According to Freud, a simple dream is a puzzle made up of images requiring an organization to understand its meaning. The dreamer, within the dream, produces a whole new world in need to be interpreted. The meaning can only be found by substituting the images in the dream for letters or words to figure out what is happening in the unconscious thinking. In order for Freud to engage into this journey, he attempts to create patterns that would allow him to see through all the elements that are included in the dream-content. His approach is not only interesting but quite intriguing at the same time. It seems his desire to see what he wants to see allows him to actually see it! The symbolism attached to the image representing the thought or idea in the dreamer's dream are given by Freud in an almost arbitrary way. His interpretation is highly dependent on Freud's knowledge. Lacan points out in his essay “The Instance of the Letter” that “to interpret the unconscious as Freud did, one would have to be as he was, an encyclopedia of the arts and muses, as well as an assiduous reader of the Fliegende Blatter” (203). The image within a dream, as it was interpreted by Freud, made me think of the sign of Saussure: it is arbitrary and differential. The interpreter is giving the order and the meaning based on what the dreamer remembers, and not on what the dreamer actually dreamed. On the other hand, the dreamer is also interpreting and recreating his/her own dream while narrating it, so how reliable can it be? Words are tricky.
Reading “The Instance of the letter” and “The interpretation of dreams” made me think about how much power we have given to words. They both seem to believe that "the signifier enters the signified". We don't seem to value what, in theory, made us develop a communication system (objects, places, etc). Everything needs to be translated into words, and yet words are so malleable that who knows what people really think when they're listening to your descriptions? It was not enough to attempt to create a world dominated by words, but people seem to have gotten interested into doing that the same thing with what is referred to as the unconscious. People even make formulas today to, ironically, have a better understanding of the world, when everything is being replaced by words (which many represent a single perspective). 'Signifiers' seem to call more our attention but that does not seem to be because we think in terms of words, but more because we have been trained to think of the world in a simplified manner...
"It seems his desire to see what he wants to see allows him to actually see it!"
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with this! He creates something that isn't necessarily there to begin with. The reality (or maybe truthfulness?) of the interpretation doesn't matter, he makes it actual and real for himself- in this way he makes the interpretation meaningful to himself and perhaps to others.
Just a thought: I would say that people navigate in the sea of symbols a bit like birds navigate in the sky. It is our medium. Is it everything? Well, it seems to be what distinguishes us from other creatures: we can fly straight up into the symbolic world. Only a few other creatures can actually get there, and they can only crawl along at best. So, yes, it is everything, in the way that the sky is everything to a bird, or water to a fish. (Now my metaphor has a flat tire: what do I do with a penguin?)
ReplyDeleteI'd like to say that while Freud and Lacan emphasized on the power of words, Eisentein emphasized on the power of silence and that thoughts could be expressed in other ways and not necesarily by words through his silent movies.
ReplyDeleteHola, tu texto está muy interesante. Ahora que lo leía comencé a recordar “El canto del bienaventurado” y toda la aniquilación del yo, ya sabes este estar allí, el dejar de ser… que por momentos nuestra mente terriblemente occidentalizada ignora que también existe. Por el otro lado, estoy totalmente de acuerdo contigo en lo de Freud. De hecho cuestiono casi todo de él (y más el estudiarlo como teoría literaria…) PERO, recuerdo que la corriente psicoanalista fueron los más férreos opositores del procedimiento de la lobotomía (que ha quedado como una de las más grandes vergüenzas de la medicina), entonces por ese lado sí le doy crédito. Además de que las nuevas disciplinas siempre son “experimentales” y con muchos tropiezos. Creo que lo que me parece más problemático es la deificación que se ha hecho de ciertos elementos de las teorías de Freud (como la sexualidad magnificada y causa y origen de todo mal, así como cierto reductivismo interpretativo de la psique, que es un verdadero cosmos… Bien, te mando abrazos.
ReplyDelete"It seems his desire to see what he wants to see allows him to actually see it!"
ReplyDeleteLet's be clear about who "he" is here... What's interesting is less Freud's desire (though one could talk about that) than the analysand's.
Hence Freud always seeks confirmation for his readings in the scene of analysis itself, which is where the person who talks is the analysand.
Of course, the issue is how we learn from this for the purposes of literary criticism. Who or what there is the analysand? How is the scene of analysis structured?