Dream symbolism and dementia

[paigetheoracle]

It is my belief that dream symbolism as visual language, indicates the same kind of mind state that Alzheimer's patients have i.e. mentally dispersed, so that precise, concentrated speech and ideas cannot be reiterated. This leads to associational communication as in dream symbols, that lead the communicator and communicated to, down a path that means what is being said in both cases by the subconscious mind, isn't clear to either party but is struggling to get a message across.

 

What I believe is that consciousness dictates precision and concentration but unconsciousness creates the opposite state, where associations are all over the place but if weaved together and followed through, by strength of effort, the truth will be disclosed (It's like Charades or surrealism). I believe this language is simpler than conscious thought (not so intricate) and comes out as basic emotion and visual imagery, which only conscious words can weave together, to create consensus understanding rather than individual experience. This is the mental side of it - now the weird bit.

 

I further believe that psychic events and Forteana (fish falls, spontaneous human combustion, UFO's etc. Look up the definition in Wikipedia or just Google it, if you don't know what subjects it includes) occur when conscious hold is let go 'externally' as mental deterioration happens 'internally' and is its counterpart: Philosophically you could say that our concentration upon the world is what ensures its stability and clarity of form and thought, which when released, creates outer chaos (perception difficulties as we lose sight of what we think is real because everything held at bay floods back in) and confusion, if it then washes away our internal order (or certainty about what we believe in).

 

I also believe that the reason it is nigh impossible to prove psychic powers exist in the laboratory is that these events are spontaneous and therefore cannot be harnessed in the same way that ordinary (certain/ repetitious) reality can. I further believe that those suffering mental disorders have the same problem - they either don't communicate at all or have seemingly unrelated outbursts, that requires strong detective work to make sense of i.e. connect the seemingly disconnected pieces (When lucid they are as sensible as anybody else, making sense of their own communication i.e. have insight, instead of acting out of sight, out of mind).

[lawcat]

This leads to associational communication as in dream symbols, that lead the communicator and communicated to, down a path that means what is being said in both cases by the subconscious mind, isn't clear to either party but is struggling to get a message across.

 

That's an interesting observation. I never thought of it as a matter of communication theory: misgeneration and misunderstanding of misinformation. But whatever the opinion or characterization of the effects of mental chaos is, we are more concerned about finding and curing the causes in medical field these days.

 

now the weird bit.

 

I further believe that psychic events and Forteana . . . spontaneous human combustion, UFO's . . . occur when conscious hold is let go 'externally' as mental deterioration happens 'internally' and is its counterpart:

Wow. This is truly a strange claim if it is meant as an explanation for real physical spontaneous combustion.

 

Philosophically you could say that our concentration upon the world is what ensures its stability and clarity of form and thought, which when released, creates outer chaos

 

True. That's why mental patients need medicine to stay focused on reality.

[HydrogenBond]

Dreams are a type of unconscious thought processing, that is done for you, with the ego more the observer than the initiator. Dream analysis is important to some areas of psychology. Dreams can contain symbolic content that help define the mental state of the patient, which the patient may not be aware of. Through dreams the therapists can infer these states and help point it out to the patient. If dreams were entirely random, dream analysis would be snake oil of science. But there are too many documented cases of useful relevant content within dreams for dreams to be just random. The problem for the layman is a language barrier since symbolism is a 3-D language. It is like listening to a foreign language you don't know. I has structure but sounds like gibberish. Once you knows some of the language one can see more of its structure.

 

If we extrapolate backwards in time, when the human ego was much less stable than modern times, and human were more unconsciously compulsive, dreams were the way humans organized their reality, with the dream telling what needed to be corrected. If one was normal for the time, but culture was messed up, dreams would tell the source and the path for social correction. The dreams of the Shaman would be for the group, and would contain collective symbolism. When he recited the dream, the story would have a psychological impact on the tribe. The stories of mythology perpetuated because of the symbolic impact. Like a dream, the symbols may seem out of touch with rational reality, but the emotional impact is still there.

 

If we go back to dream symbolism and dementia, it is possible some patient dreams will not only tell about the dementia condition and/or what is causing it, while others might offer a glimpse to individual and social solutions. We may need a Shaman with dementia to have the collective dream for the dementia patients. There may be a type of mythology for the condition that helps improve the condition.

[paigetheoracle]

. We may need a Shaman with dementia to have the collective dream for the dementia patients. There may be a type of mythology for the condition that helps improve the condition.

 

Ye Gods, you may already have one in me - hence the insights!:)

[paigetheoracle]

What is language but various separate concepts, consciously strung together? Dementia and other mental breakdown as well as dreaming is where this string breaks and you are left with scattered beads everywhere, signifying nothing that makes sense now.

[paigetheoracle]

Another thing that has been noted in the past is that people who stay active, mentally and especially physically, don't have such marked mental deterioration.

 

Another thing to consider, in relation to my first post on this subject, is that class and sex comes into this in my opinion. Namely the intricacy of movement and complexity of ideas, in middle class endevours as opposed to blue collar action and words (single syllable words, not multi-syllable ones and more basic actions). This is also reflected in the patronizing attitude of the upper class to the lower, mirrored in the same way that women treat men as big kids (Men as dour doers and women as more sociable talkers - relaxed as opposed to more uptight, aggressive and determined in character).

 

I'm sure other people will attack these statements as generalizations but it is my attempt to try to understand how sex and class differences manifest themselves mentally in attitudes and actions as well as appearance. It is not an attempt to say one sex or class is better than the other but that these characterizations fulfill certain roles in society, which blur because life is a spectrum not clear cut sections.

 

These differences are what decides mental and physical deterioration in class and sex, and why men don't live as long as women generally and the upper classes fare better than the lower classes in life expectancy, barring accidents and disease etc.

[paigetheoracle]

By the way 'normality' is achieved through control of ones mind/ environment as dementia is letting go of all such mental restrictions, dumping responsibility in the form of memory and awareness (use it or lose it - concentrate or relax effort).