scientific dream text. I'm sure Freud may have touched upon it, but I've forgotten. It's not that important anyways. But, for the past two weeks or so, I've been getting an average of 4 hours of sleep per day. 4 hours is generally how long REM sleep lasts, so in those two weeks, I've technically not dreamt at all (which is true, 'cause more than half of my dream entries for that week have "Forgot" or "I don't remember" written in them). So, we probably do dream in non-REM sleep. But I said more than half of the dream entries were empty or incomplete.
You're probably asking, what about the others? Well, the others obviously have dreams in them. And you're asking, well why? Didn't you say you only had 4 hours of sleep, which is essentially all REM sleep, which means you shouldn't have dreamt anything there at all? True, but you just assumed that it was all REM sleep. I have my alarm clocks set to 5:30 or 6, and/or 6:15, 6:20, 6:30, 6:40, 6:45, 7:00. Therefore, that 4 hours is actually NOT 4 hours of REM sleep. Apparently, when my alarm clock goes off, at say 6:00 am, I wake up, hit the button, and wait for another alarm clock to really wake me up. But, anyways, when I turn off the initial alarm, I can't remember anything, as if there was no dream (REM sleep). However, the next time I wake up, I usually recall something that seems like a dream. So, what I'm saying here is, when REM sleep is disturbed (i.e.: by my alarm clocks), I go straight into dreaming sleep...but only for however many minutes of sleep I have left before I have to get to school. Therefore, they're much shorter, and maybe don't have enough time to conjure up a dream vivid enough to stay in my short term memory.
The basic points here are: 1) We probably don't dream in REM sleep, and 2) If REM sleep is disturbed, we don't go back to it (I've actually touched upon this in my personal blog).
Ah, but you see, I'm not done. Like I've said, I've had a long streak of empty sleep (a personal term for sleep without dream content or significant dream content). Well, this morning I had one. For context, I went to sleep at like 11:30pm Friday night and was disturbed by my 6:00 alarm clock, my 6:20, 6:40, and 7:00 alarms (the last three from my cellphone alarm). So, 11:30 to say, 3:30, REM sleep most likely occurred, therefore dreaming occurred from 3:30 to 6:00, and in those subsequent intervals (REM was not interrupted because it had already past). So, I dreamt longer and therefore I had a more vivid dream to recall. But anyways, as I was saying, this dream was extremely interesting. Here's something interesting...let me quote my dream journal for Friday (night).
"Hopefully my dreams will find something more vivid so I can get back to analyzing." Do you see something here? What is it? A wish, you say? Why yes, it is. It's a wish! And was it fulfilled as Freud said it would be? Why yes, I did have a vivid dream. By Jove, Freud is right!
It's not that I doubted Freud's theory of wish-fulfillment, but it's just that those wishes I've come up with were obtained through lengthy analyzing, where this one is just plain obvious. But, remember that I said I had more sleep. So was it the sleep that gave me the dream? Or was it my wish? I'm not too sure. For now, I'll trust Freud.
So you're probably thinking that I'll analyze it here. Well, I'm terribly sorry, but no, I won't analyze it here. It's not as personal as those I've analyzed here before, and it's not vulgar, sexual, or anything like that. I just have personal, emotionally moral, just, reasons to not reveal it. But even if I don't, I still have a few things to say about it.
So, when I woke up, I admit, I totally forgot I had the dream to begin with. Like, I was aware that I had dreamt, but as soon as I got out of bed, it was gone, or so it seemed. So, I was checking some Latin (not Latin as in Latin America, Latin like Roman Latin) websites online, and when I did, I instantly remembered a part of my dream. Why? Well, in that part of my dream, I was reading an RPG-game manual (while inside that RPG game as a character) which resembled my Latin I book (I am in Latin IV, but have a Latin I book to review). In addition, before the Latin connection, I was thinking about "playing" ("playing" as in attempting to play an advanced level song when my skills are those of a beginner at best) a piano song called People of the Far North from the FFX Piano Collection CD. And, then I remembered a larger portion of my dream, because that piano song was being played in my dream.
So what's the point? Well, apparently, if you think you've forgotten your dream, and it's still relatively early in the morning, try exposing yourself to a variety of materials to see if any of them will connect to a part of your dream and bring it back to your memory.
To sum up my points today: 1) We probably don't dream in REM sleep, 2) If REM sleep is disturbed, we don't go back to it, and 3) If you have trouble remembering a very very recent dream, run through a lot of subject material hoping that one might bring part of your dream back.
Though Freud hasn't exactly touched upon dream and REM sleep, yet (which he might get to, or I might get to in another text after Freud), I've had observations about dreaming, in general (this blog is not just about dream interpretation, it's about dreaming and all of its facets...which I might not have stated before). Therefore, I'd like to share some with you.
First, I believe I've read that we don't dream in REM sleep (i.e.: the sleep that comes first which also happens to incorporate your eyes going berserk..). 'Course that'll be clarified when I come upon a more scientific dream text. I'm sure Freud may have touched upon it, but I've forgotten. It's not that important anyways. But, for the past two weeks or so, I've been getting an average of 4 hours of sleep per day. 4 hours is generally how long REM sleep lasts, so in those two weeks, I've technically not dreamt at all (which is true, 'cause more than half of my dream entries for that week have "Forgot" or "I don't remember" written in them). So, we probably do dream in non-REM sleep. But I said more than half of the dream entries were empty or incomplete.
