We must not only remove metanarrative notes
from
this dream narrative; we must also take advantage of this
opportunity
to say that Marcel Foucault, unlike Freud, never separates memories
recalled by the dreams (recognized upon waking up) of their
stories.
Rather, he sees there the "explanation" of the dream (pp. 185,
186, 192, 197, 229, 230, 235), its "origin" (p. 200) or its "cause"
(pp. 254, 266, 268). It is everywhere, especially in the
course
of observations, in their presentation or comment. In contrast,
Foucault correctly notices that the dream narrative, when it is at
all long, is "complex", "incoherent" and made of many frames. This
gives us the following event sequence :
Sq0 —— Several "series of images", or several sequences
have been forgotten
Sq1 —— A high school teacher's inspection
1 Marcel Foucault accompanies Inspector M., whom he knows, to
a teacher's who has not yet been evaluated;
— the teacher in question runs an important school which
corresponds to his political influence; he is almost an old man,
with
a very neatly trimmed beard.
2 The inspector blames the teacher
3 and peremptorily declares, to Foucault, that this teacher
is
an ignorant person who relies only on his influences.
4 Foucault mutters a few meaningless sentences.
5 The exchange between the inspector and the teacher turns
sour.
Sq2 —— Walking to school
Sd It's raining cats and dogs...
6 Marcel Foucault's late (or worse even, since at the end of
the sequence it is night), so he must go to high school.
7 He seeks and finds his umbrella, which is broken.
8 He realizes that the broken umbrella is not his.
9 He walks to school in a tree lined avenue,
10 while it is almost dark.
Sq3 —— Walking in the crowd of a market
Sd Foucault walks through a festive crowd or market
— found on both sides of the street are shops, tents and
barracks; there is a lot of dust and it is very sunny.
11 He sees cafés on the right-hand side.
12 A peddler offers him matches for 20 cents a box (Swedish
matches, precisely, with a built-in striking surface which allows
them to ignite).
13 He replies that they are too expensive.
14 He continues to walk.
In reality, this is simply the result of Marcel Foucault's
narrative
study itself, as we conducted it further up in the dream of "Irma's
Injection". We now have a dream called "Teacher Foucault's
Deambulations" and must simply put the dream's fourteen events back
to back to find a narrative equivalent to that of the first dream's
in Freud's work. Here is the first sequence that has a complex
actancial configuration (A1), while the following two (A2a and A2b)
are only those of the dreamer's character, save for the peddler's
short participation. In contrast, Foucault's three dream sequences
are much better marked in spatial and temporal terms (three
separate
locations and three different times during the day, at dusk, and
again during the day), so that two starting situations (Sd) make
them
stand out. Marcel Foucault's narrative analysis, as relevant as it
can be, is however misleading on one crucial point (which will have
many consequences, as we already know, in the theory he will
build) : if the series of three sequences is clearly
"incoherent", it is also true for the event series of the
sequences,
with the exception of the first, as he himself says in the
introduction (this sequence is "the longest and least
incoherent") : he should therefore be wary of it !
Here is why : Marcel Foucault's narrative
analysis is very efficient because it begins with the study of the
dreamer's narratives in order to question them on their products,
the
dream narratives. Following types of narratives pragmatically
distinguished by Alfred Maury, he establishes two opposite
genres : immediate notations and delayed ones. We have just
read
the first of six examples he first gives to illustrate his first
conclusion : the notations made immediately after a sudden
awakening show series of images, pictures or scenes which are
clearly
incoherent, while the notations made more or less long after a
spontaneous awakening, after a deep sleep, are instead more
consistent and continuous. The conclusion takes shape by
itself : the more time elapses between waking up and the dream
recall, the more the dream narrative becomes consistent. A simple
counter example is also efficient : just ask for various
stories
of the same dream to see the various properties of the dreamt story
gradually disappear. These, however, do not all disappear and we
quickly understand why by studying the stories made of immediate
notations : there are harmonizations of times, places, actions
and relationships between characters that are difficult or
impossible
to achieve properly. Conversely, if it becomes increasingly
difficult
to find many inconsistencies deleted from deferred notations, there
will usually be some which are very obvious (pp. 163-168). So
there are two narrative times to distinguish within the dream
narrative : first, the work of awakening, which still
operates,
as little as it does, as soon as an immediate notation begins
(hence
the strong consistency of the first sequence in the dream above),
and
then the work of wakefulness. In both cases, these are logical
operations that are opposed to, according to Marcel Foucault, the
automatic operations of the dream thoughts.
The following is the key chapter of his book
(chapter 4) : "The construction of dreams after sleep".
Obviously, if the argument is out of context, it gives us Freud's
shortcut, which is quite inadequate. Foucault has never claimed
that
the dream was a production of conscious thought upon waking up and
after waking up. The chapter's abrupt title, from a narrative point
of view, presupposes a "reconstruction" (but not a production) of
the dream upon waking up and during wakefulness. Moreover, we
should
quote it in full here, as his narrative study is relevant. A small
excerpt will suffice : "So, when awakening starts, the mind
grasps, in an act of immediate memory, a plurality of separate
frames, and, trying to realize what was keeping it busy at the end
of sleep, it treats these groups of representations as if they were
representations from the day before, that is to say, it tries
spontaneously to organize them according to the rules of logic and
the laws of the real world. Why ? In short, to create drama
which is as close as possible to the previous day's
drama"(pp. 140-141). With the concepts of narrative grammar,
this denotes the rules and properties of event history. This entire
chapter is a remarkable narrative study. The event model, the model
of the dreamt story and the power of narration, the logical mind,
which tries to adapt the latter to the former, are all well
presented : we must organize the frames and events (we will
soon
return to this problematic and certainly inaccurate question), we
must choose the proper places to locate them in space, and we must
also organize the chronological sequence, the causal succession and
the purpose. The result is the "dream narrative" as we know it,
with
all these adjustments ! It is a more or less organized story
because all this reconstruction builds a generally imperfect
"story".
Marcel Foucault's analysis and theorizing are
not perfect. The most important operation of awakening and of
wakefulness's work, he says, is to organize the series of frames or
scenes that have been dreamed. According to him, it is rare that we
remember these sequences in the "subjective order" that they were
dreamed (both levels, objective and subjective, are defined in
chapter 4). Most of the time, the recall is done exactly in reverse
order from the last to the first, but sometimes a little less
often,
in random order (see "Place in time", pp. 145-157). The
observation is perfectly precise and Foucault should have added on
this point a very important fact, namely, that the dream
narrative is strictly the story that was dreamt (and
this
is even the first property of the narrative model, Rr :: Hr;
Récit de rêve :: Histoire rêvée),
that
is to say that the substance of the narrative content, the story,
can
only take the shape of its co-substantial content. In principle, a
story can be told in many ways (its possible narratives). However,
in the case of the dreamt story, there is only one narrative which
is possible and imaginable : the narrative in which the story
has already been dreamt. This property can be observed in
the
order of events and sequences. Except in rare cases of vague image
recalls from before the dream narrative itself (images which are
not
given as ordered), all events and all sequences of a dream
narrative
possess a determined, predetermined order — and exceptions to
this rule are rare, even if Foucault makes this a characteristic of
the dream narrative. Whatever the order of event recall, the
dreamer's orders them spontaneously in the sequence in which they
were dreamed, convinced that it is their place in the unfolding of
events — this is a true rule of dream narratives. But this is
not what Marcel Foucault thinks; he believes that the "objective
(or
logical) order" sometimes overrides the "subjective order". He will
formulate his hypothesis on simultaneous sequences, described
earlier, based on this conviction.
However, this lack of observation, as
surprising
as it can be, counts for nothing in the greater scheme of things
when
talking about such a remarkable book which was largely ignored in
dream research, especially when compared to the Freud's, since it
is
also from "1900". So let's fast forward to "2000" where we will
quickly realize that not much progress has been made since Freud
and
Foucault since the latter's work was not well known.
There are in fact thousands of scientific
publications on dreams throughout the twentieth century. But we can
say that the problem is completely reversed with respect to the
experimental psychology of dreams. Instead of being dream
narratives
or recalls that query the phenomenon, as we have seen with Marcel
Foucault, neurological studies (ie, biology, anatomy,
electrophysiology and brain chemistry) are the ones which the
psychologists will notice. Two examples will serve to illustrate
this
phenomenon : J. Allan Hobson's model of activation-synthesis
and
the cognitive model of Jacques Montangero. In both cases, the model
attempts to answer neurology's questions (what is this "thought"
which occurs during REM sleep and which is remembered upon waking
up ?), but in the tradition of the phenomenon's psychological
study (what is the "meaning" of the dream, and then what are its
"functions" ?). In short, neurology knows better and better
how the dream occurs, so we would like to know why,
we
would like to know its purpose.
