60 lines
4.0 KiB
Plaintext
60 lines
4.0 KiB
Plaintext
Dream Life & Waking Life: Both are Creations of the Person
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There is a growing appreciation for the variety of dream phenomena, such as the
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creativity in dreams and their sometimes transpersonal aspects. Older theories
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that generally ignored such facts are being replaced by newer ones that attempt
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to account for such phenomena. Most recently, Gordon Globus, M.D., Professor
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of Psychiatry and Philosophy at the University of California, Irvine, has taken
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a stab at integrating such perspec- tives as psychoanalysis, transpersonal
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psychology, cognitive science, and phenomenological philosophy in a pleasantly
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person- able statement of a view of dreams that readers of Perspective can live
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with.
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That dreams are a creative experience is one of the main factors that he wishes
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to explain. The author rejects the notion, in existence before Freud made it
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law, that dreams are merely rearrangements of past memory experiences.
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Instead, the author claims that dreams are created "de novo," meaning from
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scratch. In defending this position, he finds himself arguing that our waking
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life is also an experience that we create, thus placing his work close at hand
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to the metaphysical perspective that claims that we "create our own reality."
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Both realms are created "in the image" (meaning "in the imagination") of the
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person, in the same way God has been said to create the world. The symmetry
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between the creative aspect of both dream existence and waking existence, and
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the "divine" role given to the person, is pleasing both to the ancient Buddhist
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and modern spiritual metaphysician.
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The question is, how does this modern, scientifically grounded theoretician
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justify such a metaphysical basis to dreams and waking life? He does so by
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reference to both the leading edge theories of perceptual psychology and
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certain philosophical traditions. Perceptual psychology has long abandoned the
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camera analogy to explain how we see things. Plato's concept of the archetype,
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the transpersonal, non-material "ideas" that govern the actual ideas and things
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that we experience, has gained new favor in modern thinking about the
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perceptual process. Instead of theorizing that our perceptual mechanisms
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"photograph" what is out there, modern work has forced the theory that we
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already "know" or "suppose" what it is that we are trying to perceive, and then
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we search and analyze data bits according to their significance and fit to what
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we are attempting to "perceive." Meaning and intention are more significant to
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perception, in modern theory, than light waves and photo-sensitivity. In other
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words, the creative and subjective processes in perception are given more
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central prominence, and the physics of perception are accorded more the status
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of tools than primary determinants. Similarly, the philosophy of science has
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been arguing that facts, as such, do not exist; rather theories--in other
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words, intent- ional approaches to creating meaning--are what determine which
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data bits constitute facts, and determines whether or not the data bits will
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even be noticed. Perhaps such philosophical abstractions seem cloudy or
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irrelevant, but the mechanistic, sensory-based, objective approach to
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perception (whether in visual perception or scien- tific knowing) has been
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undergoing radical changes. Fans of the transpersonal dimension of life who
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assume that the eye sees like a camera have an unnecessarily tough time trying
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to justify as scientific their views on ESP. Realizing how scientific and
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philosophical views on perception have evolved makes ESP seem more natural than
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supernatural. Thus the author's work does us a great service. It provides a
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readable treatise on how one can argue, on the basis of both scientific and
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philosophical grounds, that dreams, not to mention our lives, are pregnant with
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meaning (sometimes transpersonal meaning), and deserve our attention.
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Source: Dream life, waking life: The human condition through dreams. Published
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by the State University of New York Press, 1987.
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