You're probably asking, what about the others? Well, the others obviously have dreams in them. And you're asking, well why? Didn't you say you only had 4 hours of sleep, which is essentially all REM sleep, which means you shouldn't have dreamt anything there at all? True, but you just assumed that it was all REM sleep. I have my alarm clocks set to 5:30 or 6, and/or 6:15, 6:20, 6:30, 6:40, 6:45, 7:00. Therefore, that 4 hours is actually NOT 4 hours of REM sleep. Apparently, when my alarm clock goes off, at say 6:00 am, I wake up, hit the button, and wait for another alarm clock to really wake me up. But, anyways, when I turn off the initial alarm, I can't remember anything, as if there was no dream (REM sleep). However, the next time I wake up, I usually recall something that seems like a dream. So, what I'm saying here is, when REM sleep is disturbed (i.e.: by my alarm clocks), I go straight into dreaming sleep...but only for however many minutes of sleep I have left before I have to get to school. Therefore, they're much shorter, and maybe don't have enough time to conjure up a dream vivid enough to stay in my short term memory.
The basic points here are: 1) We probably don't dream in REM sleep, and 2) If REM sleep is disturbed, we don't go back to it (I've actually touched upon this in my personal blog).
Ah, but you see, I'm not done. Like I've said, I've had a long streak of empty sleep (a personal term for sleep without dream content or significant dream content). Well, this morning I had one. For context, I went to sleep at like 11:30pm Friday night and was disturbed by my 6:00 alarm clock, my 6:20, 6:40, and 7:00 alarms (the last three from my cellphone alarm). So, 11:30 to say, 3:30, REM sleep most likely occurred, therefore dreaming occurred from 3:30 to 6:00, and in those subsequent intervals (REM was not interrupted because it had already past). So, I dreamt longer and therefore I had a more vivid dream to recall. But anyways, as I was saying, this dream was extremely interesting. Here's something interesting...let me quote my dream journal for Friday (night).
"Hopefully my dreams will find something more vivid so I can get back to analyzing." Do you see something here? What is it? A wish, you say? Why yes, it is. It's a wish! And was it fulfilled as Freud said it would be? Why yes, I did have a vivid dream. By Jove, Freud is right!
It's not that I doubted Freud's theory of wish-fulfillment, but it's just that those wishes I've come up with were obtained through lengthy analyzing, where this one is just plain obvious. But, remember that I said I had more sleep. So was it the sleep that gave me the dream? Or was it my wish? I'm not too sure. For now, I'll trust Freud.
So you're probably thinking that I'll analyze it here. Well, I'm terribly sorry, but no, I won't analyze it here. It's not as personal as those I've analyzed here before, and it's not vulgar, sexual, or anything like that. I just have personal, emotionally moral, just, reasons to not reveal it. But even if I don't, I still have a few things to say about it.
So, when I woke up, I admit, I totally forgot I had the dream to begin with. Like, I was aware that I had dreamt, but as soon as I got out of bed, it was gone, or so it seemed. So, I was checking some Latin (not Latin as in Latin America, Latin like Roman Latin) websites online, and when I did, I instantly remembered a part of my dream. Why? Well, in that part of my dream, I was reading an RPG-game manual (while inside that RPG game as a character) which resembled my Latin I book (I am in Latin IV, but have a Latin I book to review). In addition, before the Latin connection, I was thinking about "playing" ("playing" as in attempting to play an advanced level song when my skills are those of a beginner at best) a piano song called People of the Far North from the FFX Piano Collection CD. And, then I remembered a larger portion of my dream, because that piano song was being played in my dream.
So what's the point? Well, apparently, if you think you've forgotten your dream, and it's still relatively early in the morning, try exposing yourself to a variety of materials to see if any of them will connect to a part of your dream and bring it back to your memory.
To sum up my points today: 1) We probably don't dream in REM sleep, 2) If REM sleep is disturbed, we don't go back to it, and 3) If you have trouble remembering a very very recent dream, run through a lot of subject material hoping that one might bring part of your dream back.
Friday, December 7, 2007
Seminal
That's what the publisher of my version of the book calls Freud's work, in the sense that it influences or bears new ideas and views of dream interpretation. However, I'm not using it in that sense. I'm using it here in the sexual sense because the publisher obviously meant to call Freud's work "seminal" as a double entendre because it also contains many, many, many sexual references.
I'm not saying Freud can't keep his head straight, but in many of his analyses, especially in this particular section on sources of dreams, he always finds a sexual connection the tiniest little detail. For example, "She puts a candle into a candlestick; but the candle is broken, so that it does not stand up. The girls at school say she is clumsy; but she replies that it is not her fault." Given the context, the candle is an obviously phallic symbol (i.e.: represents the male sex organ). And because the candle is broken, it does not stand up and therefore represents presumably her man's impotence. Had I (or Freud) not given it sexual context, I wonder how you, the reader, or myself would've interpreted the candle as. If I incorporated wish fulfillment, I could've said she didn't like a candle in real life and so in her dream, the candle was broken so she would have an excuse not to use it. My basic question is whether or not dreams derive themselves from mostly sexual references and connections. Freud thinks so; he's even devoted a large section on looking out for common sexual symbols (much later in the book). Of course he's an expert on how humans think, so maybe he knows that humans are prone to dreaming up sexual content.
Among the other sexual connections are the German word "uberzieher" for overcoat; in one dream, Freud mistakenly puts one on thinking it was his own coat. He connects the overcoat to male contraceptive, but doesn't say how. All he says is, "[the overcoats], which obviously refer to an appliance appertaining to the technique of sex." Freud is sticking with his idea to not toss out any seemingly insignificant details, but it seems that many of those he takes the time to interpret end up being sexual references. Could he be saying that because these seemingly insignificant details are connected to sexuality in some way or another, that we, as humans, are surrounded constantly by sexuality (as we are in dreams)? Like, the fact that dreams seem to consistently have sexual references could possibly confirm that humans, on the simplest level, are sexual beings. I guess that's what Freud's implying, or even proving with this book as he goes along in dream interpretation. I mean, why else would he mention it so often? It must be that.