We are asking psychologists to answer this
question. However, as we have seen with the critique of Freud's
model
and of psychoanalysis, psychologists use dreams, especially in
therapeutic methods, to help their patients to know themselves, to
find their strengths and weaknesses, to exteriorize their desires
and
fears. In this perspective, psychologists use the dreams of their
patients to try to heal them. This is the case, for example, of the
exercise on the understanding of dreams (ECR, "Exercice de
Compréhension des Rêves) developed by George W. Baylor and Daniel Deslauriers (le
Rêve : sa nature, sa fonction, et une méthode
d'analyse, Montréal, PUQ, coll. « Monographies
de psychologie », 1991, 90 p.). Admittedly, this
little book contains an important theoretical apparatus, quite
comparable to those of Hobson's and Montangero's, but its purpose
is
pragmatic. This is a method which can be called the "expansion" of
the dream. The authors offer their subjects to examine their dreams
because it is an effective way to get to know yourself and there is
no doubt as to its relevance. That said, we could definitely use
Baylor and Deslauriers's book to illustrate the inversion of
theorization and treatment, which can be formulated in a
paradoxical
way : if the psychologist and his patients use dreams (for
reasons, of course, which are plentiful), here's what dreams are
for.
This becomes their function. This has always been translated to a
single word : the meaning of the dream, meaning that we
must know how to "interpret".
The experimental psychology of dreams is, at
the
end of the twentieth century, at the center of this double
reversal : the reversal of psychology and physioneurology,
that
of therapeutic practices and the theories which are drawn from
them.
Of course, psychologists answer to neurologists by updating
therapeutic practices for them.
The title of his thesis says it all :
The Dreaming Brain (New York, Basic Books, 1988,
319 p.).
This neurologist, along with colleagues of his laboratory,
published
his specialized work, gradually establishing a neuro-psychology of
dreams, from 1974. His 1988 synthesis reads like an adventure
novel,
endowed with killer humor. The hero is obviously Allan Hobson; his
opponents are psychoanalysts, and his story is the scientific study
of dreams since Helmholtz, Wundt, Maury, Hervey de Saint-Denys and,
of course, Freud. His presentation of the study of dreams
throughout
the twentieth century is fascinating : happy polemicist, he is
also an excellent pedagogue. His presentations have nothing to do
with those of Francoise Parot (l'Homme qui
rêve, Paris, PUF, 1995, 171 p.) or of Sophie Jama (Anthropologie du rêve, Paris, PUF,
coll. « Que sais-je ? », 1997, repr.
under
the title Rêve et cultures, Montreal, Liber, 2009,
136 p.). We can not count on him to be an objective historian,
to present various approaches or take into account the various
nuances necessary to historical accounts. Early on and point by
point, he developed his model of activation-synthesis. Here is a
meaningful example of this. In Chapter 6, which focuses on the
discovery of REM sleep and the redefinition of the various stages
of
sleep, we read : "Unfortunately, the thinking that occurs in
non-REM sleep is non-progressive. Humans do not apper to solve
cognitive problems by sleep thinking. Rather the mind seems to be
running in place. Ideas are mulled over without one's being able
either to conclude them or to leave them behind" (p. 143).
Here
are, without saying anything specific about them, the functions of
REM sleep and dreams !
Indeed, no one doubts the findings of
neurology;
Allan Hobson then decides to translate them into psychological
facts.
The first postulations are that a brain has three states :
waking, sleeping and dreaming (pp. 113 and 124). A dream (or
dreaming) is a "behavioral state" (p. 112). From this point of
view,
REM sleep can be considered as an "awakening" of the brain
that triggers, maintains, and stops dreams during sleep. It is a
machine that processes information and which is activated by itself
(under the influence of acetylcholine coming from the brain stem).
The important thing is that the higher brain (cortex and
subcortical
regions), especially the forebrain, "lights up" (which is
accompanied
by a blocking of sensory perception and motor functions) and the
synthesis operation is activated. Note that, upon awakening,
this synthesis is perceived as a real malfunction of "modulator
neurons" giving way for hallucination, illusion of reality,
disorientation, confusion, unwarranted intensification of emotions
and, in addition, amnesia for much of the process.
What is especially noticed, in fact, is
precisely that the last note applies to dream recalls, dream
narratives, their narration, and that it is this narrative data
that
will validate the activation-synthesis model. To do this, Hobson
proposes to replace or at least supplement the "content analysis"
of
dream narratives with their "formal analysis". From here, it must
be
said, J. Allan Hobson offers a method of analysis that leads him
away
from narrative studies, even though his purpose is to study "dream
narratives" to draw conclusions that would fit the findings of
neurology. In fact, his analysis of the narratives will be about
the
interpretation of literary and biblical texts, or of various
artistic objects in which dreams "all make a kind of narrative
sense"
(p. 232). And, no, it is not useful to contextualize this
statement because the two analysis operations will not cancel each
other out, being "interpretations of the dream shape", but rather
add
up. The formal analysis of dreams should match the vision,
movement,
orientation, etc., while their contents should meet their objects
(what I see, how I walk, where I go, etc.). It is assumed that
personal content has the function to update the basic forms
of perception, their analyses and their neurological recordings.
The "interpretation" of "narration" in dream
narratives categorically shows that there is no common measure
between the recall of dreams, as they had been developed in "1900",
and the interpretations that are proposed in "2000". J. Allan
Hobson's corpus includes an anonymous collection of dream
narratives
written in the summer of 1939, a manuscript containing 233 recalls,
from one to 78 lines each, illustrated with 110 drawings. The
author
of this book, a man of 46 years old, is passionate about trains and
locomotives. Hobson therefore designated him as the "Engine Man".
We
know nothing more of the manuscript which is not publicly
available.
The simple act of putting together a collection of dreams which is
one third anonymous at the heart of his work violates a fundamental
rule already established since Freud : no one but the dreamer
can interpret his dreams. And this is really "interpretation" we
are
talking about here, regardless of the classification of sensations,
movements or "quirks" that can be derived from script, since it is
after these studies, and thus without them that we
read the
"interpretation" of the dream about the customs : part 5,
chapter 13 "The Bizarreness of Dreams" (p. 257-281) — before
the traditional chapter, in psychology, on dreams' functions !
which shows that we obviously do not know anything.
The book thus leads to the "interpretive
exercise" of the "Engine Man"'s dream about the customs building.
Let's call him Loco — "l'homme à la loco" is the
translation of "Engine Man" by his French translator, Rose
Saint-James; thus Loco, just because "loco" means "crazy" in
Spanish
and I still have the right to have a little fun : for and my
students and me, his name was Loco for years — and his dream
"Loco's customs". I will not copy the text of the dream for which
there is a photograph of the manuscript in the book (p. 262, fig.
13.1, "The Engine Man's Custom Building dream"), with the design of
the building and its two ramps providing access to the first and
second floors of the three-floored building. The text is cut and
commented in seven fragments in chapter 14 (pp. 272-277). In
fact, the commentary that follows each piece is an interpretation
and
even a rewriting of the narrative, so that the fragments and
comments
tell two stories, the second overlapping the first. They are
respectively called "Loco's customs" and "Loco's customs according
to Hobson."
Loco's customs
The "story" often deviates from the story that
needs to be restored, which is what I am doing here consistently.
The
first example is simple : Loco unexpectedly tells us he is
walking with a stranger, a stranger who will become (later, no one
knows when) his nephew Jason. See also item 14, the level where the
weighing of the animals should be. Obviously, we are in the
presence
of deferred notation far removed from the dreamt story.
Sq1 —— Walking in Washington
Sd. Washington.
1 Loco walking with a little boy of six or eight years old on
14th Street in Washington, due south, south of Pennsylvania Avenue;
the streets are muddy.
2 Approximately three blocks further, he heads east, behind
small buildings (not one of them in any case seems "big"); the
streets are deserted.
Sq2 —— Looking for the customs building
3 Loco, who asks the boy if he knows the customs building,
hears him answer "no"
4 and persuades himself indeed that it is certainly elsewhere
in the city.
— This is where all animals larger than cats must be
registered
(that is to say, declared, weighed and taxed)
— which applies to animals that may be on the trains that
stop
within the district.
