The Dream
Dr Bernard Auriol
translated by Elisabeth Boyreau, Marie-Claire
Nguyen and Art Funkhouser
The philosopher's dream
'Should we dream every night of the same thing, we would be as much affected by
it as by the objects we see every day. And if an artisan was sure to dream
every night, during twelve hours, that he is a king, I think he would almost be
as happy as a king, dreaming every night, during twelve hours, he is an
artisan.' (Pascal, Pensées, 386)
That thought isn't exclusive to the oriental mind, for which there is something
not only uncertain or superficial about each experience, but even illusory.
'Maya': Unsubstantial sparkles leading us constantly to the pursuit of new
illusions...
Amiel, the philosopher, writes: "In dreams, our individuality isn't
closed; the whole environment is, so to speak, wrapped in it; it is the scenery
and all its contents, including us. The individual who is dreaming is being
dissolved into the universal fantasy of maya..." (Amiel, Journal Intime, 1
12 1892)
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Conscious dreams
A lot of people, and many among the thinkers who wrote essays on dreams,
totally dismiss the possibility of a dreamer, being conscious he is dreaming.
After Paul Valéry for instance, it
is obvious that
"Dreams are phenomena we only
observe during their absence". (Tel Quel II, 258)
Jean-Paul Sartre even thinks that if the consciousness of dreams appears, it is because
we are awake! He asserts that
"any appearance of the reflexive consciousness in dreaming is a
momentary waking up, although the power of the consciousness that dreams is
often such that it annihilates the reflexive consciousness straightaway, as
during nightmares when the sleeper desperately thinks 'I am dreaming', without
managing to wake up, because his reflexive consciousness disappears as soon as
dreaming takes him over again". (Imagination, 207)
Delage adds:
"allowing for exceptions, the dreamer believes his dreams are objective,
simply because he has no reason not to believe so, in the absence of any
possibility of comparison with the waking state life, the existence of which he
is not aware of in his dream". (The Dream, 668)
This author was wise enough to use the initial clause 'allowing for exceptions': Here again physiology tells us that
those exceptions exist. The Indians knew so. They even assert that a conscious
sleep is possible, in between the dreamlike phases too.
Freudian theory of dreams
"Dreaming is the realization of a
desire" (S. Freud, La Science des rêves, 113)
"Dreams never deal with trifles; we wouldn't let so few things disturb our
sleep. The dreams which are apparently innocent, prove to be full of
mischievousness once interpreted. They have, as you might say, plenty of ideas
on the back of their mind." (S. Freud, La Science des rêves, 168 sq.)
"The more you interpret dreams, the
more you have to admit that most of adults' dreams are connected with sexual
facts, and express erotic desires. Naturally, we shouldn't see those
only." (S. Freud, La Science des rêves, 353-354)
"All the dreams of one night belong to the same set" (S. Freud, La
Science des rêves, 298)
Which Jung confirms : "If possible, I never interpret a dream separately.
As a general rule, a dream belongs to a series of dreams. Just as in the
conscious realm, there is a continuity (except that it is regularly interrupted
by sleep) which apparently exists in the succession of unconscious
processes" (Jung, Psychology and Religion, 58)
Jungian theory
"As a matter of fact,
dreams are productions of the unconscious soul. They are spontaneous, unbiased,
not influenced by the arbitrary of consciousness. They are pure nature and
therefore, are part of natural truth without make up (...). Pondering over our
dreams is like returning to ourselves. We ponder over our Self, not over the
ego; over that stranger Self which is essential to us, which constitutes our
basis, and which, in the past, created the ego" (Jung, L'Homme à la
découverte de son âme, 57).
Therefore, "an unknown faced stranger lies dormant within each of us. He
talks to us through dream and let us know how different the vision he has of us
is from the one we revel in" (Jung, L'Homme à la découverte de son âme,
63).
Premonitory Dreams?
"In the medicine of
the Antiquity for which dreams science held such a big part, premonition in
dreams have been mentioned as they often announce a coming illness before it
erupts. (...) Must we consider that there is really premonition in dreams and
that mysterious forces rule over the exclusion of feelings or sensations which
trouble the dreamer who is going to fall ill?
We don't think so and we
can give a more simple and more satisfying explanation to those so-called
premonitory dreams.
In dreams some of our
senses take a greater acuteness than when we are awake - so that a morbid
irritation inhibited during the day, can be felt much more acutely in dreams
-" (in J. Lhermitte, les Rêves, 39-41)".