I'm not saying Freud can't keep his head straight, but in many of his analyses, especially in this particular section on sources of dreams, he always finds a sexual connection the tiniest little detail. For example, "She puts a candle into a candlestick; but the candle is broken, so that it does not stand up. The girls at school say she is clumsy; but she replies that it is not her fault." Given the context, the candle is an obviously phallic symbol (i.e.: represents the male sex organ). And because the candle is broken, it does not stand up and therefore represents presumably her man's impotence. Had I (or Freud) not given it sexual context, I wonder how you, the reader, or myself would've interpreted the candle as. If I incorporated wish fulfillment, I could've said she didn't like a candle in real life and so in her dream, the candle was broken so she would have an excuse not to use it. My basic question is whether or not dreams derive themselves from mostly sexual references and connections. Freud thinks so; he's even devoted a large section on looking out for common sexual symbols (much later in the book). Of course he's an expert on how humans think, so maybe he knows that humans are prone to dreaming up sexual content.
Among the other sexual connections are the German word "uberzieher" for overcoat; in one dream, Freud mistakenly puts one on thinking it was his own coat. He connects the overcoat to male contraceptive, but doesn't say how. All he says is, "[the overcoats], which obviously refer to an appliance appertaining to the technique of sex." Freud is sticking with his idea to not toss out any seemingly insignificant details, but it seems that many of those he takes the time to interpret end up being sexual references. Could he be saying that because these seemingly insignificant details are connected to sexuality in some way or another, that we, as humans, are surrounded constantly by sexuality (as we are in dreams)? Like, the fact that dreams seem to consistently have sexual references could possibly confirm that humans, on the simplest level, are sexual beings. I guess that's what Freud's implying, or even proving with this book as he goes along in dream interpretation. I mean, why else would he mention it so often? It must be that.
Friday, November 30, 2007
More Wishes
Freud's section on wish fulfillment is rather long. Apparently, he's got a lot to say about them. This time instead of talking about a patient of his, Freud draws upon children's wishes, which are much simpler and easier to analyze (no offense to kids). Freud writes about a five year old boy who he brought on a hike with his daughter to an area near Aussee, his current residence at the time. He says that there was a wonderful mountain nearby called "Dachstein". And so, they hike in Dachstein's direction. The boy obviously wanted to get to Dachstein. Freud writes, "As often as a mountain came into view, he would ask: 'Is that the Dachstein?' whereupon I had to reply: 'No, only a foot-hill.'" And the boy was rather dissapointed when he realized they were only hiking to a waterfall along the trail to Dachstein. And so, they never made it to Dachstein. However, the next day, the boy told Freud: "Last night I dreamt that we went to the Simony hut." Simony hut was a hut on Dachstein. So, the boy was unable to fulfill his wish of reaching Dachstein in real life. So, his dreams drew upon his wish and fulfilled it there. This example is much, much simpler than the patient one. Freud includes a few other children's dreams which were unfortunately of the same manner (i.e.: they were about kids who didn't get to a specific landmark on an excursion, and consequently dreamt about reaching those landmarks). I was a bit disappointed with the lack of variety there, but it proves his point.
Of course, as a reader, you are probably skeptical. How can every dream be about a wish? Freud's own patients questioned him multiple times and even came to him with dreams in which wishes seemingly weren't fulfilled, or in extreme cases, fears were fulfilled instead. So, Freud includes several more scenarios where his patients did not have fulfilled wishes. And obviously, there aren't any wishes within the dream. But, Freud is rather tricky...and do you know how he explains that lack of a fulfilled wish, in these cases with his patients? He says that the patients did not have any expected wishes (like those of the children, or his own wish concerning his patient). However, because they did not want to believe Freud was right about dreams being about wish fulfillment, they wanted to prove Freud wrong by having a dream in which no wish was fulfilled inside of it. Freud says that those dreams did not fulfill a wish inside itself, but they did fulfill their wish in the grand scheme of things. They wanted to disprove his wish-fulfillment theory and therefore dreamt a dream in which no immediate wish was fulfilled. So, Freud basically concludes that wish-fulfillment doesn't have to be in the dream, but there always is a dream fulfilled, one way or another. Sometimes these wishes are hidden, or as Freud calls them, "repressed" or "suppressed".
Personally, I don't know how Freud can back that up with real evidence. I mean, it begs the question, how do we know that he's not making that up? I mean, who would really think that people dream dreams in which dreams aren't fulfilled simply so that they can prove him wrong? Can our subconscious mind go that deeply into a mental process as to concoct a dream with an external wish-fulfillment like those mentioned? I don't know. I mean it makes sense, but it's so farfetched...and outside the box... It's a little difficult to believe.
Of course, as a reader, you are probably skeptical. How can every dream be about a wish? Freud's own patients questioned him multiple times and even came to him with dreams in which wishes seemingly weren't fulfilled, or in extreme cases, fears were fulfilled instead. So, Freud includes several more scenarios where his patients did not have fulfilled wishes. And obviously, there aren't any wishes within the dream. But, Freud is rather tricky...and do you know how he explains that lack of a fulfilled wish, in these cases with his patients? He says that the patients did not have any expected wishes (like those of the children, or his own wish concerning his patient). However, because they did not want to believe Freud was right about dreams being about wish fulfillment, they wanted to prove Freud wrong by having a dream in which no wish was fulfilled inside of it. Freud says that those dreams did not fulfill a wish inside itself, but they did fulfill their wish in the grand scheme of things. They wanted to disprove his wish-fulfillment theory and therefore dreamt a dream in which no immediate wish was fulfilled. So, Freud basically concludes that wish-fulfillment doesn't have to be in the dream, but there always is a dream fulfilled, one way or another. Sometimes these wishes are hidden, or as Freud calls them, "repressed" or "suppressed".
Personally, I don't know how Freud can back that up with real evidence. I mean, it begs the question, how do we know that he's not making that up? I mean, who would really think that people dream dreams in which dreams aren't fulfilled simply so that they can prove him wrong? Can our subconscious mind go that deeply into a mental process as to concoct a dream with an external wish-fulfillment like those mentioned? I don't know. I mean it makes sense, but it's so farfetched...and outside the box... It's a little difficult to believe.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Sleep
I just realized I never posted the lyrics for the song playing above.