5 Loco and his companion looking for someone who brought an
animal from a train to the customs building.
6 Wandering randomly, here they are in front of the building
they were looking for.
— "It (is) a 3-story blgd. of white stone with "ramps" on
outside apparently to enable animals to reach the upper stories"
(p.
273, see drawing, p. 262).
Sq3 —— In the first rooms of a building's upper
floors
7 Loco and his companion enter the building (without using
the
ramps), go up to the upper floors and look in different rooms,
although directions on the doors and walls convince them that they
are in a wrong part of the building (in other words, they went
astray).
8 Jason (the name is heavily scratched on the manuscript, but
it can only be he who is hereby alluded to) opens the doors to
these
rooms on the fly.
9 In each of these rooms, there are generally two people.
9.1 In one of them, there are two men at a desk, one of whom
is bent over the furniture in the direction of the other;
— these two men are apparently talking about serious matters
and it is clear at least that the attitude of leaning one is very
serious.
9.2 In two other rooms, they see a girl, a young woman
dressed
as a nurse, a nurse talking to small people, children, young
people
with aged and worn faces.
Sq4 —— At the reformatory home
— Loco understands that this part of the building is actually
a reformatory home, that these young children have grown up in the
street, having lived painfully until they were caught by the police
who brought them here where they try to rehabilitate them.
10 Loco hears one of these children with sharp features ask
his
nurse about a story or an image on a book.
11 She replies kindly, but coldly.
— The nurse's job is obvious, without any pedagogical or
human
involvement;
— Loco tells himself : "Nothing will take the place of
good home training".
Sq5 —— Jason's prank at the nursery
12 Loco and Jason enter a room where they find a nurse, fully
dressed, with a baby lying in a bed shaped like a cradle.
13 Jason crawls onto the bed and grabs ice in a glass of
water.
14 Loco thinks Jason crosses the line : he grabs Jason's
arm, gets him out of bed and drags him out of the room, even if
Jason
is reluctant.
— [Metanarrative note : "(About this time I realised
that
the animal weighing doubtless took place in basement)" (p.
276) : this aside is obviously an intervention of the narrator
who unexpectedly exercises his governance — as if that could
interest the narrative or the narratee as it had been a long time
since this question had been valid, of course].
Sq6 —— The office of the judge
15 In another room, Loco (and Jason) is (are) in the office
of
a judge, lying fully clothed on a couch.
— Portrait : large prominent nose, rough facial skin of
a man who has had a difficult life or who has engaged in excess.
Moral judgment : he looks pretentious, like most judges.
— In fact, Jason is not there anymore; two adults accompany
Loco, probably sisters, Dorothy (Jason's mother) and June.
16 These two people, Dorothy and June, leave the room when
the
judge says : "Honor is found only in women but does not exist
in men",
— because it seems impossible to understand for them.
17a Loco recognizes here a quote from Duff in "This Human
Nature" [Charles Duff (1894-1966), This Human Nature : a
history, a commentary, an exposition, from the earliest time to the
present day, Cosmopolitan Book Corp., 1930, 405 p.; I
haven't yet found the quote in the book where Google Search Books
gives any occurrence of the word "honor"]
17b and the judge confirms having read it,
— thinking it is a good enough book, but which has two
serious
flaws...
No initial situation (Si), but a clear
departing
situation (Sd), a random series of six sequences, each of which
implicitly opening on a departing situation (represented here by
the
adverb of place in the title of the sequence). Obviously there is
no
final situation since the closing event (Ei) states explicitly that
what follows is unknown (these are the two serious defects "which
unfortunately were not explained," according to the story's final
parenthesis). In addition, each of the sequences consists of a
random
series of events. It is therefore a remarkable depiction of the
dreamt story's narrative model, except, of course, with regard to
the
metanarrative features.
Now here is the "interpretation" that suggests
Allan Hobson : it is a story to be taken in the second degree,
where Loco must somehow render this narration and the psychologist
must interpret it. The "questions" — often explicitly ironic
— should be set aside, which will be less and less possible,
trying to denigrate what would be, according to Hobson the
narrator,
a "psychoanalytical" analysis of this dream. In fact, these
questions are so numerous, so important, that they double
the
story (in the second degree) with a metanarrative discourse. In
practice, the story of Loco (a rewrite of H1) rendering his dream
accompanies the story of Hobson (H2) interpreting it, one not
existing without the other, as in a detective novel, where the
story
of the crime (H1) is revealed by that of the investigation (H2).
Loco's customs according to Hobson
Si Hobson proposes to conduct the "interpretation of dream shapes"
in his hero Loco's dream about customs.
1 Loco describes the center of Washington as well as Giorgio
de Chirico, according to Hobson : a deserted downtown
neighborhood where tall buildings feel very small.
2 Loco then an unknown "buddy" (which would be a
contradiction in terms, again according to Hobson), which will soon
be transformed "oneirically" into his nephew Jason.
— This is probably the first "intervention" of the dreamer,
Loco correcting the situation, in his dream, transforming the
character of an unknown person into Jason, his nephew. This is also
the first intervention of Hobson the narrator's in Loco's narrative
adventures.
3 Certainly, Loco, to orient himself in this dream, invents
a
direction in his story by asking his companion where the customs
building may be.
— Motives or associations of the dreamer : we are in the
center of Washington, it makes sense that we must be here in order
to find a public building serving a civic function; a customs
office
is a good choice.
4 "Since Jason does not know the location of the Customs
Building, the dreamer thinks that..." (sic). The building must be
located outside of the city center, as his companion of six or
eight
years old doesn't know of it.
5 Loco then invented, to bail himself out, the story of the
recording, of the weighing and taxing, which is quite logical,
customs offices being what they are. We should look for someone who
is going there (reasoning on trains).
6 Yes, but, record, tax and weigh what ? Why not
animals ? But animals which are big enough, bigger than cats
anyway.
7 Being in front of the customs office per chance, Loco
invents, no one knows why [we read : "not explained"],
a weighing on the upper floors that will never happen and ramps for
its access, and he even enters in the building with his nephew,
without the help of the ramps.
8 Once on the upper floors, everything indicates that Loco
and
his nephew Jason are in the "wrong part" of the building. Where are
they ? What are they looking for ?
9 From here, indeed, Hobson appears very clearly as an
extradiegetic narrator who asks : "How about the social aspect
of all of this ? "(the above Sq3), to "What are we to make of
these senile orphans ? "(pp. 274 and 275). The answer to
the last question is typically Freudian : a combination of
Loco's parents and the grand-son that they were not given. And the
narrator extradiegetic resumes : "Why not, however, simply say
that the dreamer is still disoriented, and delving ever more deeply
into the orientational memory file ?" (p. 275). He noted,
however, that Loco is really in a cul-de-sac. How will he get out
of
there ?
10 The "wrong" part of the building will simply be a
"correctional institution" : this is where Loco can be found
(in
the active sense : this is where he "is", where he takes
himself).
— From physical landmarks, we now get to socio-cultural
benchmarks, or education. Family education can not be replaced by
an
institution's.
11 Loco enters the nursery to play the father's role
vis-à-vis Jason. This is the "punishment."
— "Has the dreamer done right to discipline Jason ? He
is not sure. So he decides to submit this question to judgment"
(p.
277).
12 Here he is with two mothers of his son (his sisters)
coming
into the judges' place; this judge will mention Duff's This
Human
Nature suggesting that it is women and not men who are people
of
honor.
Sf The summary of the following form and content analyses
requires this conclusion : Loco expresses (and Hobson hears
about it for the first time) the tension between the education
given
by women and male authority, that reflects the many "orientational
disturbances" of this narrative, between family members, between
other characters, between places, as between the chains of
associations.
What's in this second narrative ? The
story
of Loco inventing his dream and, at the same time, the story of
Hobson interpreting it. And that is a fantastic adventure story.
Just
compare the story of Loco's dream narrative (H1) to this second
story
(H2) to notice the dissociation between the initial model of the
activation-synthesis (neurological), the analysis of the shape of
the
dream content (therapeutic) and the interpretation of a narrative
text (literary). From neurology we go to psychology, to finally
reach
the virtuosity of literary "text explanation" : in order
words,
the least scientific discourse possible. This is basically a
comment,
no more, no less. We can not, of course, blame J. Allan Hobson,
since
the interpretive commentary is not of great importance in his work.
However, it is likely that his psychological analyses, derived from
neurology, can not take us magically from "1900" to "2000".