Such en explanation for refusing to believe in a theory seems to me
rather insufficient: it is not true that sensations are more acute when we
dream; physiology teaches us to believe the opposite theory in fact. Such an
objection does not imply that we should refer to occultism; psychoanalysis and
the developments of psychosomatic knowledge might be sufficient to explain such
forebodings: I can foresee having a sore throat all the better as I have
forgotten my scarf.
Does this mean that we
should in any case refuse to give a parapsychological value to
dreams? Is there no room at all for really telepathic or truly premonitory
dreams?
I would not have such a
negative opinion. No more than Jung when he wrote: "Dreams are often
anticipations that lose all their meaning when they are examined from a purely
causal point of view". Especially if we take the word 'causal' in the
meaning of a necessity written in the trivial direction of the arrow
representing time, which is a physical
and metaphysical prejudice.
Breast cancer; story of a
dream
Someone in white said:
"you've got at least one month left, one year at the maximum"
(tears).
The same night a girl friend dreamt I came to her in tears and said:
- a doctor said I had only one month left!
- Who told you so?
- My father and mother! (dead)
Comments
: She actually died in September, that is 6 months later. The prediction was correct (0 month + 12
months)/2 = 6 months...Of course the development of her disease, and the fact
that several women in her family had already died of the same disease, enabled
her to predict a quick end.
Precognition ?
However, truly
"premonitory dreams" most certainly exist; or as the
parapsychologists prefer to use the term "precognitive dreams".
Here are some disturbing
examples:
I dreamt general J.K. died, and shortly after, on 12-3-85, he did die.
His son had sold us the
property. In the last few days an officer came because he bequeathed all his
possessions to his two maids, except for the castle, given to his son, who sold
it to us. Incredible! François Mauriac life story!
Rather
her husband than her daughter (precognitive dream about her daughter's death) :
I had a dream which deeply
moved me. I was sitting on a sofa in a very well-lit room; next to me was my
daughter, dressed in black. Her being really alive made me very happy. I asked
her "how is it you took such a long time to come?" I told to her
about all the events that took place since her accident and her death. I had a
hard time to pull myself together afterwards...Before the accident, I dreamt
her dressed in long mourning weeds. I told my husband "let's hope nothing
will happen to Jean-Jacques!". The contrary happened!
She went cycling. They met in the mountains. They had to choose between two
roads. She chose. He went ahead; then waited for her...A car, with the aim of
passing another cyclist on the opposite side, came upon her and smashed her
into the ravine. I don't know if she saw it coming or if...
She was dressed in cycling shorts down to her knees. The bike was in bits. When
she was placed in the coffin, her clothes couldn't be gotten off. My son-in-law
put a long, black evening dress on her! ... I didn't see her! I didn't want to!
I can't think of her but alive!
Twin dreams of two twin sisters
I was talking about
'cosmetics" but I said "comestics" . My daughter heard
"comestible". My previous analyst was angry because my twin sister
called me at my analyst's. I reproached her for having "eaten above
my head".
When I was a child, my
father appeared because we were both howling; we were having the same dream: I
was eating over her scalp with a little spoon and she was eating over mine likewise
in her own dream. During the following session, she insisted: "You don't
know what it is when you are twins: you are never by yourself".
Commentary: In the Potomak, Cocteau says the
Mortimers have only one heart - which he represents by a little drawing of
their common dream - "so full, so round (only one for two) is the
Mortimers' dream that the Eugenes try in vain to look for an issue to it.
About this, Lacan declares:
Even when two people love each other, it is not common for them to have the same
dream. It would be even very remarkable. It gives us the proof how lonely each
of us is with what comes out of the phallic pleasure." (Lacan, 1974).
Dream foreboding a real assault
context : Since an assault two
months ago in which she was the victim, that patient, sent to me by a
parapsychology lab, complains about headaches, memory losses and difficult
psychological concentration
As for the aggression: I dreamt
three days before it happened. It was the same ambiance.
We
looked at each other in the eyes; he drew me by my wrist in the dream. In fact,
he beat me and broke my wrist.
In
fact, I went through the wrong door when I came out of the maths lesson
and it was thus that I was in front of my attacker. She remembers having other
premonitory dreams: For example she saw the head of her sister's baby and
the head of her own baby before they were born. She happened also to have
flashes before accidents.
Commentary:
If the dream had allowed her not to take the wrong door would not have seemed
premonitory since nothing special would have happened. There lies a strange
phenomenon: She did not foresee how to avoid the assault.
Could
that be compared to the masochistic behaviour of the person who knows the
negative consequences of an action and yet commits that action anyway?
Besides,
the precognition seems to be just jumbled up: The wrist is an essential element
which will be hurt in fact instead of being grabbed brutally (in the dream).
