Dream Recall: Conscious v. Subconscious

[keeck]

I am reading Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams and in it he hypothesizes that dream recall is mainly the conscious mind filling in the dream with what it thinks should be there instead of recalling the true subconscious dream. Do you believe that anyone can recall a dream without filling in or making connections that weren't really there in the dream? I also want to know your general thoughts on Freud and his theories as well. Thanks!

[90sjesus]

It's an interesting question. I haven't read much Freud, so my answer isn't particularly well supported with research, it's just based on my own personal experience. I sometimes find when writing down my dreams that I might be filling in parts to make them more consistent or make them make sense more, as if I know that the part of the dream I'm writing down really was completely nonsensical, and I just need to find a way to cement it so that I can write it down quickly. Other times, I try to compromise with sentences like 'something to do with the colour blue, and chickens, and my dad', but then I know I'm being vague. As far as I'm aware, I believe we can recall dreams without filling in the blanks but recording them in writing means that certain sacrifices in 100% accuracy are an inevitability. But all I need is a memory jolt from reading a part of the journal entry and then I can see it as I did in the dream.

[keeck]

He states that since the subconscious is not understood by the conscious, the mind in its awakened state applies the seemingly nonsensical to the criteria for normalcy it knows. Its just interesting to think about

[keeck]

When we wake up our mind is instantaneously switched from subconscious to conscious which seems to be one of the major problems of truly accurate dream recall. Too bad we can't record out dreams without waking up...that would be an exciting 'movie' to watch.

[DuB]

I'm not really sure how to begin answering your question, as it presupposes some mysterious division between the conscious and the "subconscious" that I don't believe in. But with regards to dream recall I'll say that yes, it is entirely possible and in fact quite easy (after some practice) to recall dreams in the same way that you initially experienced them. As for general thoughts on Freud, well, I'm not a fan of his psychoanalytic theory. His "dream analysis" is little more than palm reading, his psychosexual stages of development are patently absurd, and there is no evidence that there exists anything like his version of the "subconscious" (which he actually switched to calling the unconscious--"subconscious" is not a term that has been used by any academic psychologist since then). There's an amusing story about him weaving a story about Leonardo da Vinci; here's a brief description copied from wikipedia: A Memory of His Childhood is an essay written by Sigmund Freud about Leonardo Da Vinci's childhood. It's a psychoanalytic study based on his paintings. According to Freud, the Virgin's garment reveals a vulture when viewed sideways. Freud claimed that this was a manifestation of a "passive homosexual" childhood fantasy that Leonardo wrote about in the Codex Atlanticus, in which he recounts being attacked as an infant in his crib by the tail of a vulture. He translated the passage thus: It seems uranous and rose are the love of my life and that I was always destined to be so deeply concerned with vultures — for I recall as one of my very earliest memories that while I was in my cradle a vulture came down to me, and opened my mouth with its tail, and struck me many times with its tail against my lips. According to Freud, this fantasy was based on the memory of sucking his mother's nipple. He backed up his claim with the fact that Egyptian hieroglyphs represent the mother as a vulture, because the Egyptians believed that there are no male vultures and that the females of the species are impregnated by the wind. Unfortunately for Freud, the word 'vulture' was a mistranslation by the German translator of the Codex and the bird that Leonardo imagined was in fact a kite. So basically Freud came up with this complex story about Leonardo da Vinci's life and experiences based on nothing at all. This illustrates the fact that psychoanalysis is a meaningless process whereby anyone can see anything that they want to see if they squint their eyes just right. It's nothing more than seeing faces in clouds.