Precisely the contrary of J. Allan Hobson's,
the
work of Jacques Montangero and colleagues is characterized by the
qualities of their narrative studies. But the most extraordinary
thing is that they end up in exactly the same position, from a
reverse direction : Hobson's neurology and Montangero's
narratology both lead to the "dreaming brain" and the "dream of the
brain " which is asleep. It is entitled Rêve et
cognition (Liège, Pierre Mardaga, [1998 or 1999],
268 p.). Summary : a fascinating methodology of dream
recalls, an equally remarkable narrative analysis (a sequential
analysis which is in itself a model of the dreamt story), all at
the
service of "psychological" interpretations in a "cognitive" model,
which is a double-edged model, the cognitive representation of
dreams, the dream as cognition, as a form of thought. Let's go
right
into it.
Jacques Montangero's narrative analysis is
first
presented in chapter 3 of his book published in 1998 (especially
pp. 78-87), to be developed in chapter 4 (especially
pp. 108-118). It is also appears in another publication of the
author's with colleagues José Reis and
Francisco Pons from Bulletin de psychologie (July-August
1999,
pp. 399-408). It is an adaptation of "story grammars", that is
to say, from a reformulation of the Russian formalists' (Propp,
Tomachevski, Eikenbaum, etc..) and of the French (Bedier,
Lévi-Strauss, Greimas, Barthes, Bremond, Todorov, etc..) on
the syntactic generative grammar model (from that of Noam
Chomsky's),
David Foulkes being the best representative for
the
narrative study of dream narratives (A grammar of dreams,
New
York, Basic Books, 1978). Following Foulkes' model, Montangero
implements a method of sequencing and analyzing stories (i.e. dream
narratives, but which then applies for comparisons' sake, to
stories
of a beginning of a day or of memorable moments from recent days)
which is represented by a "sequential pattern". This pattern
isolates
"narrative units" (these are the narrative events, but also
sequences
of actions built from an event's "times"). A heavy pre-syntactic
analysis follows where two successive events are characterized by
a
pragmatic typology : the link between the units will be
"causal", "plausible" or "teleonomic". The links between several
successive units will be "narrative" or from a "script" (with
possible "complications" or "repeats"), while on the contrary the
links between sequences made of a series of narrative units
will be a "break" or "shortcoming."
Here we have, as story analyses and reciprocal
syntheses, a general model for dream narratives. Its development is
obviously ongoing and the proof is that different sets of concepts
are still informal. "Break" and "shortcoming" are one and the
same : the clear shift from one sequence to another, a
"plausible" link between two units, is a link whose "causal" or
"teleonomic" character is not explicit; a "script" is a supposedly
common narrative. This being said, even if these concepts are
approximations, they are used to correctly render the narrative of
the dreamt story. It will be characterized by its shortcomings or
breaks, and therefore, by the multiplying of story sequences. The
"scripts", and more generally the narratives, fall short; in other
words, they are incomplete, while more often the events are not
even
a narrative. The still loose definition of concepts, however, leads
to a lack of clear interpretation : the "discontinuous
aspects"
of the dream narrative, the authors write," should not obscure the
generally coherent nature of the dream sequences" (article
1999, p. 407b). Why ? Simply because the connection
between
units is generally "a possible but unpredictable continuity".
However, this "plausible" continuity was defined as not being
"unpredictable", a form of causality which is not explicit; if you
prefer, an implicit causality. Whatever : it is in fact a
correct formulation of the third property of the dreamt story's
event
model : a random series of Ex + Ey + Ez will by itself create
E1 + E2 + E3, a mandatory series.
Here is my event partitioning for "John's
Dream", the first one which Jacques Montangero submits to his
sequential analysis in his book. We first find the summary
(pp. 80-81), then the sequence diagram (fig. 2, p. 81)
and
its further analysis (pp. 83-84).
John's dream : winter sports
Sq1 —— In a plane over mountains, John sees lost
skiers
Sd John (40 years old) is flying over a mountainous region in
his small aircraft. — Peacefully, with pleasure, in total
control of the situation.
1 He sees distraught skiers going in every direction :
"this is certainly a huge error," believes John;
— but he is confident he can help them, because he has a
solution;
2 he lands on a glacier.
Sq2 —— John witnesses a fight between a friend and his
stepfather
Sd John is in front of the sports store owned by a friend's
father-in-law.
3 Through the open door, John sees the father-in-law accuse
the
son harshly, stupidly and wickedly; humiliated, the son replies
vehemently to defend himself.
4 The latter, seeing that John is watching them, closes the
door of the store.
5 But John continues to observe them through the window.
6 He sees the feud continue.
7 At one point, they even seem to be on the verge of
brawling
— and John is full of compassion for his friend.
Sq3 —— John advises a skater trying to make a difficult
jump
8 John leaves this place, walks through the village and
reaches
the rink.
9 There is a skater who will succeed in making a difficult
jump
thanks to his advice :
9.0 apparently everyone thought it impossible, but
9.1 she leaps, twists and scars the ice with her skate while
recovering her perfect stance;
9.2 music accompanies the rhythms of these various
movements.
Sq4 —— John wants to reach his girlfriend at the top of
the mountain by using the cable car
— He feels very satisfied.
10 John is walking towards a cable that will lead him to the
restaurant at the top of the mountain,
— where he plans to join his friend, knowing that she is
climbing on the other side at that very moment.
If we compare this event analysis to Jacques
Montangero's sequential pattern, we will first see that the pattern
can not be understood without rereading John's dream, while the
event
partitioning is first validated by its autonomy : this is the
procedure of the justified summary. But we then see that the
pattern
is not a list of events corresponding to the unwinding of events,
but
rather a chart which can be read in multiple columns. However, if
we
compare the pattern to the story told by John, generalizations are
quickly found (first column), as are simplifications (second and
third columns) and unjustified or inappropriate decompositions.
This
of course begins with an analysis of five sequences (a sequencing
even more unfair since the cable car part is properly designated,
as
"sequence four" still being analysed (page 84, 8th line). But this
can also be found in the distinction of the role of the agent or
patient of John : for the first sequence, flying over a
mountainous area and seeing (consequently, but especially after)
distraught skiers are two very different events. The appearance of
"simultaneity" on which Montangero emphasizes (both in his book and
in the 1999 article) is a pure creation of his patterns :
watching a skater performing a jump are two actions that
syntactical
analyses can distinguish (here we have two sentences in deep
structure), but certainly not the narrative analysis (it is a
sequence of actions, including 9.1 — 9.0 to 9.2 in
fact
— subject to event 9 it carries). Finally, a single
feeling is recorded in the pattern (sequence 2, "compassion"),
while
intentions ("he will take a cable car") and beliefs (his
"friend is going up the other side of the mountain") are considered
de facto events.
Before moving on to the psychological
interpretation that Jacques Montangero and John will draw from this
story, we can enumerate the narrative features and compare them to
the dreamt story's model. Despite the unity of place (snow
sports : ski resort, its mountain, mountainous region and
village, its sports shop and ice rink), the four sequences each
have
their own spatial configuration. The first two are initiated by a
starting situation (Sd) while the last two's initial event is made
of a movement which serves as a transition to the new space. Each
sequence has a very strong unity of action where John is eventually
both actor and witness (airplane flight / lost skiers; witness of
a
fight; observer / advisor / watching the skater; beginnings of an
appointment with a double ascent by cable car). But the most
important aspect is that the four sequences involve an actantial
configuration of their own. John's feelings are well defined,
always
in accordance with the events, although the feeling of satisfaction
in the third sequence appears to spill over into the next, in the
story at least.
From the point of view of the dreamt story's
model, it appears that several features of the "narrative" are
reconstructions of the wakeful mind. This is certainly the case for
the general space, starting situations and transitions marked by
movement. The hero's feelings and "thoughts" are too many to not
have
been brought up by the experience (since they appear in the
interview, as we will see), mainly because they are in too perfect
an agreement with the actions. Although the sequences are very
short
(2 to 4 events), their unity of action is far removed from the
random
model. In contrast, the four sequences with their actantial
configurations have resisted awakening's narrations. Overall, we
can
consider that this is a dramatization of a dream or of dreamed
episodes.