There, we have information which is transmitted as everything that is dreamed,
with amendments, omissions, deformations. As Freud imagined, dreams seemed to
be using the parapsychic data as it uses the day's residues.
Pecognitive dreams
"My
mother's brother had a wife, my aunt Zoe, a decent woman who suffered from
cancer. I was 7. One night, I dreamt that her husband, in front of a closed
door with his arms crossed, told me: "Don't enter. She's dead". In
fact, my mother heard someone knocking. It was two o'clock in the morning. I
shouted: Don't open. It's Aunt Zoe who's
dead. To the astonishment of the whole family!".
(...)
This reminds me of the assassination of a young Arab (aged 15 or 16) in Oran,
in front of the "Regent" pub in 1960 or 1961. He had his face against
the earth, with his arms extended and a group of young boys around him with
little hatchets [the patient cries]. Mercy! Disgusted! Even his feet. I
couldn't see his face, turned to the Regent's frontage. Young French boys
(between 15 and 18 years old) had assassinated him. A dagger between the two
shoulders blades! They had threatened me because I had spoken: they had sensed
a European French accent in my voice! I had said: "poor boy!" Then,
the owner of a shop let me behind his iron curtain. An Arab, hidden under the
counter was shivering and clacking his teeth very loud! The lady brought him
something to drink. The man let me sit on a high stool. I was surprised because
that was Jewish people who had rescued that Arab boy. Then, the young French
attacked another Arab who was going by (and killed him, too).
I,
exactly, had already dreamed this incident in the night! I felt a very great
impression of strangeness, an impression I've had ever since! When I left, all
the streets were deserted. I had entered the Church of my communion, that of
the Holy Ghost! The Church was empty, its doors open! Strange impression, like
madness! With time I was upset by the scene which I had just lived through and
was fascinated by the fact that I had completely dreamed exactly the scene that
very morning. What is thus life?
Dreams
and how they were interpreted in antiquity
For
the ancient Egyptians, during the temporary death that sleep is, the dreamer
has access to another world, in which the irreversible time of this world,
which is one of the elements of creation, yields in front of the future which
can be lived in the present... Gods come in the dream of Pharaoh (Merenptah,
for example) to comfort and lead him to victory that is actually acquired the
following day. As for Stethos, rats sent by Ptah will help him win, as the god
had promised him.
Premonitions,
Omens
In
the Hittites conception of dreams, they seem to have no premonitory value. Gods
do not seek to reveal the secrets of their future to their worshippers and the
men do not try to pierce the veil. Dreams come from gods, to be sure, but they
only resort to them to put them onto the right path (after M. Vieyra, Les
songes et leur interprétation chez les hittites).
A
dream tells Gideon that he would win the battle against Midianites. Actually,
he won. Where is the miracle? That he won!
Outside
the Joseph cycle the Torah quotes another example of allegorical dreaming in
Judg. VII, 13-14. It is about Gideon (Jerubbaal), when he is ready to fight
against the Midianites, he and his
servant overhears what one of the enemy soldiers says about a dream he had just
had. A barley cake (lekhem) rolled into the Midianites' camp. It rolled to
the tent, overthrew it and the tent fell. His fellow answered: It's the sword
(the root "lkhm" evokes fighting) of Gideon to whom God is going to
give over Madiab and all his camp.
As
in Lacan's land, it is a pun which allows the fellow to interpret the dream:
The latter appears to be encrypted as is every dream, revealing a more or less
censored desire. Why such a censorship while everybody is ready to fight? Isn't
it the spit spurting out of the mouth without credential of Cassandra ?
Isn't that spit necessary to ease off the prediction? Frequent easement
in the well known tales of precognition, such an easment as it is able to
sometime to change the future rather than seal it in its oracle... Easement
which allows Mantinee's victory in spite of the prediction which otherwise
would logically lead to defeat.
Dreams
in the Torah
The
tale of Joseph
occupies chapters 37 to 50 of Genesis, that is to say about some third of this
book. Different traditions of one story only can be found intertwined there and
these versions don't lack interest. The texts I'll tell you about are essentially
of "elohist" origin. Before Moses, to speak about God, one used the
term "Elohim", a plural whose origin is explained by exegetes as
being polytheist. Yet the scriptural current which uses this term insists on
Divine Transcendance and suggests that the name (YHWH) is a revelation
given to Moses on the Sinaï Mountain in a well localized fog, by a fire which
goes on, indefinitely.
Dreams
are here numerous but in the rest of the Bible, they become scarce and only
tell people to beware of the illusions they nurture (Eccli. 34, 1 et 7; Sap.
