Interpretation of Dreams -or- In the Blink of an Eye: Part 4

Dream of Interpretation -or- The Reliable Narrator

If "Interpretation of Dreams -or- In the Blink of an Eye: Part 3" http://www.dreamresearch.ca/interpretations.php?interID=436 discussed the artistic and psychosexual http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychosexual_development aspects of psychoanalysis, then this interpretation discusses Freud's dream of interpretation, and psychoanalytic literary criticism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoanalytic_literary_criticism. 

In "Freud's Dream of Interpretation" Ken Frieden states: "Freudian psychoanalysis established conditions under which every patient may speak and invent freely http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_association_(psychology), following the example of creative writers." In the psychoanalytic situation, an accurate re-telling of the patients past, becomes re-worked and worked through http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_through with the help of the psychoanalyst. By using the dreamer's narrative report the dream text provides the hermeneutic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeneutics basis for uncovering the buried unspoken trains of thought http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train_of_thought, feelings and the "social problematic" of the text. 

From a creative writing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_writing literary perspective, "Interpretation of Dreams" is a compilation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthology of historical and personal dramas found in dream visions, case studies, confessions, family romances, jokes, tragedies and morality plays. For Frieden; "Psychoanalysis is a drama in which the patient tries on masks, playing opposite the analyst's feigned neutrality."

From my own perspective the learning of mask http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persona wearing is the central ontological problem of the human condition, one which creates a lack of "authenticity" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authenticity_(philosophy) , "good faith http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_faith and the loss of the "true self" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_self_and_false_self.

Taking off the "masks of sanity" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mask_of_Sanity in therapy, is the first step in recovering the ontological http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology "real self". Frieden acknowledges that Freud had understood that children's dreams until a certain age were free of disguise and deception. Psychoanalytic therapeutic work is directed to restoring this freedom. For Frieden: "Beyond the manifold deceptions of the insidious dream work lies an imagined realm of innocence and truth...."

The patient's fear of the consequences of telling the truth, creates the face of self deception http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-deception and mask wearing. Taking off the mask is the key to the psychoanalytic "talking cure" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talking_cure. Truth http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth  brings ontological and metaphysical order to the psychological dissonance and chaos of the patient's inner world of thoughts, feelings and memories. Said differently the "unreliable narrator" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unreliable_narrator is replaced by a reliable creative writer who gets the developmental ontological narcissistic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism story straight. 

Freud's psychoanalytic "hermeneutics of suspicion", was one in which conscious narrative psychopathological defense mechanisms http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_mechanism such as denial were employed reinforcing the work of self-deception. Deception is always an important aspect of the psychoanalytical critic's radar. For Rene Girard, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Girard "Deceit, Desire and the Novel: Self and Other in Literary Structure" discusses how novelists expose our intra- and interpersonal deceit, (which includes lies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie, dissimulations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissimulation, conceits and bad faith http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_faith_(existentialism) ).  

Understood from a cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) perspective, "cognitive re-framing" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_reframing deals with the re-structuring http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_restructuring of "cognitive distortions" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_distortion. "Cognitive distortions" can be seen as a euphemism for the varying psychological degrees of irrationality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrationality, fallacies and "thought disorders" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought_disorder in which the philosophical sense of "reality" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality has become distorted, impaired and/or lost. The critical thinking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_thinking of the "Socratic method" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_method stands at the behavioural logos http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logos centre of the CBT process, helping to restore a healthy sense of reality. 

Many dream interpretations posted at the International Institute for Dream Research website discuss the varying degrees of psychodynamic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychodynamics problems found in the global village. Here are few; 

Further Reading: 

 

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