It is surprising that the first dream
narrative
studied in the book is actually far from the narrative model of
dreams, but we can still find later, in chapter 8, "Eliana's two
dogs" (chart on pp. 216-217), a story that doesn't show any
sign
of being a dreamt story. This is because Jacques Montangero's
"method" includes two operations that are contradictory, the dream
recall and its interpretation. The recall is done very
methodically,
in three phases, so that this method of recall is specific enough
to
replace the narrative talent of the authors of "1900" and that any
subject can produce a dream narrative able to account for the
dreamlike reality. Jacques Montangero chooses to awaken his
subjects
about ten minutes after the start of the third occurrence of REM
sleep, usually between 4 :30 and 8 :00. At this time, the
subject generally remembers a dream of which the experimenter or
psychologist records a description, aiming to be as complete as
possible. The experimenter then writes the "summary" of the dream,
that is to say, a story in which repetition or irrelevant comments
have been edited, accompanied by the sequential pattern. Then, as
soon as possible after waking up, the summary and outline of the
dream are shown to the subject, asking him to correct and complete
them. There is no doubt that you then get a reliable recall, as
close as possible to the dream experience, and this, for two
obvious
reasons : firstly, because the dreamer can increase the
reliability of his remembering through an immediate story and its
delayed complement (i.e., introspection), but, secondly, because he
can clarify or correct the perception that he gives to his
interlocutor (i.e., objectification).
From the results of this operation are born
the
narrative model represented by the analysis procedure of the dream
narrative's "sequential organization" and the chart of its
"sequential pattern". Here we are very far from a body of work like
that of J. Allan Hobson's "Engine Man", while we really get closer
to Marcel Foucault's implications which carefully distinguished
between immediate notations and delayed ones, especially by taking
into account both types of waking up : from being induced or
spontaneously. The dream narratives thus obtained, one obviously
wonders why the examples given by Jacques Montangero recede that
much
from the narrative model of the dreamt story — and especially
from his own model represented by the instructions of the
sequential
pattern. The answer : because of cognitive psychology !
The
diffraction of his "dream narrative" begins with the second step of
his method (see the chart on p. 68), which is first
represented
by the "reformulation into a generic term" of narrative
units :
"each item" must be designated "by its enclosing class, its meaning
or function" (p. 68, illustrated throughout chapter 3, "A study
method of dreams"). We must say "first" because a much larger
operation follows : the interpretation, where he is "making
sense of dreams" (this is the title of chapter 8, after all). Let's
return to this point in John's dream. I have included in my
analysis
of events the information (including the dreamer's feelings) added
by the subject during the interview. But not his "interpretations"
because they belong to the subject's awakened mind, to the
experience
that he submits himself to and, in large part, to the experimenter
or psychologist. Let's examine the obvious case of the last
sequence : John intends to join his friend at the top of the
mountain. Here is the transcript of the conversation on this topic
(parentheses and italics are the author's) : "(Sequence number
four [in the diagram that John should have before his eyes, this is
sequence 5], taking the cable car to join your friend and have
dinner, is that a return to a harmonious relationship, to get the
couple back together ? You insist on comfort; it is a moral
comfort ?). Yes, because what is good in this story is that
I did something myself. (Is it important to share this with
your
friend ?). The time when I bugged her, seeking a solution,
is finished; it works, one must go on. ("One must go on"
summarizes the fourth scene ?). No, it is not "One must go
on," it is, "Now I have time to live !". It's funny, I only do
things that please me in this dream"(p. 84). This is a foreseen
meeting, a simple appointment, transformed into a warm and cordial
relationship between partners. This obvious rewriting of the end of
the dreamt story also doubles as an "interpretation" : while
the
four sequences have a remarkable event and actantial independence,
the psychologist then forces the emergence of links between them
— the serenity, the well-being and the satisfaction of the
dreamer, which will end... with "the representation of a climb to
mountainous heights that will allow some sort of communion with the
beloved" ! (p. 84)
These are projections from psychological
analysis. For narrative studies, there is obviously no difference
between the search for the dream narrative's "latent content" and
that for its "meaning," except that the latter operation is
precisely
what characterizes the supposed "literary studies" where critics
amuse their readers with deep or secondary meanings (the
"meanings" !) of texts and of literary and artistic works. My
Petit Manuel des études
littéraires (Montreal, VLB Éditeur, 1977) shows
that these critical performances, strictly speaking, are
meaningless. A literary work (l'Éducation
sentimentale), a narrative work (a folk tale like Little Red
Riding Hood and its literary achievement by the Perraults) does
not have to be "interpreted" any more than any linguistic
utterance.
The only conceivable scientific objective is to describe these in
order to develop their grammar. That said, nothing prevents the use
of linguistic utterances, stories or artwork for ends that were
never
theirs. In psychological studies, there is no doubt whether these
are
effective means of investigation. The manner in which a statement,
a story or a work of art is received can teach us a lot about the
subject who speaks this way. But, of course, it will not tell us
anything about the linguistic utterance, the narrative production
or
artistic achievement. Obviously.
Obviously ? This is not certain, since an
experienced psychologist like Jacques Montangero draws from the
"interpretation" of dreams from his laboratory (the interpretations
of his subjects as his own interpretations) a model of "knowledge
processes in the development of dreams" (I'm simplifying the title
of his pattern of dream "cognition", p. 150). The book must be
read to appreciate in detail the formalization effort that claims
to
render, according to the title of chapter 7, "cognitive abilities
during sleep." Moreso than with J. Allan Hobson, we are still in
"1900", with marvelous dream work, except that of Jacques
Montangero's could not be more conscious since it is made of
dreams'
"cognitive" operations. And for the psychologist, this is not a
contradiction in terms. During sleep, when the mind is obviously in
a state of unconsciousness, this is, as was understood in the
eighteenth century, the human machine activated by instigators who
reproduce items taken from memory; these will be selected and
likely
modified, and then merged to produce what is called a dream,
everything being regulated as a dream "scene", and the whole
process
is then restarted by activating information or feelings related to
this network (stimulation, "unresolved issues", etc.). All this
inevitably means that the brain processes information during sleep,
generally when REM sleep is in full swing, and always while
dreaming.
In fact, the very title of Jacques Montangero's work is
surreal : Dream and Cognition.
This can be illustrated through a very natural
resistance. Jacques Montangero's team has developed a simple and
efficient way to test "problem solving" where dreams would be the
ideal location. The findings are very obviously negative (that is
the
essence of Chapter 7, the weakest of the book, before its
conclusion). But psychologists will keep believing in this
hypothesis : "The main conclusion I draw from this study is
that, despite the rarity of usable solutions in dreams [one case
out
of 39 !], the simple action of dreaming is mental work that
prepares the mind to revisit problems in a new way" (p. 199). We
did
not need any experience in experimental psychology to reach the
conclusion that, in general, it's better to "sleep on it". And,
until
proven otherwise, the dreams don't play any role in problem
solving.
That being said, one must give Caesar what is
Caesar's. In the field of literary studies, there is no doubt that
the "interpretations" of literary critics are kind and nice
living room affairs. One is interested as long as they relate to
works (more commonly authors) we love — or because the
criticism is itself interesting. But these projections are of no
consequence. For the psychologist, for the psychoanalyst, quite the
contrary, studying, analyzing and evaluating their patients matters
most. We are thus in the medical field. Jacques Montangero's
"subjects" are certainly not patients, but there is no doubt that
experimental psychology is at the service of the "profession's"
knowledge and practices. John's dream can only be used here, in
this
perspective, to study John (who projects himself very effectively).
The psychologist, since he chose the "dream" as a study object, (it
can not be denied !) is empty-handed during the final
chapter : "General conclusions : the functions and nature
of dreams" (chap. 9). We already know that John's dream is used to
do what we have just seen being done (by Montangero). But in
reality,
this last chapter is just totally off the hook. On the one hand, it
is suggested that "it is unthinkable that, eight hours out of
twenty-four, in other words, for a third of our daily existence,
the
brain and the mind do not perform their duties" etc... (p. 234).
This
is the dreaming brain, the thinking brain. On the other hand, this
last chapter lists a series of assumptions unrelated to the
preceding
study, the most "original" of which imagining that the brain tells
stories to entertain the dreamer so that he can finally stop to
"think" in order to be able to sleep...
However, all this is explained by the fact
that
the analysis does not rely solely on the material that could
represent dreams, in psychology, i.e. the "dream narrative". It
must
be remembered that the projection of dreams and their
interpretation
are effective psychological treatment. It is even a particularly
powerful means of introspection. However, the analysis of this
dream, which can only be done through the dream
narrative, is necessarily a part of psychology called narrative
studies, that is to say the description of the narrative's
products.
And there is no doubt that narration is an activity of the mind
awake. We do not tell anything while dreaming : we tell our
dreams upon waking up. Let's investigate this paradox.
