The Multicultural Imagination -or- Racism
Hello, I am a finishing undergraduate student who is currently working on
a project I believe will take me farther than just a thesis. I wish to
test the relations between race/religion and the content of dreams
(specifically nightmares and other parasomnias) I have been researching
many schools, professionals, and individual articles. I would very much
appreciate any insight or advice on which angle would be best for me to
conduct my research. After this understanding--if there is a significant
finding--I wish to continue and begin testing sleep deprivation and
content of dreams. Please contact me if you have any questions or
comments. I believe the International Institute for Dream Research will be
a great contributor for my work!
Mr Hagen's Reply; The Multicultural Imagination -or- Racial Nightmares
Thank you for your request about researching the relationship
between race and dream content (specifically nightmares and other
parasomnias).
The best book that I am aware of that addresses these issues (exluding
nightmares and parasomnia) is Michael Vannoy Adams The Multicultural
Imagination: "RACE", Color and the Unconscious.
As for the "angle" for your dream research, the question is ususally
rephrased as a question concernining research "methodology". First you need to do
your due diligence in basic research surrounding the concept of "race" and
how it has historically (paradigmatically) changed. This can be achieved by researching a
variety of perspectives including medical, legal and cultural. Adams
acknowledges in the opening paragragh of his book that the three principle
conceptual dimensions that he uses, are the; "theoretical, historical and
clinical". His book is also informed by his "psychobiographical" experience
growing up in America. His is an 'American' perspective on race, color and
the unconscious, one whose chromatic poetic language is shaped by the local
knowledge and feeling tones of the cultural color complex.
My own read on race and color, is that our cultural perception and conceptions are
generationally shaped by the poetic chromatic aberations caused by deep rooted prejudices operating in dreams. Franz Fanon's work Black Skin, White Masks
and The Wrerched of the Earth provides a clinical psychiatric perspective to
the problems of racism. Hitler's Aryan "master race" supremacism and genocidal racism (anti-semitism) led to extermination of six million Jews, leaving those that survived the Holocaust with a never ending nightmare for the survivors such as Primo Levi. The Holocaust still symptomatically resonates in the children of Holocaust survivors.
Hope these thoughts are of some help.
Sincerely,
Mark H