The song is called Sleep. It was composed by Eric Whitacre in two versions: choral and instrumental. Both have the same melody, but the choral one has the lyrics. The one I have playing up top is the choral one (obviously). The lyrics are a slightly modified version of a poem by Charles Anthony Silvestri. The unmodified lyrics are posted below:
I felt that it was appropriate for several reasons: one, the subject is sleep, which is very close to the dreaming process; two, the music is rather soothing, just as sleep is; three, it's one of my favorite contemporary pieces (I heard a wonderful symphonic band play it at a regional competition three years ago, it was dream-like [also because the concert hall was dimmed]).
But enough of that, there might be some analysis I could do on these lyrics (and the song).
First I'd like to note the rhyme scheme, AABA, BBCB, CCDC, DDDD. I see the last stanza's lack of conformity (DDDD instead of the expected DDED) as deep sleep. Imagine that each line that didn't rhyme was consciousness (as in the part of you that's still awake). The rest of the lines are sleep-like stages, so the awake-mind is surrounded by sleep in three stanzas until the final one, where the awake-mind "surrenders" to sleep (i.e: the line that doesn't rhyme occurs no more, and therefore the entire stanza rhymes, which implies sleep has begun).
"If there are noises in the night...Then I surrender unto sleep / Where clouds of dreams give second sight" (Silvestri, Sleep 9-12). Silvestri, here, makes a claim that dreams are an escape from reality. They hide us from the world's terrors and distractions (the clouds). This is somewhat stated by Freud who sees dreams as a restorative process, a process that also gives insight to our world or inner being (the second sight).
"What dreams may come both dark and deep / Of flying wings and soaring leap" (13-14). Silvestri says that dreams may be dark, which may mean they can be scary, mysterious, obscure (even beyond reality, if you take "obscure" to a further level, as in alien or nothing you've seen before [i.e.: imaginary or beyond reality]). He also says they may be deep, which references the fact that they may in fact draw on our inner processes, and give insight to what we think, wish, or fear. Finally, Silvestri lists two things, "flying wings" and "soaring leap" which refer to flying, which are beyond reality as mentioned by "dark". This is also typical of dreams, since many odd things happen in dreams that don't happen in real life (we can't have flying wings of our own, nor can we leap to "soaring" heights). Silvestri may also be referring to how dreams take us one level further into our thoughts, like, the higher level, the bigger picture that rests on top on our thoughts.
Musically, Whitacre writes the climax (or as my band instructor would call it, "the hit") on line 15, "As I surrender unto sleep". This makes the process of falling asleep dramatic, stressed, and important. Whitacre may be saying that it is a glorious thing to fall asleep, and let the dreams begin. Whitacre ends the piece with the world "sleep", repeating itself...fading slowly...into...the...back...ground... As a way to indicate the passing of the awake-conscious/mind...being surrounded by sleep and dreaming.
The song is called Sleep. It was composed by Eric Whitacre in two versions: choral and instrumental. Both have the same melody, but the choral one has the lyrics. The one I have playing up top is the choral one (obviously). The lyrics are a slightly modified version of a poem by Charles Anthony Silvestri. The unmodified lyrics are posted below:
| 1 | The evening hangs beneath the moon | A |
| 2 | A silver thread on darkened dune | A |
| 3 | With closing eyes and resting head | B |
| 4 | I know that sleep is coming soon | A |
| - | ||
| 5 | Upon my pillow, safe in bed | B |
| 6 | A thousand pictures fill my head | B |
| 7 | I cannot sleep, my mind's a' flight | C |
| 8 | And yet my limbs seem made of lead | B |
| - | ||
| 9 | If there are noises in the night | C |
| 10 | A fright'ning shadow, flick'ring light | C |
| 11 | Then I surrender unto sleep | D |
| 12 | Where clouds of dreams give second sight | C |
| - | ||
| 13 | What dreams may come both dark and deep | D |
| 14 | Of flying wings and soaring leap | D |
| 15 | As I surrender unto sleep | D |
| 16 | As I surrender unto sleep | D |
I felt that it was appropriate for several reasons: one, the subject is sleep, which is very close to the dreaming process; two, the music is rather soothing, just as sleep is; three, it's one of my favorite contemporary pieces (I heard a wonderful symphonic band play it at a regional competition three years ago, it was dream-like [also because the concert hall was dimmed]).
But enough of that, there might be some analysis I could do on these lyrics (and the song).
First I'd like to note the rhyme scheme, AABA, BBCB, CCDC, DDDD. I see the last stanza's lack of conformity (DDDD instead of the expected DDED) as deep sleep. Imagine that each line that didn't rhyme was consciousness (as in the part of you that's still awake). The rest of the lines are sleep-like stages, so the awake-mind is surrounded by sleep in three stanzas until the final one, where the awake-mind "surrenders" to sleep (i.e: the line that doesn't rhyme occurs no more, and therefore the entire stanza rhymes, which implies sleep has begun).
"If there are noises in the night...Then I surrender unto sleep / Where clouds of dreams give second sight" (Silvestri, Sleep 9-12). Silvestri, here, makes a claim that dreams are an escape from reality. They hide us from the world's terrors and distractions (the clouds). This is somewhat stated by Freud who sees dreams as a restorative process, a process that also gives insight to our world or inner being (the second sight).
"What dreams may come both dark and deep / Of flying wings and soaring leap" (13-14). Silvestri says that dreams may be dark, which may mean they can be scary, mysterious, obscure (even beyond reality, if you take "obscure" to a further level, as in alien or nothing you've seen before [i.e.: imaginary or beyond reality]). He also says they may be deep, which references the fact that they may in fact draw on our inner processes, and give insight to what we think, wish, or fear. Finally, Silvestri lists two things, "flying wings" and "soaring leap" which refer to flying, which are beyond reality as mentioned by "dark". This is also typical of dreams, since many odd things happen in dreams that don't happen in real life (we can't have flying wings of our own, nor can we leap to "soaring" heights). Silvestri may also be referring to how dreams take us one level further into our thoughts, like, the higher level, the bigger picture that rests on top on our thoughts.