There is no manifestation of intelligence
during
sleep and, therefore, there is no consciousness in a dream.
But we must go further to account for the
phenomenon that "reproduces" the dream narrative upon waking up. We
must indeed suggest also that there is no hallucination in dreams,
during sleep, except by analogy or presupposition when waking up.
A
hallucination is not to see or rediscover something that does not
exist in fact, or to do or redo actions without effect, but it is
to
believe something, which is quite different. A hallucination is a
phenomenon of consciousness : in dreams, we believe we
do not do anything or see anything, we remember and, most likely,
we
"see" something and "do" such action ("see" and "act" are obviously
intransitive, since they are neither perception nor action, but
they
are nevertheless very real images corresponding to visions and
achievements). In this case, there is no hallucination because the
mind is not a victim — and can not be one during sleep, since
it is not "aware" and therefore can not be "wronged". Sleepwalking
is conclusive in this regard.
Imagination is not active during the dream,
never in any way. It is an illusion of awakening. Of all the
faculties of the mind, imagination is certainly the one which comes
from the highest level of intelligence. Certainly, dream images,
sometimes produced by default or faulty memory, can be used
effectively upon waking up, but these images have nothing to do
with
the products of the imagination. This assumption is based on this
concept that imagining stems from intuition, from
spontaneous
thought and improvisation, but not intelligence, so not from
reasoning, reflection and conscious research. The truth, of course,
is that these two orientations are necessarily linked to waking
thought, or consciousness. The products of the imagination are
usually the result of a doubling of (spontaneous) intuition and
reasoning (reflection), regardless of the variable part of one and
the other. No form of imagination manifests itself in dreams.
"Conscious dreaming" or "lucid dreaming" is a
contradiction in terms. If we can not take the fanciful narratives
of Hervey de Saint-Denys on dream narratives recorded in
adolescence
seriously, there is no doubt that the experiences of volontary
dreamers' eye movements during sleep are effective :
experimental psychology must now explain. We can presume, for
example, that the signals of the dreamer stem from programming,
just
as much as waking up spontaneously at a time fixed in advance.
However, we often refer to "lucid dreaming" as being the dream that
we dream (this is particularly clear in the case where we dream
that
we want to wake up : "It is not true, it is a dream !"),
a fairly common experience to understand that this has nothing to
do
with the "consciousness" of dreaming. Notice here the obvious lack
of logic, since we would then be "aware" of the "dream that we
dream", or rather of "dreaming that we dream that we dream". For
narrative studies, from the point of view of the dreamt story
recalled upon waking up, there is no doubt that the belief in lucid
dreaming can be explained by narration itself. No one, in fact, can
believe we think while dreaming, because we never find active
reasoning in dream recalls (which can also allow us to safely
identify dream narratives which stem from confabulation). However,
it is difficult to understand how one could remember a story that
is
not the product of narration, of a form of analysis (of reality),
of
a "way of thinking". If the dream tells a story, then,
dreaming is thinking, which is still a logical error.
Assuming
that the dreamer may be conscious of developing
narration during sleep, this would imply not only the
telling,
but also awareness, which is asking a lot of a sleeping mind !
Being aware of "dreaming" is to be aware of telling, or narrating
and
being aware of it. In reality, this dual consciousness, lucid
dreaming, is based on a naive conception of narration applied to
dreams as if they were a show : in this common misconception,
the dreamer does not tell, but rather becomes aware of what he is
then told, which is told by itself, somehow. The narrative study of
the dream narrative instead shows that the "dreamt story" is the
result of this faculty called narration, while the dream is not a
product of it.
That being said, neurologists (not psychologists) are the
ones who can explain the fabulous phenomenon where we remember
(upon
waking up) that of which we were not aware, by definition, since
the
dream is produced in a state of unconsciousness. Images, ideas and
feelings were remembered and can be recalled upon waking up in the
form of a dream narrative. The important thing is to see that the
elements of the dream and of its recall do not involve anything
more
than memory. These elements are information.
All properties of the dream narrative show
that
it is an automatic and random phenomenon. If neurology should
explain
its automatic nature, psychology must know how to account for the
random narrative. However, the necessary and sufficient condition
to
explain the production of dreams is the operation and involvement
of
memory.
All of a dream's material solely comes from
memory. This is the first mnemonic dimension of dreams. The second
is the dream recall, its memory and the story that can be told when
you wake up. The third mnemonic dimension is the recall of memories
that were reminded by the dream. Whatever memory the dream uses or
recalls, we must not only remember upon waking up, but we still
have
to remember the memories in question. "Remembering a memory" is a
double mnemonic operation on stored information, the recall of
encoded information and then the recall of the encoding of this
information; in other words, the following three
dimensions :
1 — Memories are the material of dreams;
2 — The dream is, by definition, a recall upon waking up, a
dream narrative;
3 — The memories have to be recalled to be identified.
Unanswered questions do not interest us :
for now, we do not know why this or that memory is used as the
material of dreams, since no assumption has imposed itself.
Moreover,
we can not even answer a different question, even if it is
seemingly
much simpler : why are dreams stored in memory ? This is
not about the recall of a particular dream (although this is an
important issue), but of many dreams, so that the reverse question
is even more relevant : why do we forget our dreams night
after
night ? We remember at will what we have learned or
experienced
during the previous day, but it takes effort, practice, technique
to
remember a single dream from our previous night's sleep. To answer
these questions one day, we must characterize memory in action in
dreams as soon as possible. Memory, in fact, is a faculty which
goes
through many operations and, in addition, several forms of
operation.
Short-term memory is an ad hoc process that opposes the various
modes
of long-term memory, of which we imagine achievements (records,
reminders and omissions) on a continuous scale, which goes back a
few
weeks till early childhood (the latter characterized by its
"amnesia"). It also opposes implicit memory, that of skills or
know-how (knowing how to skate) and explicit memory, whether this
information is autobiographical or encyclopedic. Memorization and
its
complement, memory, "stored information" and "reminiscence," are
part
of an inclusive faculty : thought (whether it is conscious,
subconscious or unconscious, as emotional memory shows well). We
have
already seen that thought was flanked by two other faculties, which
together constitute the fundamental psychological process of
(superior) animates : perception + thought + action. It should
also be noted that these three operations can be independent :
an instinct, or reflex, for example, is to act as a result of
perception, without any thought. In dreams, we would reverse the
situation if at least there was "thought" which is utterly
impossible, especially in the case of REM sleep where the dreamer
is
in a state of lethargy or paralysis since he can neither perceive
nor
act.
The narrative study of dream narratives shows
that in this state memory and thought are not correlated :
memorization (the memorization of a dream) and recalls are not
thought out. There is therefore a function of memory while in a
state
of non-consciousness and it is this memory that is in use in
dreams.
We will call it "independent memory". It is not only independent of
perception and action, but it is also not subject to thought. This
is not what we call memory in the strict sense, but it is a
(non-interactive) use of information that has already been stored
in
memory.
In this state of non-consciousness, and in any
case when talking about dreams, the process of memorization itself
(i.e. encoding) is strictly limited to dreams. We remember having
dreamed, we can remember our dreams, the content represented by the
dream narrative, but nothing more — which is expected, since
at that time we were sleeping. And, moreover, the dream has no
other
(physical, physiological and psychological) reality other than this
recall.
But the dream narrative can however show that
non-consciousness's independent memory does not function like the
memory associated to thought, so it obviously does not correspond
to
instinctive memory and even less to implicit memory. It is not the
memory of awakening, or at least, it works differently during
sleep.
It is even certain that it does not have the same information as
thought-out memory, since no dreamer can identify, trace and
recall
all information involved in one of his dreams. And the opposite is
true : he finds in his dreams subconscious memories (or
perceptions that have failed to reach thought) and unconscious
memories (repressed or forgotten memories). But there is another
reason for the difficulty in identifying memories from many mental
images that form the subject matter of the dream narrative and that
stem from the inner workings of memory. This is clearly the
decoding
corresponding to various modes of mnemonic encoding. We know that
the
information which will be stored first goes through the hippocampus
which plays an important role in the treatment of recent events,
treatment which may range from a few days to a few weeks. The
information is then encoded, that is to say decomposed to be stored
in the cortex's neuron populations, presumably in predetermined
locations (given the types of amnesia related to brain lesions),
without knowing whether "memory" corresponds to neurons which
specialize in this function or, perhaps more likely, to the
programming of neurotransmitters that connect them. The dream
narrative shows that mnemonic decoding is not triggered by thought,
nor does it reach consciousness (hence the total lack of
imagination
in dreams). From the point of view of the wakeful mind's inner
workings, we can say that a lot of information found in the dream
narrative in the form of images, ideas or feelings is incorrectly
or
incompletely decoded (hence this common impression, upon awakening,
of having witnessed oddities, absurdities, inconsistencies,
strangeness, etc.). The observation is recorded and evaluated in
the
model of the dream narrative : the result of independent
memory's operations during sleep is random or appears as is in the
narrative recall that we produce upon waking up. Why ? The
question, as we shall see immediately, does not point to
psychology,
but rather neurology. However, we can formulate it more precisely
now, as we will not fail to do so with the development of
independent
memory research.
