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Re: VN and Freud
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Jerry Friedman: "Freud stated that "dreams of flying, so familiar and often so delightful, have to be interpreted as dreams of general sexual excitement, as erection-dreams". I think what Nabokov is talking about with those umbrellas and balloons is this simplistic "have to be", with its implication that everyone's mind is so similar that Freud knows every individual's (that is, Nabokov's) psyche better than the individual."
JM: I forgot to add a comment to Friedman's interesting post (thanks, JF, for your comments about Pale Fire and Russia, posts, poles and polls).
Jerry's example about "dreams of flying," invites a clarification on "everyone's mind is so similar..."
As a starter, this kind of example doesn't imply that women cannot dream of flying because their erections aren't exactly like a males's. So, what can we deduce after realizing that we've heard about a dream of "general sexual excitement" - except that it's "general"? These basic features (flying=sexual excitement-erection) are scarcely revelatory about the dreamer. This is why the analyst has to wait for the patient's associations, his links to umbrellas, balloons, plane-crashes, parachutes, red kites, aso. In his later years Freud prodded the patient on so that the patient himself arrived to an interpretation, a unique interpretation...
I'll expand on this a little: most people are familiar with how the obnoxious sound of an alarm clock or bell are visually transformed by a dream so that the sleeper may continue to sleep a while longer. An uncomfortably heavy bladder may stimulate all sorts of dreams, too. In one, the dreamer may find himself peeing in the middle of a stream, and even experience an exhibitionistic pleasure thereby, until the physiological reality prevails and he either wakes up to actually take a leak or suffers from a disastrous deviation from "le plaisir anglais.". In another, the dreamer may find himself following a long corridor towards a toilet, which in turn will lead him onto another corridor, and up and down stairs, closed doors, other corridors. In the end, he'll have to wake up but, somehow, his waking up was postponed, just like in the other example.
Here we find at least three different kinds of dreamers: the hysteric-type ( in which the person pees on and on), the voyerist-exhibitionist or the undinistic kind (peeing in public, peeing in a river ) and, finally, the obsessive-type (corridors leading onto other corridors, etc). However, there's still a long way to go before the simplest dream (like the one in this example) can be interpreted.
btw: I lost the reference, in one of the N-L postings, about Nabokov and a dream with orchids and allother sorts of botanical paraphernalia.At the time it reminded me of Freud's famous report about his "botannical dream," to which I thought VN might be alluding directly. Can anyone rescue this nabokovian dream here?
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JM: I forgot to add a comment to Friedman's interesting post (thanks, JF, for your comments about Pale Fire and Russia, posts, poles and polls).
Jerry's example about "dreams of flying," invites a clarification on "everyone's mind is so similar..."
As a starter, this kind of example doesn't imply that women cannot dream of flying because their erections aren't exactly like a males's. So, what can we deduce after realizing that we've heard about a dream of "general sexual excitement" - except that it's "general"? These basic features (flying=sexual excitement-erection) are scarcely revelatory about the dreamer. This is why the analyst has to wait for the patient's associations, his links to umbrellas, balloons, plane-crashes, parachutes, red kites, aso. In his later years Freud prodded the patient on so that the patient himself arrived to an interpretation, a unique interpretation...
I'll expand on this a little: most people are familiar with how the obnoxious sound of an alarm clock or bell are visually transformed by a dream so that the sleeper may continue to sleep a while longer. An uncomfortably heavy bladder may stimulate all sorts of dreams, too. In one, the dreamer may find himself peeing in the middle of a stream, and even experience an exhibitionistic pleasure thereby, until the physiological reality prevails and he either wakes up to actually take a leak or suffers from a disastrous deviation from "le plaisir anglais.". In another, the dreamer may find himself following a long corridor towards a toilet, which in turn will lead him onto another corridor, and up and down stairs, closed doors, other corridors. In the end, he'll have to wake up but, somehow, his waking up was postponed, just like in the other example.
Here we find at least three different kinds of dreamers: the hysteric-type ( in which the person pees on and on), the voyerist-exhibitionist or the undinistic kind (peeing in public, peeing in a river ) and, finally, the obsessive-type (corridors leading onto other corridors, etc). However, there's still a long way to go before the simplest dream (like the one in this example) can be interpreted.
btw: I lost the reference, in one of the N-L postings, about Nabokov and a dream with orchids and allother sorts of botanical paraphernalia.At the time it reminded me of Freud's famous report about his "botannical dream," to which I thought VN might be alluding directly. Can anyone rescue this nabokovian dream here?
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/