18, 17; Dan. 1, 17; Jerem. 29, 8; Joel 2, 28). Among the dreams which swarm in
the Elohist environment we are interested in, there is the divine monition that
makes Abraham cast out Hagar and her son Ismael; then he undertakes to offer
Isaac as sacrifice. Let us also remember the well known dream about the Jacob's
ladder (Gen. 28, 12-17).
The
biblical dreams-specialist is undoubtedly Joseph. Yet, in spite of the
theological viewpoint of the Elohist, its interpretations are limited to the
world of phenomena. It uses dreams as reflections or group functioning, whether
it is about his family (dreams about stars, moon and sun), or about the
Egyptian people (the lean cows).
The
tale contains many data which may make us think it is partially a historical
document:
· Egypt gave great parapsychological value to dreams.
· migrants from the East sometimes took power (for example Janhamu, Amenophis III Prime Minister)
· cycles of 7 years are well documented in Egyptian literature as regards famines and periods of wealth linked to the whims of the Nile's floods.
It's
only later that a xenophobia and racist reactions will make Egyptians consider
Hebrews as "an Asian leprosy". Then, they will be chased and
compelled to flee as is told us in Exodus. The meaning given by Christian
theologians to Joseph's tale is that God, for the salvation of the elects
(those who are selected by God), uses all circumstances, especially those which
are the most unpleasant. Sin itself - although He highly reproves of it - is
used for salvation. This will generate the idea of "Felix Culpa" that
will allow us to be freed from Adam's sin, since it will give us "such a
redeemer" (Gen 50, 19-20; Matt. 16, 21-23; Acts 2, 29-39).
From
the point of view of Henri Laborit and ethologists, Joseph is like a
domineering white rat: the first born son of the favourite wife of the Father
(who will also beget Benjamin). He is himself pampered and better treated than
his brothers. Hence, his adventures. His brothers don't bear at all his
prominence as over gifted, all the more as he becomes his father's sycophant, a
smug zealot whom all groups and gangs abhor.
He
is then doomed to be killed. Unless an ultimate remorse ...
And
here he is in the well, sold by his brothers into slavery, owned by merchants,
thrown away...
For
me, he is the type of a progressive individual (or group). Changing a group
structure, as changing any system implies a perturbation of the balance,
superior to the common fluctuations which just allow stability or, at best, a
slow stochastic trend. Although a real move implies a noticeable, durable
perturbation.
Leaving
the rut generally leads to the destruction or ousting of the spoil-sport, the
one who hinders thinking as usual. In
order to change the system it needs the tenacity and the skill of Joseph: so
sure of oneself that the counter reactions of which he is the target do not
destroy him, skilful enough to get out of the venture without loss, to
distinguish the faults of the system and to show that the solutions he imagined
were well-founded .
Is
this function of the skilful disturber something that happens at random? Could
we admit the assumption that the faults of a structure generate its progress?
That is what is observed in all cases of Darwinian evolution: the impairments
of information copying lead to changes which, after very badly adapted
specimens are eliminated, allow one to face any deterioration of the
environment and which support its wider conquest. On the level of scientific
progress, it is well-known that the great advances often come from individuals
or groups situated at the intersection of at least two fields of thought, that
is, twice foreigners.
The
tragedy of the Jews, the reasons of this tragedy and the momentous success of
most of them as regards Science and Culture, generally speaking could well be
explained by the example of Joseph and his story. As Joseph the pious man
thinks he is the most beloved and, fundamentally the best one: not because of
racial competence or quality, or any peculiar genetic feature but because he
has been elected, elected freely and lovingly by the God of the Universe.
Like
Joseph, some people in the Jewish culture are characterized by their
capacities; like him they are at the intersection of two cultures: that their
ancestors tied by the religious tradition and that of their
"diaspora" environment; where they are educated.
Thus,
Freud, Marx, Husserl, and Einstein as a very abbreviated list!
Guided
dream of Desoille and Techniques of Mental Imagery
One
can use the Desoille's guided dream within the framework of a therapeutic
technique to promote a better presence to oneself and to the world rather than
to flee or flee reality according to the simple slope of the state which
depicts in its Newspaper (27.7.1854) the sentimental philosopher (Amiel):
"I will have dreamed all the lives, to
comfort me not to have lived one"
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The
conference then continued on the more traditional aspects of the
psychoanalytical theory and experimentation concerning the dream (either of man
or of animals)
Freud,
Jung, Jouvet, etc.
To follow
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© Copyright Bernard AURIOL (email : )
4 Novembre 2006