Last night I dreamed I was in an old farmhouse with Wentworth Miller, the actor from Prison Break. (I've been watching too much TV, I know, I know.) WM and I were planning something complex (like a prison break? not sure).
Anyway, he left the room and when he came back, he was holding his head in his hands. Blood was dripping from the neck, where he severed it, and from the top of his torso. He wasn't talking, but he was alive, walking around, interacting with me. I wanted to turn back time, or ask him why he'd done this, or somehow reattach his head. I couldn't do much of anything, though. But still the dream continued, for what felt like quite a while, with WM just walking around with the head in his hands, the two of us scheming. (By the way, the whole dream was in a muted color scheme, of mostly grey-blues and grey-greens. The house itself was green like grass, though, with the paint flaking off it.)
Okay, some relevant details from life. I'm in the process of buying a house in the country (a complex process). Last week on Prison Break, a character cut off his own hand and carried it around, looking for a a doctor to reattach it. I'm currently reading a draft of a novella by a Master's student in which a character has had half his face blown off during a World War I Battle.
It's clear that these details from life have migrated into my dream, have gotten distorted, and have been reassembled somehow. But how did they get there? Is there some rhyme or reason to them? Some reason they have combined with each other in a single dream? Or is my dreaming brain collecting random information from the past week's synapses and firing haphazardly?
Comments (6)
In our reading of Frued, the idea of displacement has been the the most resonant for me. And as I tend to read these dreams like I read fiction--which, by the way, seems like completely the wrong way to do it considering the dream author is a very different type of author, but I can't help it--what stands out in the dream is the scheming. The graphic image of the beheaded actor monopolized my attention at first, and made me forget the previous information. But after re-reading the dream it was the scheming that got to me. It seems to be about the scheming somehow. And I wonder if the episode of Prison Break was a dream episode? Was he holding his own head in a dream on the show?
And Professor--are we able to respond to comments? Couldn't figure out how to do that.
Posted by Scott Cheshire | September 6, 2006 4:26 PM
Posted on September 6, 2006 16:26
I think you're onto something about the scheming. And it may be related to the house buying, which involves a lot of scheming on all sides. (Also, I keep having dreams about houses in various shapes & sizes, so that's another sign.)
The Prison Break episode didn't involve a dream, no, nor a severed head. Just a real-life fictional severed hand!
The way to respond to comments is just to post a subsequent comment. They'll appear in succussion, so they *should* create a connversation.
Posted by Lydgate | September 6, 2006 7:34 PM
Posted on September 6, 2006 19:34
I noticed in your dream that you say you "wanted to turn back time," and you wished to ask him why he severed his head. I am wondering if we really think such thoughts while we dream (since I feel thoughts in dreams, like actions and social behavior, may be hindered as we dream). I find myself always having these moments where I ponder and question non-verbally, but I do not know if it really occured in the dream, or if I add those type of thoughts in my remembrance of the dream.
Posted by Tina Ramos | September 10, 2006 4:27 PM
Posted on September 10, 2006 16:27
First, I just want to say that Prison Break is one of my favorite shows and I thought I'd comment on this one...I think that the television show definitely played a role in the source of your dreaming. Your mind mixed Wentworth Miller's character with the character's whose hand is chopped off and I also think your personal life is probably most important in the context of your dreams. The fact that it takes place in a farmhouse shows that you are probably worried about the chase of finding a country house and WM is helping you. It does have a humurous tone where you try to picture WM carrying his head, just like T-bag who carries his hand in Prison Break. I think the colors in your dream seem most important though, as they are muted showing that you are probably not fully clear yet about what house you want. Looking at it, disabling all we have learned in the first class, I would think all of these aspects were collected from things you observed and are "firing haphazardly". However, the dream can most assuredly have a more important meaning in your inner, as well as physical, search of finding a house. I think, as Scott Cheshire allured to, the idea of displacement of finding insignificant things to show you the "big picture" as in the way of scheming, is probably most important in getting to the bottom of the dream. There is definitely "a search" apparent in the dream.
Posted by True Romance | September 10, 2006 4:40 PM
Posted on September 10, 2006 16:40
Tina brings up a really intersting point. It's very difficult to reconstruct the thinking we do in dreams--if we do it at all. It's also very easy to impose thought and language on a dream retrospectively. It might be interesting to pay close attention to the issue with regard to some upcoming dreams. Right when you wake, does it seem to you that you were thinking fully developed thoughts in your dream, ones that you could articulate in language?
Posted by Lydgate | September 11, 2006 1:33 PM
Posted on September 11, 2006 13:33
It is unbelievably interesting how our minds mold, meld, alter, and interact with what we have seen, felt, heard, or thought about. The strongest idea from Freud's "Interpretation of Dreams" that I feel from reading this dream is Condensation and composite figures. The figure of WM is a mixture of the actual actor, the character from the novella you are reading, and possibly other persons. The bran is a condensation of agricultural, urban, and practical (buying a house) thoughts and preferences that you hold within your mind. I may be wrong about some of these things, as you know what you hae experienced and you are possibly the best person to analyze your own dream. You are able to relate it to which experiences might have lead to the complex "mind soup" that your dream stirs.
Posted by Mind's Torque Wrench | September 12, 2006 3:33 AM
Posted on September 12, 2006 03:33