Several autobiographical events and much
encyclopedic knowledge recorded in the days and in the weeks
preceding a dream are easily identified by the dreamer when waking
up. This is the memory of memories stored and used by the dream.
Regarding the study of time reminders, I do not know any other more
accurate work than an article of Michel Jouvet's
entitled : "Mémoires et cerveau dédoublé
au cours du rêve (à propos de 2 525 souvenirs de
rêve" (Revue du praticien, 1979, no. 1,
p. 29-32,
chap. 3 of le Sommeil et le rêve, expanded edition,
Paris, Odile Jacob, 1992, 1998, 245 p., pp. 66-77) :
clearly identified memories significantly decrease during the few
days preceding the dream, but with a strange resurgence of event
reminders about a week earlier (or more precisely, on the eighth
day)
— which is illustrated by the "sets" of dreams upon leaving
for
a trip and after returning. We identify these memories, often while
they are deformed, or if you prefer, incompletely or incorrectly
recalled. We find even older and sometimes ancient memories,
"childhood memories" that were never recalled or at least had not
been for a long time). And, of course, many memories (correctly and
especially incorrectly or incompletely recalled) that remain
completely silent after waking up. We can illustrate this using the
classic case of a very precise, characteristic and intriguing
image,
totally forgotten for which the dreamer will find the mnemonic
source
months or years later (of which he will not fail to write an
autobiographical anecdote). All this is often analyzed in the
metanarrative discourses of dream narratives, both positively and
negatively (for example, the designation of links between
characters
and the dreamer or, conversely, the portrait of "unknown", or
unidentified, persons).
Therein lies the real "dream work". If the
narrative study of dream narratives can show that the "dream" is
not
a product of the narrative, that is to say, thought, it makes sense
that the dream activity is a production of independent memory.
Therefore the problem studied moves away considerably from its
initial location, because it is not the "dream" which must be
studied, but rather a particular function of memory and the storing
of a particular object which we call the dream narrative. It is
tempting to agree with the idea that this is just a byproduct of an
automatic classification activity or information encoding during
sleep : like the one who classifies information must locate
it,
whatever the classification, between quite foreign elements he then
sees again de facto. This would explain this "residue" which
would be, upon waking up, the dream narrative (that is the
comparison
recalled by Jean-Louis Valatx in the article
already mentioned). Unfortunately, there is nothing that allows us
to say that this explanation is the null hypothesis which would be
true until proven otherwise. It is highly unlikely that our
memories
are automatically analyzed and ordered in a non-conscious state
(although all operations are made for the subconscious and the
unconscious when consciousness does not get involved : memory
appears subject to and at the service of thought). Until we are
better informed, we must rather admit that we still do not know
what
is and what motivates the activity of independent memory during
sleep
and even less why it records what appears to be our "dreams", of
which we produce a dream narrative upon waking up. Wisdom wants us
to know at least what we don't know. Therefore, it will be more
effective to proceed from the study of facts.
In proper psychology, one must obviously place
the narrative study of dream narratives at the starting point of
the
analysis : the best possible dream reports must be produced
upon
awakening and submitted to a careful narrative study. There is no
other way to study the content of dreams. Then the triple
involvement
of memory in this phenomenon must be accordingly studied (that is
to
say, from analyzed and justified dream accounts) to describe the
inner workings of independent memory. No other way can help
psychology to reach the findings of neurology and the latter can
not
account for the "dream narrative". However, it is expected of
neurology that it describe the nature and functioning of memories
in
their anatomical, electrical and chemical dimensions better and
better. And it is hoped that it can also accurately respond to the
precise questions asked by psychologists in this matter (and not
the
contrary) : what is independent memory with respect to those
which are related to thought and what is their
interaction ?
If dreaming is not an activity of thought, the
dream narrative produced upon waking up, however, is one indeed.
The dream narrative is much more than a dream
recall; it is even more than a simple narrative construction of
awakening. It is a reconstruction, an operation that is
resistant to the object it wants to mirror. Therefore, a century
after their publication, Marcel Foucault's analyses and conclusions
must seriously be taken into account.
The narrative model of the dreamt story
which internalizes its own resistance must be analysed. Even taken
one by one, the wording of each of its properties meets the
skepticism of any dreamer and very often collides with
psychologists
specializing in the study of dreams. For the model of the dreamt
story almost always opposes dream narratives, in some ways, of
which
we find many examples and many collections. Now this is easily
understandable. It is, to begin with, the narrative deconstruction
of mnemonic units incompletely or incorrectly recalled; and it is,
then, an anti-narrative, a random event sequence with no narrative
project (the Si) with no predetermined timeline, no causality, and
no purpose (the Sf). An incomplete story, made of one or more often
than not several sequences, themselves still incomplete. But
nonetheless a story that our narrative performance can hardly tell,
an operation offering all kinds of difficulties even to great
writers
and ingenious narrators.
If the narrative study of dreams' basic
conclusions had to be recalled, it was to properly assess their
implications in experimental psychology : the dream narrative
is a production of awakening and a production of Western
rationalist
thought.
An object of scientific study was developed
around 1900 and took a century to develop. However, narrative
studies
show that, in experimental dream psychology literature near the
late
twentieth century, the dream narrative is too often removed from
correctly recalling dream activity. Yet we know that there is no
other way for the psychologist to study dreams than the dream
narrative upon awakening. It must therefore always be produced and
described rigorously. This will be done by purifying the method
introduced by Jacques Montangero and resuming on this basis Marcel
Foucault's underused work. In addition, the findings of the dreamt
story's narrative study are now the null hypothesis of scientific
research, which means that the model of the dream narrative is
posited as precise until proven otherwise. It must therefore take
place in the works of experimental psychology : it will first
be presented and explained to subjects which will need to be
convinced of its correctness (which will not happen without
resistance, so that subjects will be ordered depending on the level
of their resistance), while the model will then be confronted to
the
dream recalls of a control group which will not have been
introduced
to it, even if these subjects will then learn of its existence.
With
experience and time, we will be convinced that the null hypothesis
can not be proven false, while in contrast, the model will not fail
to be developed, clarified and corrected on several points. These
objects, adequate dream narratives, closer and closer to the dream
reality they remind of, will specifically allow to ask subjects to
study a fundamental question : the nature and the inner
workings
of independent memory. And we now know that this study should be
free
of any form of therapy : the laboratory of experimental
psychology must not interfere with psychologists in medical
clinics.
The study of independent memory doesn't have to reveal anything to
its subjects, since it is rather the subjects' duty to recall the
memories of their dream memories, the most effective subject being
the psychologist himself, of course.
But awakening is not only waking up and its
forms of consciousness. It is also a common way of thinking and, in
the case of dreams and their recall, this implies very recent
modern
Western thought. And, since it is impossible to do otherwise, it
would be a good idea to reflect the fact that the dream
narrative is a product of Western thought's ideological and
sentimental rationalism, even though this product is not
necessarily
willing to answer rationality or its objectification. The
consideration, recording and analysis of this form of narrative
"deregulation", of randomness, is however not a small achievement.
But this consciousness (upon waking up) of a particular faculty's
(independent memory) inner workings in a state of unconsciousness
(sleep) is part of a dual dimension of the history of narration,
the
history of stories. And that of individuals and civilizations.
The dream narrative is not possible for young
children to produce as they can not control narration before the
age
of five years old, or even later. The question that thus arises is
this one : between language acquisition and the mastery of
narration, or storytelling, how does a child render his
dreams ?
And the study of answers to these questions, of course, will bring
about another one which will seek whether a child dreams
differently.
