|
|
|
|
The Dream as Nature's Methodology
In the late 19th Century, Structuralists used a technique known as introspection
to help uncover the nature of conscious processes. This technique was
abandoned. I rely on an analogous but different technique, in which I
harness the natural and deeper (and more objective) introspection of the
psyche, i.e. dreams, as the blueprints for the psychic infrastructure.
Of the handful of people who continue to study dreams, the dream is an
OBJECT of study ONLY, and it is ground through some independent procedure
that is used as the method for gathering data about the dream. Here I
use dreams as a source of information about dreams themselves, such that
the dream is both the object AND method. Here, I use dreams like hypnotists
use hypnosis. There are two different ways in which the dream method is
deployed. First, I simply describe the structure of the dream that is
apparent or manifest in its raw material. This
is tantamount to a kind of observation by which I simply describe the
dream and in which the facts of the dream and the data are one and the
same. Second, I look for similarities and oppositions among the facts
of the dream and among dreams within a series, which themselves are inferences
from which I draw even bolder inferences about the structure and dynamics
of the dream themselves. And from a collection of inferences about the
structure and dynamics of dreams, I hope to draw inferences about the
structure and dynamics of the psyche. There is an assumption here that
the dream, as an extension of my own waking thinking about dreams, will
help me to understand itself by completing my conscious depiction. Since
dreams are produced spontaneously of their own accord and without conscious
awareness or control, dreams contain unconscious material, and it is my
assumption that the unconscious material will complement or oppose that
of the content or approach maintained in consciousness. This is an approach
I would never expect a whole field like Psychology to bank on, but I would
hope that the field would encourage THIS among a DIVERSITY of approaches
where something as mysterious as dreams is concerned.
. |
BACK TO fireflySUN.com PSYCHOLOGY NEWS

|
|
 |
| |
| |
| |
|
|