Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Composition - More Than Meets the Eye

            Most students take a composition course offered freshman year because they need to fulfill a general education requirement. I took the course in high school and neglected the pay for the credit, so I was stuck taking it again, here at college. I wasn't exactly wide-eyed and excited for it, especially at eight in the morning on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but I told myself it might not be so bad. I had talked to a couple of friends, and they told me the professor was awesome, so I went into the course, taking it as it came.
            I not only got along with the professor, but he was distinguished in his teaching, and I enjoyed the class. I liked challenging myself, especially early in the morning while my mind was still fresh. I found the podcasts interesting, and I liked getting feedback on my weekly blog entries. I have always liked writing, but through the semester I grew to love it. It helped me become a better writer not only for the class, but for my other classes, and for future endeavors. I yearned to do well, and receive a high marking for my hard work in class, so each week I made sure to try and listen to the critiques I received on my blog entries.
             I found myself correcting my grammar, vocabulary, and other qualities of my English in other classes. It helped me apply what knowledge I had learned to sound more educated and intellectual in other areas aswell. This course not only gives one the armor for success, but the necessary weaponry to overcome any handicaps. Even though room 031 was not my favorite, and the time of the course was not what I would have desired, I came out of it a better writer, the most important objective. I feel as though I succeeded in my conquest to achieve a well-deserved grade. This course not only gave me a credit for my "gen eds" but I also look forward to taking another English course in order to further my writing and exceed my potential.

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Cultural Differences - Presentation Proposal

Cultural Differences
             For my presentation I would like to envelope my audience on my recent hiatus in Brazil. I would like to compare the cultural differences of Brazil to the United States and assess the differences in economic status, industrialization, and other such endeavors. I would like to put together a power point presentation, as to engage the audience with the photographs I have obtained from my trip. I feel being knowledgeable about other cultures is an important asset to anyone, and from learning about other cultures we may learn the positives and negatives about our culture, forming our malleable world, in the pursuit of happiness.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Dreaming to Interpret, Interpreting to Dream

            Throughout our life, dreams inhabit our minds every night while we lay asleep, whether we recall their presence or not. This leads me to question whether they obtain intrinsic value or are simply just flashing images, which therefore lack any essence at all. What manifests during the process of dreaming, and where do our dreams originate from? Is there anything trite about this alternate universe we enter into when we close our eyes? There exists a ceaseless amount of questions about our brain and the functions that service it that have yet to be answered, let alone inquiry about our dreams.
            In Sleep: A Comprehensive Handbook by Teofilo Lee-Chiong, M.D., there is a report, the Psychology of Dreaming, composed by Milton Kramer, M.D., Director of the Sleep Disorders Center of Bethesda Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio. He writes that examining the process of dreaming in modern lexicon is to comprehend the operations of the mind. Secondly, he suggests that from studying dreaming, we may further be able to unravel the cryptogram of psychosis, in which psychoanalysts Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud, and neurologist John Hughlings Jackson contributed substantial research.
            Kramer explains that the content of our dreams vary, due to the physiological oppositions we obtain. Our age, gender, race, marital status and social class are all components that affect the matter of our dreams. Demographic differences and mental illnesses add to the unprecedented variables. No one dream is identical to that of another person, although society tends to have a limited number of very similar dreams. Kramer adds that, as Sigmund Freud discovered, there are “typical” and “universal” dreams. This means that the dreamer’s content is virtually indistinguishable from someone who has also acquired an agnate dream. Freud’s findings exhibited some twenty-three universal dreams. A few are as follows:
·         Feelings of embarrassment while being in the nude.
·         The demise of someone in which you bestow deep emotions for.
·         Falling
·         Being on fire
These dreams are possibly thought to be prospects of our development through the lifespan. It has been reported that the currency of the numerous universal dreams have been widespread across cultures all over the world, due to the research of Ward. Wilson Harris, novelist of the twentieth century, tried to interpret some of these universal dreams. Kramer tied that dreaming of falling exhibits feelings of insecurity, whereas dreams of being harassed launches a sensation of being assaulted. There is little to no evidence to back up these theories though, many of which psychologists agree with, and scientists disagree with.
Kramer further speaks about repetitive dreams and how they differ from typical and universal dreams. They are not necessarily dreams that are shared by a vast amount of people, but only by the dreamer, rare on its own, that occur time and time again. In most cases it appears repetitive dreams take place in retort to a similar plethora of distressing temperamental situations. PhD G. William Domhoff proposed that our repetitive dreams are an emblematic venture for solving problems, and that they may be a pursuit for one to cope with equivocal sentimental upsets.
How many aspects of unconscious emotions are there in our dreams? Do we dream due to innate feelings of love, hate, fear and other impulses? In Sigmund Freud’s Dream Psychology: Psychoanalysis for Beginners, Section: Sex in Dreams he wrote:
“Above all I should not know how to dispose of the apparent fact that there are many dreams satisfying other than –in the widest sense- erotic needs, as dreams of hunger, thirst, convenience &c… seems to me to proceed far beyond what is admissible in the interpretation of dreams.”(p.105)
            So how do we individually interpret our own dreams? Would our own uneducated attempts even result in anything? Sometimes we have dreams that make us wonder why in the world we dreamt them. We wonder if there is a hidden meaning, and we may even try to dissect them. Some of these dreams are like lice crawling on our skin, eating away at us, until we figure them out. Freud comes to the ultimate conclusion in his findings that,
“Now and then a symbol in the dream content may have to be interpreted not symbolically, but according to its real meaning; at another time the dreamer, owing to a particular set of recollections, may create for himself the right to use anything whatever as a sexual symbol, though it is not ordinarily used in that way. Nor are the most frequently used sexual symbols unambiguous every time.” (p. 113)
            Modern dream theorists don’t always agree with Freud because of the lack of evidence in his findings. They criticize his constant relation to our sexual impulses, and require more hard data supporting dream theories.
            In Dreaming: Anthropological and Psychological Interpretations written by Barbara Tedlock, Waud Kracke, Department of Anthropology at the University of Chicago, Illinois, wrote an entry titled “Myths in Dreams, Though in Images”. Kracke states that there is much inkling in which several cultures around the world, especially Australian aboriginal ones (Stanner 1972) that linked dreams and myths. (pg.32)
                        So which theory do we agree with? Do we side with a certain psychologist or just hope that in future years we will discover the true meaning of our dreams? There are many theories existing in the world we live in today, but it is hard to pick apart evidence from theory. We will probably pry at dream psychology forever, in my own opinion. We barely know enough about our brain to know enough about the ways in which it dreams.

Bibliography
Freud, S. (1921). Dream psychology; psychoanalysis for beginners,. New York, N.Y.: The James A. McCann company.
M.D., Lee-Chiong, T. (2006). Sleep: a comprehensive handbook. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons.

Tedlock, B. (1987). Dreaming: anthropological and psychological interpretations. Cambridge, N.Y. Cambridge University Press.