"What" do infants, fetuses dream about ? How about
animals ? Jean Piaget and his team have
studied the question of how children represented dreams ("Les
rêves", la Représentation du monde chez
l'enfant,
Paris, PUF, 1947, repr. "Quadriga", 2003, 335 p., chap. 3,
pp. 78-105). The analysis is already exciting, since its
evaluation in three stages (5 to 6, 7 to 8 and 8 to 9 years old)
shows that the dream recall follows the same pattern in children
than
that of Western civilization's, that is the Greco-Roman and
medieval
'songe' (the 'songe' comes from elsewhere, sent by the gods, then
it
is outside of us, it is an appearance), before taking the form of
a
dream ('rêve') (or the strictly personal output recalled
upon
waking up). That said, Piaget's work has not been extended by the
study of children's dreams' content. And it is the same for the
development and the nature of dreams in history. If the 'songe'
takes
the place of dream recalls in Greco-Roman civilization, if Native
Americans translate it into imperatives (so-and-so has dreamed that
we had to do something for his recovery), does it mean that these
Natives, Greeks and Romans did not dream like us ? As
surprising
as it may seem, I tend to believe it. Indeed, we know that our
languages are ways of thinking, that we do not think the same way
with different languages. However, it is even more radical in the
case of dream narratives : the three year old still can not
"tell" and in the Middle Ages (when storytelling is done quite
well)
the 'songe' is very rarely represented by the narrative shape that
a dream takes. In other words, there is no reason to believe that
the
Greeks and Romans did not dream : "ils songeaient," implying
that the 'songe', their dream recall, would correspond to a
particular function of independent memory. The complementary
hypothesis is much simpler : young children, the Greeks and
Romans of Antiquity, as the Native Indians of Nouvelle-France, did
not correctly know yet how to recall their dreams. It is
also
possible. Besides, the two hypotheses are not contradictory.
Is this of the highest speculation ?
Sure,
but these are questions that experimental psychology and narrative
studies can hope to answer, long before psychology and neurology
can
find common ground on dreams, or simply know how and why
independent
memory is triggered in sleep, as we remember when waking up.
But there is a problem we must reassess within the
model we present here. It is the idea of "nightmares". There is a
psychological typology of dream narratives that distinguishes
dreams
that are not discriminated or even distinct. These commonalities
aren't based on any objective criteria. Realistic or fanciful
dreams
are "distinguished" from "lucid or conscious" or even unconscious
dreams ! (we will come back to this immediately, even if the
problem has already been solved), "bad dreams" and "nightmares"
(this
will be our topic here) from recurring dreams, typical or
archetypal
(Jung) dreams (flight, nudity, etc.) or even dream 'situations'
(dreams of examinations, of giving birth, of meetings, etc..). From
the point of view of psychological analysis, these thematical
distinctions are fanciful, allowing no classification whatsoever.
We
can see it even better in the category that I deliberately
ignored : "prophetic" dreams, which are obviously in the
domain
of paranormal pseudo-science.
There remains a single category to be
studied : nightmares. Why ? Precisely because we now know
that lucid or conscious dreaming is not possible. What exactly is
a
"nightmare" ? In psychology, as in popular thinking, it would
be a "bad dream" that awakens the sleeper. It makes sense that if
a
(bad) dream could wake up, it would be a conscious or lucid dream.
But we know this does not exist. The nightmare is therefore pure
fabrication, a dream conceived as a show we are attending during
sleep. And this show could be so awful that we wake up
terrified ! Much of the representation of dreams in the
fantasy
literature of the nineteenth century is built on this phantasm. Not
only the characters in these novels magically wake up at the end of
their dreams (which is unlikely), but the dream wakes them up
(which
seems natural to them !).
This raises a very simple question : is
it
the dream that wakes us up or wakefulness that tells us
stories ? Asking the question is another way to answer it. The
dreamer's emotions are memories of emotions, like all the other
memories from which dreams are built, their recall in dreams is
random. These emotions, which were stored by memory, are recalled
by
independent memory and we can see through the actantial analysis of
dream narratives that they are as fine as they are varied. These
are
emotions that were often thought out, measured and analyzed. That
said, they are found in dreams and dream recalls in the same way
that
images and ideas constitute a narrative. None of them can wake us
up.
It must be admitted that during sleep, and
sometimes even in a dream, emotions corresponding to perceptions
and
reflex actions are enabled : these are instinctive emotions
that
are not managed by conscience and in particular careful
thought : primary motivations (hunger, thirst, reacting to
temperature, animal sexuality, instinctive curiosity, etc.) and
basic
emotions : docility / aggressiveness; surprise / trust (or
familiarity), and especially desire / fear. These reflex and
instinctive emotions are those that awaken the sleeper. These
negative emotions and their possible associations (surprise +
aggression + fear) enable the fabrication of a nightmare, because
they challenge the suddenly awakened conscience, contrary to
positive emotions — which we still associate to the contrary
of a nightmare : ecstatic dreams. These reflex emotions tend
to
be radical, absolute, devoid of nuance, insatiable desires or panic
terror which never correspond to the many degrees of pleasure or
fear, such as anxiety, apprehension, characterized fears or phobias
(dislikes), which we can find in dream narratives. Instead, these
raw
and brutal emotions, not analyzed, can not be explained, especially
when they occur in a state of unconsciousness during sleep patterns
that they disturb, and even more in dreams that they interrupt
— but not the "contrary" (dreams that awaken the
sleeper) !
Waking up under the influence of instinctive
fear is precisely the illusion of a "nightmare". Awakened by an
elementary reflex emotion, it is quite natural that we attribute
this
not to the memory of negative emotions that will be found in the
first dream recall, but to any "dream" picture we can associate to
awakening's primary emotions. However, there is a simple
explanation
to this phenomenon : hypnopompic hallucination, hypnagogic
images' symmetrical phenomenon. We must give credence to Alfred
Maury's observations and recognize that the hypnagogic images of
falling asleep can then be found in the first dreams of the night
or
even influence them, even as the immediate memories of independent
memory. While one is falling asleep, before the coming of sleep
itself, these images correspond to hallucinations. Indeed, the mind
can still regain control of thought under the influence of any
factor, be aware of these images, shy them away or entertain itself
with them. The same phenomenon exists, symmetrically, upon waking
up,
although it is apparently rarer (being often mistaken for the
dreaming which occurs when one is half asleep), while it will
appear
quite clearly, on the contrary, in times of rude awakening due to
primary instinctive emotions. In this particular case, here is the
appearance, for consciousness, of images from a dream. These
hypnopompic hallucinations are actually instantaneous and immediate
dream recalls, automatically associated to reflex emotions that
produce awakening and for which the dreamer naturally reverses the
cause and effect : he has the distinct impression that the
dream
recall is the dream itself and that it has woken him up just now,
having caused him this emotion. In this case, it appears that not
only the hypnopompic image and the emotion associated to it are
inversely related, but also that nothing implies that the recall
forming the image corresponds to a dream in progress, or even to
the
last dream having preceded awakening. We will only admit that this
image or these images come from dreams and that this timely recall
is likely to arouse the more elaborate memory of a dream. And this
dream will obviously be called a nightmare.
Nightmares as such are pure creations of the
mind awake and, therefore, very interesting rational (sic)
hallucinations, or second-degree hallucinations : here's why
I
woke up, I was dreaming that... Besides, what parent has not
himself,
unknowingly, given this definition to nightmares ? "Don't
worry
about it, go back to sleep, it was only a bad dream, a little
nightmare... ". Nevertheless, the illusion is so strong (we must
admit) that psychology will long let itself be tricked by this too
effective a mirage. In reality, nightmares defined as bad dreams
that
wake the sleeper are simply impossible, and in this sense, the
nightmare does not exist.
Taking on psychology and the narrative
analysis
of dreams was in the realm of dialectic presentations. What can
narrative studies retain from experimental psychology ? How
can
psychology take advantage of it ? We can conclude that too
often
psychologists' exposés, theses and hypotheses on dream
narratives are as fantastic as the reactions of critics on literary
and artistic work. In both cases, these are attempts at
interpretation which do not belong to science. Narrative studies,
derived from structuralism, allow us to react so we can simply make
a rigorous description of dream narratives and of its psychological
implications. To conclude, I would thus like to rewrite the
sentence
that began linguist Louis Hjelmslev's
establishment
of the scientific model, from "we come to the understanding or
knowledge of a language by the same path which takes us to the
understanding of other objects, which is through descriptions"
(le Langage, Paris, Minuit, 1963, 1966, p. 29), to
we
come to the understanding or psychological knowledge of dreams by
the
same path which takes us to the understanding of other objects,
which
is through descriptions.
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