Mimesis, Metaphors, Models, and Feet in American Dreams

2019

Dreaming

Self Cite

By forwarding a mimetic theory of dream mentation, this paper critiques two important current theories of dreaming-the Continuity Hypothesis and Social Simulation Theory. The Continuity Hypothesis (CH) holds that dreams are continuous with waking concerns. Social Simulation Theory (SST) postulates dream simulations select waking materials that allow dreamers to rehearse interpersonal skills and bonds instrumental for species survival. Using data from a study of undergraduate American dreamers, this paper argues the story-like dreams that tend to occur in REM sleep neither merely continue waking concerns, nor merely replicate the social bonds that help to make life meaningful. Rather, dreamers think mimetically about the cultural models through which people understand waking concerns and social bonds by copying visual metaphors for models that circulate in a social world and altering these images. The paper defines mimesis as an image-based form of thinking in which simulation of an image specifies a topic and variations represent thought about this topic. This idea about the nature of dream mentation casts new light on bizarreness in dreams. From a mimetic perspective, bizarreness is extreme visual variation and variation from slight to extreme is intrinsic to dream mentation. When images are realistic verisimilitude indicates they are not the focus of dream thinking. SST posits that social perception, social communication, and social behaviors are simulated in dreams. A mimetic perspective shows such simulations supply subjects for dream thinking while variations raise questions about the fidelity of perceptions as well as about the meanings of communications and behaviors.

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Rather, dreamers think mimetically about the cultural models that generate waking concerns and through which people understand and construct social bonds. I define mimesis (Mageo 2017a, 2018) as image-based, visual thinking: In mimesis copying an image specifies an object of thought; variations to the image represent thinking about this topic.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Mimesis versus simulation: Contemporary dream theory and the nature of dream mentation.

2019

Dreaming

Self Cite

“…Our analyses of dream narratives focus on manifest content and on the dreamers’ associations. We follow other anthropologists in seeing manifest content as an obvious site for the sedimentation of culturally and sociohistorically specific meanings (e.g., Hollan ; Mageo , , , , , , , ). New models in empirically driven dream science, in addition, argue that the signal (and possibly functional) feature of dreams is continuity between the social scenarios depicted in manifest content and waking‐life experience (e.g., Revonsuo, Tuominen, and Valli ).…”

Section: Methods Contexts Theoriesmentioning

confidence: 95%

Young Americans’ Dreaming in the Specular Age

Sheriff

2019

Ethos

Self Cite

Based on the analysis of recent dreams collected from college students in both the eastern and western regions of the United States, this article identifies a new visual mode of self‐making wherein young Americans imaginatively see themselves and others as images captured by and performing for a lens. Extending Lacan's notion of the mirror phase and building on Metz's concept of scopic regimes, we propose the concept of “specularity.” Further, we link specularity dreams to contemporary middle‐class child‐rearing practices and an increasingly obligatory engagement with technomediated practices. Specularity, we suggest, is a new mode by which subjectivities are reconfigured and brought into alignment with neoliberal styles of self‐representation.

“…Kuiken () and Malinowski and Horton () argue that dreaming involves figurative (especially metaphoric) thinking. I argue here and elsewhere that dreams consist in thinking through metaphoric images (Mageo , , , , , , , ). Kuper () suggests that dreams might be considered a mode of argument in which a problem is resolved through structural transformations.…”

mentioning

confidence: 84%

“…They are also metaphors (Quinn ). Dreams traffic in metaphors, and cultural models often appear as visual metaphors there (Mageo , , , , , , ). Malinowski and Horton () demonstrate that dreams incorporate emotional daily experiences.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Ambiguity as Dream Mentation: Supermasculinity and Ambivalence in American Dreams

2019

Ethos

Self Cite

Ambiguity, this paper argues, is not merely a property of dream imagery, but ignites a process that is dreaming thinking. When images are ambiguous, the mind cannot fix on a single meaning. Hence dream ambiguity catalyzes a play of possible meanings that implicitly raises questions, not only about personal memories but also about those cultural models that these memories evoke. Dream thinking, then, renders people's ongoing subjective reactions to culture into images. Through data from a 2004 to 2009 study of Northwest American student dreams and life histories, I propose that people think within dreams by representing daily ambivalences as visual ambiguities. Excerpts from this dream study illustrate seven types of visual ambiguity in dreams. Implicit in this taxonomy is a method of cultural dream interpretation that I present through an analysis of a full dream from a young man, Clarence. Through this analysis I show how ambiguities in Clarence's dream represent his ambivalence about an American masculinity model—one that may underlie the school shootings that are now so common in the United States.