Musically, Whitacre writes the climax (or as my band instructor would call it, "the hit") on line 15, "As I surrender unto sleep". This makes the process of falling asleep dramatic, stressed, and important. Whitacre may be saying that it is a glorious thing to fall asleep, and let the dreams begin. Whitacre ends the piece with the world "sleep", repeating itself...fading slowly...into...the...back...ground... As a way to indicate the passing of the awake-conscious/mind...being surrounded by sleep and dreaming.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Where Wishes Come True
Notice how the title isn't "where dreams come true".
I've not had a chance to take off the music (I was thinking of a mute button, instead). Many apologies.
What I've read so far since last week is basically Freud rambling on about his own dream interpretation; a sample analysis (which I have to say, was very unpleasant since there was a ton of medical mumbo-jumbo that I didn't get). Basically in real life, he has a patient, and he believes he's at fault for not being unable to diagnose her properly. In a dream, he dreams of meeting up with the same patient in some sort of social gathering. In the end, after noticing her physical condition and the claims of another doctor, he realizes he wasn't at fault and that it was another doctor who was at fault. Basically, as a doctor, Freud didn't want to feel bad for not being able to diagnose the patient. As a result, he dreamt that he was not. Freud follows up by saying that dreams often fulfill things. In this case, a wish was fulfilled. Freud also adds that dreams may also go the opposite way and fulfill fears. They may also reflect or just restate old memories. Obviously, there are more, but Freud seems to focus on these four to begin with.
I have several good examples of fulfillment of a wish and fear. But tonight, I would like to explore a wish, to back up Freud. This one is personal but I feel that I can use it without revealing too much. It's something you would think is typical of a person very interested in another person. This dream is dated in my dream journal: September 28, 2007. I have analyzed it previously, but very very briefly as one dream in a set of dreams that occurred in one week (I usually do analyses for a week of dreams, not individually, because I don't have enough time to record it and analyze before I have to get ready to leave home). So here we go:
Context: The person I'm interested in is really just an acquaintance, and we only have one thing in common, we both participate in the same extra-cirricular activity. I haven't talked to her much, maybe only three times, total, but I certainly wish I could talk to her more often. Oh yeah, we don't reside in the same area. So I don't see her on a daily basis. Oh yes, I'll refer to her as Paige (one of my favorite girl names).
Dream: I'm outside. I see a large brick building, maybe 15-20 feet away from me. There are two white, glass doors into the building. School doors, but really nice school doors. In the space ahead of me, I see a bunch of round white lunch tables. I somehow end up standing at the end of a rectangular table. I look beyond the other end and see a nice flower garden, green bushes, and mulch with a lively brown color. I look at my end of the table, and there are some people sitting down. To my left, behind the person closest to me is Paige. She's sitting down, with a yellow pencil in her hand, writing stuff down on a regular sheet of white, lined paper. I look at it. It's math. Homework, apparently. I ask her, "Ooh, math homework. Do you need help?" She says no thanks. I try to engage her in conversation but it ends in awkward silence. I notice that she has very nice fingernails...non-acrylic ones, natural. I see that her thumbnail on her right hand is the longest. Time passes. We are at a round table, and a bunch of people sit down. There's bacon on my lunch plate. I grab my fork, and as I'm about to dig in, Paige starts to talk. She says that the bacon I'm about to eat isn't bacon from pigs. I continue to eat but the people around us begin to talk about bacon.
Analysis: I'm just going to say, the setting is a dream version of the lunch-area set of "Ned's Declassified", one of my favorite shows. That set is beautiful, and open. I sometimes wish that the school in the show was my own, so there's the first fulfillment. I wish to be in a more aesthetically appealing environment and my dream provided it by substituting a scene I considered to be very pretty in real life. Following Freud's decoding interpretation, it might be interesting to note that the tables were white, the doors were white, and doors had glass in them. White is often thought as pure, but even now, I'm not sure what "pure" would refer to. The flower garden, the bushes, the mulch still refer to the beauty of the environment. Finally, we get to Paige. Why she's on my left, I'm not sure. But I do know why she's not the immediate person in front of me. Since we're just acquaintances, I'm not exactly in her "posse", if you will, so she's behind another person which represents that I'm not exactly a friend to her, or not familiar with her. The homework was math. Math is a subject that usually comes easily to me, hence, I see the "math" homework as something we have in common, or some common topic we can talk about. So, there's another wish. I wished to have a few more things in common and math came into the picture. Next was a conversation. Although it was relatively pathetic, it did fulfill my wish to talk to her more (or try to talk to her more). Remember how this was dreamt in September? Now, in November, I still don't know why I noticed her nails, or why I noticed that one of them was longer than the rest. The change to a round table, I can't really explain. Maybe the rectangular one was "square" and "rigid" like my conversation. And the round table was more open, and casual (we talked about "bacon"? That's pretty random). I don't know why we talked about bacon. I really don't. But Freud asserts that every detail, as crazy or random as it may be, has some significance. I don't see it right now, but maybe I will later on. The analysis is over, basically, I've had wishes to be more of a friend, and less of an acquaintance to Paige, and my dream attempted to fulfill those (though it failed in many respects). To end this analysis, I just want to say that when I woke up from the dream, my mother had made bacon for breakfast (I'm not lying!).
I've got a few focus questions I'd like to add to the side panel. In fact, I should reorganize it. One question I'm sure my instructor would like to see is "How relevant is Freud in dream interpretation, today?". After all, he wrote this nearly a century ago. That's definitely a question I need to consider and I have a few answers, but I'll save them for another time.
