DREAMS%20FROM%20ANCIENT%20GREECE%20TO%20FREUD

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DREAMS FROM ANCIENT GREECE TO FREUD

• by Manuela Tagliaferri

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GREEK-ROMAN WORLD

• Ambivalence towards dreams
• The objective dream

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Ambivalence towards dreams

• Greek world is a passage between arcaic
  cultures, in which dreams were doors to
  transcendence such as phenomena like ecstasy and
  vision, and western modern culture, in which
  dreams are doors to interiority. In classic
  Greece is possible to find both.

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The objective dream

• Dreams in Greece were considered to be not as
  a dreamers own creations, but something that
  really exists outside of him. Dreams visit the
  dreamer, they are above him, and leave material
  evidences.

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PLATO

• In Plato we can find the ancient vision on
  dreams and the new one too. This author sees
  dreams as a mere possibility to find the
  transcendent truth. Only who was able to keep his
  mind still and aware could reach the truth.
  Otherwise dreams can show us only our deepest
  irrational impulses.

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EARLY RATIONALISM

• Also in the Greek world we can find dreams as
  products of the human mind, even if the
  possibility of transcendence is never denied.

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ARISTOTLE

• Dreams are thought activity during sleep. In
  this author dreams become psychological
  objects, since the oniric phenomenon is a
  product of phantasmata, that is the psychic
  faculty of forming images, and it comes from the
  feelings felt during the day.
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ARTEMIDORO
In this author we can find different kinds of
dreams -truthful and prophetic dreams
-insomnium, that makes wishes and aspirations
come true, through imagination.
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PARADIGM SHIFT

• INDIVIDUALISM
• Dreams are no more messages to the community, but
  to the dreamer himself.
• INTERIORITY BECOMES MORE COMPLICATED
• Personal dreams, that in the Greek world were
  absolutely clear, now need an interpretation.
• THE TRANSCENDENT WORLD BECOMES INACCESSIBLE
• Impossibility in communicating with the
  transcendent.

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EFFECTS ON DREAMS

• The inner dream
• Dreams express the interiority of dreamers
• The rationalized dream
• Dreams have a logic that has to be find
• DREAMS PURPOSE IS THE DISCOVERY OF THE SELF

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CARDANO

• Dreams are products of the Phantasia, a human
  psychic faculty which operates through images
• Dreams allow to come inside the dreamers psychic
  state

DESCARTES

• In this author we can find the first
  theorization of modern western thought dreams
  are just fantasy, in opposition to the logic
  thought we can daily experiment. In dreams we can
  find the existential state of dreamers, expressed
  through simbolism that has to be interpreted.

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ROMANTICISM

• Dreams are misterious doors to the self they
  disclose the human mind hidden faculties.

EARLY SCIENTIFIC STUDY

• Mysterious power of dreams (Myers 1903)
• Awareness about the deepest inner truth
  (Hildebrant 1875)

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HERVEY DE SAINT-DENIS (1867)The forerunner of
twentieth century studies on dreams

• Sleep phases (we produce dreams even in deep
  sleep)
• Dreamers psychophisical state in dreams
• Memory and imagination are involved in dreams
• Psychic faculties are active during sleep
• Continuity of the thought while sleeping and
  being awake

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CONTEMPORARY WORLD

• Dreams as psychic creations
• Sacrality of the person

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FREUD

• Freud goes on within these points of view
  (internalization/rationalization dreams as
  knowing the self) and radicalizes them. So dreams
  become definitely an individual psychical
  product, having a meaning that has to be
  discovered.

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• In contemporary world, all the different
  theorizations about dreams covered a common
  ground dreams are individual psychic products,
  that elaborate and integrate experiences, in
  order to build and narrate the self, as it
  happens during awakeness.

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PSYCHOANALYSIS

• From dichotomies sleep/awakeness,
  unconscious/conscious to thought continuity
• From theory of impulses to narration of the self
• From dichotomy manifest/latent content to the
  representation of the unconscious

COGNITIVISM

• From mental contents to emotive integration
• From random ricombinations of memories to
  narration of the self

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CONCLUSIONS

• Conceveing and experiencing dreams are cultural
  constructions, as it is showed by the turning
  over of the conceivings about dreams
• The individual dream experience can be an
  indicator of environmental fitness. Diversions
  from cultural average are average-specific.