The Interpretation of Dreams. WebOpus 1

The way we think of dreams and use the word dream revels in contradiction. Dreams take on a variety of meaning for us. The question may be whether there is any truth or just convience in these uses.

I. The Dream of the Pharoh
The dream as prophecy.

For those of you perhaps unfamiliar, in the book of Genesis, the Pharoh has a dream. In the Pharoh's dream, he sees seven fat handsome cows by the Nile. The seven handsome cows are eaten by seven gaunt cows. The Pharoh seeking an interpretation finally hears of a man in prison named Joseph. Joseph interprets the dream (with the help of the LORD) as signifying seven years of opulence followed by seven years of derth. This allows Egypt to prepare, meaning they are not found lacking during the thin years.

What a nice story. Perhaps how we would hope all dreams might be. Even though there is bad news in the future, at least we know what's coming so we can get ready. This belief betrays the feeling that dreams come from somewhere beyond. that somehow in our sleep we mingle with something greater than ourselves. God, nature, others. A lovely sentiment, though probably not the truest. If only there were something omniscient to convene with. This is not to say that God exists, but how could we ever make sense of what God might tell us in dreams. That's why Joseph needed God's guidance. Unfortunately I don't think God's consciousness leaks that explicitly into ours. But its a nice dream.

II. Obre Los Ojos
The dream as delusion.

I'm actually going to refer to the American version, but the Spanish one has a much better title so, onward. In Vanilla Sky, Tom Cruise's character, horribly disfigured has himself implanted into a dream world where he can be rehabilitated and made normal looking again. How lovely. This is the kind of dream we talk about when we tell someone "You're dreaming," or "In your dreams." The dream as delusion. As fantasy. As what-you-wish. As as-you-wish. The culmination of romantic love is the dream delusion. But it must be the dream delusion in fruition, and decay. The true dream as delusion is never fuitful, it can therefore never decay. It is always that which eludes reality, cannot break into it, cannot disrupt and replace, without the severe consequence of disorder.

III. Martin Luther King, Jr.
The dream as hope.

The dream as delusion must always be coupled with the dream as hope. The delusion must be hoped for. Its imagined manifestation cannot overtake reality, but it must include within it hope. In fact it may be said that the dream as hope, is merely that healthy incarnation of the dream as delusion. The dream as hope gives into reality instead of attempting to usurp it. It works with reality, but it is always rife/ripe with the sense of lost cause. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s I have a dream speech is the stuff of legends. It allows hope to enter through the only pore in reality possible, that of the unreal. The posited(hypothetical) possible real. The safe reality of the unreal. It strokes the chin of the present and whispers its possibilities, without disrupting its trajectory.

IV. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
The dream as truth and refuge.

Jim Carrey's character is having his mind erased. But while its happening he is asleep sheltered in dream. The dream in this story harbors truth. It harbors the truth about how he feels. The truth that he is an aggregation of his past, mistakes and all, that cannot be eradicated. Neither does he desire it's eradication. It is the place in which he erects a cave. In his dream, to protect, to fight against, to have control.

It is often encouraged to hold onto your dreams. this is the sense of the dream as refuge and truth. Our dreams speak something to us. They betray something to ourselves. Hence Freud's fascination with them. They allow us windows to some truth. And properly butressed, cannot allow us to forget who we are in who want to be.

V. Fear and Loathing
The dream as illusion.

"We can't stop here. It's bat country" Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is perhaps the ultimate example of the dream as illusion. Not just because the things seen were hallucinatory, but because in the end it must be run from. The entire trip is a wash, that must be salvaged. It might well not exist, not have existed. And that is the emptying of the temptation of dreams, the illusion. The laying bare of the dream reveals its illusion. The dream cannot be relied upon. It, of itself, is fickle. But it may not, cannot travel alone. Its very existence requires presupposition of a reality, as the mirror of such, and the presupposition of an agent as such to bring it to the light, hold it clearly and determine it to its greatest focus.

Listening to: Haley Bonar - Razor that Wins nonstop.