I've not had a chance to take off the music (I was thinking of a mute button, instead). Many apologies.
What I've read so far since last week is basically Freud rambling on about his own dream interpretation; a sample analysis (which I have to say, was very unpleasant since there was a ton of medical mumbo-jumbo that I didn't get). Basically in real life, he has a patient, and he believes he's at fault for not being unable to diagnose her properly. In a dream, he dreams of meeting up with the same patient in some sort of social gathering. In the end, after noticing her physical condition and the claims of another doctor, he realizes he wasn't at fault and that it was another doctor who was at fault. Basically, as a doctor, Freud didn't want to feel bad for not being able to diagnose the patient. As a result, he dreamt that he was not. Freud follows up by saying that dreams often fulfill things. In this case, a wish was fulfilled. Freud also adds that dreams may also go the opposite way and fulfill fears. They may also reflect or just restate old memories. Obviously, there are more, but Freud seems to focus on these four to begin with.
I have several good examples of fulfillment of a wish and fear. But tonight, I would like to explore a wish, to back up Freud. This one is personal but I feel that I can use it without revealing too much. It's something you would think is typical of a person very interested in another person. This dream is dated in my dream journal: September 28, 2007. I have analyzed it previously, but very very briefly as one dream in a set of dreams that occurred in one week (I usually do analyses for a week of dreams, not individually, because I don't have enough time to record it and analyze before I have to get ready to leave home). So here we go:
Context: The person I'm interested in is really just an acquaintance, and we only have one thing in common, we both participate in the same extra-cirricular activity. I haven't talked to her much, maybe only three times, total, but I certainly wish I could talk to her more often. Oh yeah, we don't reside in the same area. So I don't see her on a daily basis. Oh yes, I'll refer to her as Paige (one of my favorite girl names).
Dream: I'm outside. I see a large brick building, maybe 15-20 feet away from me. There are two white, glass doors into the building. School doors, but really nice school doors. In the space ahead of me, I see a bunch of round white lunch tables. I somehow end up standing at the end of a rectangular table. I look beyond the other end and see a nice flower garden, green bushes, and mulch with a lively brown color. I look at my end of the table, and there are some people sitting down. To my left, behind the person closest to me is Paige. She's sitting down, with a yellow pencil in her hand, writing stuff down on a regular sheet of white, lined paper. I look at it. It's math. Homework, apparently. I ask her, "Ooh, math homework. Do you need help?" She says no thanks. I try to engage her in conversation but it ends in awkward silence. I notice that she has very nice fingernails...non-acrylic ones, natural. I see that her thumbnail on her right hand is the longest. Time passes. We are at a round table, and a bunch of people sit down. There's bacon on my lunch plate. I grab my fork, and as I'm about to dig in, Paige starts to talk. She says that the bacon I'm about to eat isn't bacon from pigs. I continue to eat but the people around us begin to talk about bacon.
Analysis: I'm just going to say, the setting is a dream version of the lunch-area set of "Ned's Declassified", one of my favorite shows. That set is beautiful, and open. I sometimes wish that the school in the show was my own, so there's the first fulfillment. I wish to be in a more aesthetically appealing environment and my dream provided it by substituting a scene I considered to be very pretty in real life. Following Freud's decoding interpretation, it might be interesting to note that the tables were white, the doors were white, and doors had glass in them. White is often thought as pure, but even now, I'm not sure what "pure" would refer to. The flower garden, the bushes, the mulch still refer to the beauty of the environment. Finally, we get to Paige. Why she's on my left, I'm not sure. But I do know why she's not the immediate person in front of me. Since we're just acquaintances, I'm not exactly in her "posse", if you will, so she's behind another person which represents that I'm not exactly a friend to her, or not familiar with her. The homework was math. Math is a subject that usually comes easily to me, hence, I see the "math" homework as something we have in common, or some common topic we can talk about. So, there's another wish. I wished to have a few more things in common and math came into the picture. Next was a conversation. Although it was relatively pathetic, it did fulfill my wish to talk to her more (or try to talk to her more). Remember how this was dreamt in September? Now, in November, I still don't know why I noticed her nails, or why I noticed that one of them was longer than the rest. The change to a round table, I can't really explain. Maybe the rectangular one was "square" and "rigid" like my conversation. And the round table was more open, and casual (we talked about "bacon"? That's pretty random). I don't know why we talked about bacon. I really don't. But Freud asserts that every detail, as crazy or random as it may be, has some significance. I don't see it right now, but maybe I will later on. The analysis is over, basically, I've had wishes to be more of a friend, and less of an acquaintance to Paige, and my dream attempted to fulfill those (though it failed in many respects). To end this analysis, I just want to say that when I woke up from the dream, my mother had made bacon for breakfast (I'm not lying!).
I've got a few focus questions I'd like to add to the side panel. In fact, I should reorganize it. One question I'm sure my instructor would like to see is "How relevant is Freud in dream interpretation, today?". After all, he wrote this nearly a century ago. That's definitely a question I need to consider and I have a few answers, but I'll save them for another time.
Friday, November 9, 2007
Dream Interpretation
Freud finally gets to actual methods of dream interpretation. He mentions that there are two major ways of interpretation.
The first is what Freud calls, "symbolic" dream interpretation. Essentially, the interpreter considers the dream as a whole and attempts to replace it with someone more comprensible, but still having connections to the dream content. In short, the interpreter tries to find an extended analogy (i.e.: a set of analogies that combine to create this larger analogy) for the dream. Freud gives us an example of a fabricated dream from the Bible. The dream is essentially "The seven fat kine followed by seven lean kine that ate up the fat kine" (Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams 129). Freud goes on and provides a symbolic interpretation: "a prophecy of seven years of famine in the land of Egypt which should consume all that was brough forth in the seven years of plenty" (129). See how the "seven fat kine" and " seven lean kind" ("kine" is an archaic form of "cow") are carried over as "seven years of plenty" and "seven years of famine", respectively?
