Dr. Bibace is a Professor of Psychology here at Clark. A main focus of his research has been on the different relationships between the professional and the patient. Within his lecture he mentioned being psycho-analyzed and how this changed his life for the better. This may have influenced his career in Psychology.
The aspect of his lecture that most interested me was the short description of a boy he had treated. This boy was afflicted with terrible nightmares of a bear chasing him. By associating the bear with the pleasant taste of Coke Bibace was able to cure the boy of his nightmares. Though Bibace hinted that the bear may have a connection to a fear of the father (Oedipus Complex anyone?), I was interested if this was a common interpretation of the symbol bear. Though it’s probably not very credible I looked up the symbol bear on a web site called Dream Dictionary. The result was this quote “To dream that you are being pursued or attacked by a bear, denotes aggression, overwhelming obstacles and competition. You may find yourself in a threatening situation”. Bibace would probably advise against the use of this web site, for he mentioned towards the end of his lecture how both him and Freud were against any “over-arching” definition of a specific symbol.
I think that the father could fit into that interpretation to the bear. If we go with the idea that the little boy had an Oedipus Complex, then perhaps his father provided an overwhelming obsticle or at the very least competition for the mothers love. The running in the dream could be castration anxiety. If the bear/father catches the boy then he loses the competition then he subsequently he loses his masculinity.
ReplyDeleteI've never been one for dream interpretations. I find that most of the time someone's take on the reasons and emotions behind a certain dream are way too specific and completely up for interpretation. I think it is impossible to truly know what is behind a persons dream. What if the dream is just an abstract putting together of events and objects seen that day or week? Maybe we're giving our dreams too much credit. Not that i'm trying to blatantly trying to discredit years and years of Freud's work or anything...?
ReplyDeleteThough it might not be obvious enough for the dreamer to pick up on. One might think that they would clearly know if their dream was merely a projection of their daily life, but taking into account the complexity of the mind, who knows how it could be construing our thoughts.
In the case of the little boys bear dream, maybe he does subconsciously feel threatened or is facing life obstacles and maybe the bear does represent his father. Or maybe the boy saw a bear at some point without even realizing it, whether in a picture or a movie. Then again if the content of our dreams comes from our subconscious projecting things into dream form, we would never really know would we? I guess it's kind of hard to be conscious of our unconscious. How did Freud do it?