The second is what Freud calls, "decoding" dream interpretation. Instead of treating the dream as a whole, this method breaks the dream into individual details or symbols which then require the assignment of a meaning (like, a dog would be assigned "loyalty" or something of the like). The meanings, according to Freud, should come from a dream book. This method is more true to dreams because dreams are random pieces of thoughts and images and are not connected on the surface as "symbolic" interpretation assumes. The advantage of this is that the interpretation varies by content (because all of the content is being considered individually) and by the person (since certain symbols register differently in different people).
The only problem I find with Freud's "decoding" interpretation is that he highly recommends a "dream book". But what would happen if you had no access to one? Also, to clarify something...Freud says that this method depends on the person, and you may ask, "If one is using a dream book, then the interpretation depends on the book, and not the person, because the person is not providing the meaning for each symbol." That may be true, but I guess it is the job of the person to "weave" an overall meaning after that step of substitution. That's real interpretation, because then each person can take the set of symbols and meanings and piece them together in different ways.
Freud mentions, before going into a lengthy discussion about a dream about a patient of his, that he has his own method, and a few guidelines. One, he tells the reader to be more aware of their own "psychical perceptions" (I take this as, how you interpret things the way you do, or what your mind understands when given information). And finally, two, be open-minded and consider everything (i.e.: do not disregard things you may consider to be irrelevant or seemingly insignificant).
The first is what Freud calls, "symbolic" dream interpretation. Essentially, the interpreter considers the dream as a whole and attempts to replace it with someone more comprensible, but still having connections to the dream content. In short, the interpreter tries to find an extended analogy (i.e.: a set of analogies that combine to create this larger analogy) for the dream. Freud gives us an example of a fabricated dream from the Bible. The dream is essentially "The seven fat kine followed by seven lean kine that ate up the fat kine" (Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams 129). Freud goes on and provides a symbolic interpretation: "a prophecy of seven years of famine in the land of Egypt which should consume all that was brough forth in the seven years of plenty" (129). See how the "seven fat kine" and " seven lean kind" ("kine" is an archaic form of "cow") are carried over as "seven years of plenty" and "seven years of famine", respectively?
The second is what Freud calls, "decoding" dream interpretation. Instead of treating the dream as a whole, this method breaks the dream into individual details or symbols which then require the assignment of a meaning (like, a dog would be assigned "loyalty" or something of the like). The meanings, according to Freud, should come from a dream book. This method is more true to dreams because dreams are random pieces of thoughts and images and are not connected on the surface as "symbolic" interpretation assumes. The advantage of this is that the interpretation varies by content (because all of the content is being considered individually) and by the person (since certain symbols register differently in different people).
The only problem I find with Freud's "decoding" interpretation is that he highly recommends a "dream book". But what would happen if you had no access to one? Also, to clarify something...Freud says that this method depends on the person, and you may ask, "If one is using a dream book, then the interpretation depends on the book, and not the person, because the person is not providing the meaning for each symbol." That may be true, but I guess it is the job of the person to "weave" an overall meaning after that step of substitution. That's real interpretation, because then each person can take the set of symbols and meanings and piece them together in different ways.
Freud mentions, before going into a lengthy discussion about a dream about a patient of his, that he has his own method, and a few guidelines. One, he tells the reader to be more aware of their own "psychical perceptions" (I take this as, how you interpret things the way you do, or what your mind understands when given information). And finally, two, be open-minded and consider everything (i.e.: do not disregard things you may consider to be irrelevant or seemingly insignificant).
Friday, November 2, 2007
Dream Content
I apologize for the lack of customization. I’ll get to it when I find time. For the meantime, enjoy the visual and music I set up half an hour ago.
Some say that dreams are the paint brushes of the subconscious; they portray all of our hidden functions and thoughts through the most profound of images and settings. And yet, there are others who say that dreams are just random thoughts strung together by a weary brain, simply trying to get some rest (which I should be getting now). In this weblog, I would like to answer the question for myself and perhaps explore my less-private dreams right here, on this very page.
One of the major questions concerning dreams is: do dreams draw from reality? Apparently, Sigmund Freud thought so, otherwise he wouldn’t have written a 600+ page tome of dream interpretation (which I’m currently struggling through). But what do other people think?
F.W. Hildebrandt considers both options: “ ‘A dream is something completely severed from the reality experienced in waking life, something, as one might say, with an hermetically sealed existence of its own, and separated from real life by an impassable gulf.’ ” “ ‘We may even go so far as to say that whatever dreams may offer, they derive their material from reality and from the intellectual life that revolves around that reality...’ ” (Hildebrandt qtd. in Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams 43-4).
Which one is true is in truly in the air. From experience, I have dreamt of things I had done before, and I have dreamt of things that I’ve never experienced or thought about.
I’ll reveal one of the former to you right here. (From now on, I will provide context in the past tense and the dream in the present tense, since I’ve been told that it aids recall and helps immerse the reader in the actual situation [i.e.: the situation is replicated by the detail, time, etc.]).
Context: We placed first in our division at the first band competition of the year. The bus ride was a rowdy one; everyone was ecstatic, happy, and just so full of post-competition adrenaline. They were singing, and jumping around. Someone even did the “gauntlet”; they ran up the aisle of the bus as others tried to obstruct them. A friend of mine (referred from here on out as Mercedes, to conceal their identity) was nearly trampled in the process. It was dark on the way home...past 9 or 10 at night. Our bus was one of those yellow school buses... A few years ago, we had fancy motor coaches instead. Anyways, that was about two hours ago. When I got home, I wrote on my own weblog about the entire day, from start to finish. The entry was titled, “Dulcem Victoriam” (Latin for “Sweet Victory!”). I went to bed, putting my large blue Nautica pillow aside. “Nautica” was embroidered on it in skinny green letters, with a green fabric outline. It was the shape of a rounded triangular prism.
Dream: I’m sitting in a nice, comfy seat. It’s definitely not a yellow school bus. I look up and there’s a mini television mounted over my the seat in front of me, and several seats in front of that seat, and so on. It’s a motor coach. I look to my right, and I see my band friends. I see Mercedes looking at a suspiciously familiar pillow. It’s blue...and it’s partly green. But wait, it’s not my Nautica pillow. It has the words, “Dulcem Victoriam” on it. I keep my eyes fixed on it, as Mercedes passes it to other people. It’s gone. I look out the windows and it’s light outside...but empty. There’s nothing out there. It’s too quiet.
So, what happened that day ended up in the dream in some form. The blog entry title somehow ended up transcribed on my pillow. The pillow was one of the last items I saw before I entered slumber-land. In addition, Mercedes, the person nearly trampled over in the “gauntlet” showed up as one of the first people I saw in the dream.
Basically, this dream drew directly from the experiences I had that day, though it wasn’t perfect in doing so, as one can see from the pillow and blog title. Regardless, dreams clearly do draw a good amount of content from reality. It may not be from the reality you experienced a few hours before, but it still is from reality. In fact, Freud confirms this by mentioning that dreams often bring back past experiences (usually from one’s childhood, though I haven’t recently encountered a dream that did exactly that).
However, I’m under the impression that dreams aren’t completely linked to reality and our experiences. That particular dream probably took place in daylight and in near silence, which is contrary to what I had experienced: a night of noise. So, how did those details get in there? Why were they in there? Did they have any significance? Why was there nothing outside the windows? Why did I remember those specific details about the motor coaches? Why were “Dulcem Victoriam” on the pillow and not “Nautica”?
There are questions that have yet to be resolved and there are questions that have yet to be conceived. But for now, I can answer one of them and say that dreams most likely draw both from the random and the real.
Some say that dreams are the paint brushes of the subconscious; they portray all of our hidden functions and thoughts through the most profound of images and settings. And yet, there are others who say that dreams are just random thoughts strung together by a weary brain, simply trying to get some rest (which I should be getting now). In this weblog, I would like to answer the question for myself and perhaps explore my less-private dreams right here, on this very page.
One of the major questions concerning dreams is: do dreams draw from reality? Apparently, Sigmund Freud thought so, otherwise he wouldn’t have written a 600+ page tome of dream interpretation (which I’m currently struggling through). But what do other people think?
F.W. Hildebrandt considers both options: “ ‘A dream is something completely severed from the reality experienced in waking life, something, as one might say, with an hermetically sealed existence of its own, and separated from real life by an impassable gulf.’ ” “ ‘We may even go so far as to say that whatever dreams may offer, they derive their material from reality and from the intellectual life that revolves around that reality...’ ” (Hildebrandt qtd. in Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams 43-4).
Which one is true is in truly in the air. From experience, I have dreamt of things I had done before, and I have dreamt of things that I’ve never experienced or thought about.
I’ll reveal one of the former to you right here. (From now on, I will provide context in the past tense and the dream in the present tense, since I’ve been told that it aids recall and helps immerse the reader in the actual situation [i.e.: the situation is replicated by the detail, time, etc.]).
Context: We placed first in our division at the first band competition of the year. The bus ride was a rowdy one; everyone was ecstatic, happy, and just so full of post-competition adrenaline. They were singing, and jumping around. Someone even did the “gauntlet”; they ran up the aisle of the bus as others tried to obstruct them. A friend of mine (referred from here on out as Mercedes, to conceal their identity) was nearly trampled in the process. It was dark on the way home...past 9 or 10 at night. Our bus was one of those yellow school buses... A few years ago, we had fancy motor coaches instead. Anyways, that was about two hours ago. When I got home, I wrote on my own weblog about the entire day, from start to finish. The entry was titled, “Dulcem Victoriam” (Latin for “Sweet Victory!”). I went to bed, putting my large blue Nautica pillow aside. “Nautica” was embroidered on it in skinny green letters, with a green fabric outline. It was the shape of a rounded triangular prism.
Dream: I’m sitting in a nice, comfy seat. It’s definitely not a yellow school bus. I look up and there’s a mini television mounted over my the seat in front of me, and several seats in front of that seat, and so on. It’s a motor coach. I look to my right, and I see my band friends. I see Mercedes looking at a suspiciously familiar pillow. It’s blue...and it’s partly green. But wait, it’s not my Nautica pillow. It has the words, “Dulcem Victoriam” on it. I keep my eyes fixed on it, as Mercedes passes it to other people. It’s gone. I look out the windows and it’s light outside...but empty. There’s nothing out there. It’s too quiet.
So, what happened that day ended up in the dream in some form. The blog entry title somehow ended up transcribed on my pillow. The pillow was one of the last items I saw before I entered slumber-land. In addition, Mercedes, the person nearly trampled over in the “gauntlet” showed up as one of the first people I saw in the dream.
Basically, this dream drew directly from the experiences I had that day, though it wasn’t perfect in doing so, as one can see from the pillow and blog title. Regardless, dreams clearly do draw a good amount of content from reality. It may not be from the reality you experienced a few hours before, but it still is from reality. In fact, Freud confirms this by mentioning that dreams often bring back past experiences (usually from one’s childhood, though I haven’t recently encountered a dream that did exactly that).
However, I’m under the impression that dreams aren’t completely linked to reality and our experiences. That particular dream probably took place in daylight and in near silence, which is contrary to what I had experienced: a night of noise. So, how did those details get in there? Why were they in there? Did they have any significance? Why was there nothing outside the windows? Why did I remember those specific details about the motor coaches? Why were “Dulcem Victoriam” on the pillow and not “Nautica”?
There are questions that have yet to be resolved and there are questions that have yet to be conceived. But for now, I can answer one of them and say that dreams most likely draw both from the random and the real.
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