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Speaker 1: If dreaming really were a kind of truce, as people claim,

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Speaker 1: a sheer repose of mind, Why then, if you should

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Speaker 1: waken up abruptly, do you feel that something has been

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Speaker 1: stolen from you? Why should it be so sad the

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Speaker 1: early morning? It robs us of an inconceivable gift, so

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Speaker 1: intimate it is only knowable in a trance which the

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Speaker 1: night Watch guilds with dreams, dreams that might very well

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Speaker 1: be reflections, fragments from the treasure house of darkness, from

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Speaker 1: the timeless sphere that does not have a name, and

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Speaker 1: that the day distorts in its mirrors. Who will you

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Speaker 1: be tonight in your dream? Fall into the dark on

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Speaker 1: the other side of the wall.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind? A production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.

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Speaker 2: My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Joe McCormick.

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Speaker 1: That was, of course a dream by Jorge Luis Borges,

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Speaker 1: an author that we cite and refer to with some

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Speaker 1: degree of regularity on the show, because he was fascinated

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Speaker 1: with many of the things we're fascinated with on Stuff

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Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind, Mirrors, dreams, strange creatures, stabbings. Sometimes

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Speaker 1: that sort of thing. And in this episode we're going

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Speaker 1: to be discussing the dream world a bit more. This

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Speaker 1: is a topic that we also come back to with

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Speaker 1: some regularity on stuff to blow your mind, and for

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Speaker 1: good reason, right, because there is a universality to dreaming,

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Speaker 1: and it constitutes an altered and highly subjective mental state

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Speaker 1: that runs the gamut from the mundane and the frankly

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Speaker 1: boring to the other worldly to the you know, from

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Speaker 1: the specific to the ineffable, and from the comforting to

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Speaker 1: the just absolutely terrifying. It's at once entirely shut off

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Speaker 1: from the wake world and yet can greatly impact it.

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Speaker 1: And we've spent a considerable portion of our conscious history

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Speaker 1: as a species trying to make sense of it and

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Speaker 1: to figure out to what extent these two worlds are connected,

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Speaker 1: or to what extent they're disconnected, and the enigma, in

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Speaker 1: many respects still remains now.

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Speaker 2: Rob When you first told me you wanted to talk

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Speaker 2: about this, it was in the context of looking at

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Speaker 2: a specific mythical monster, I believe one from Japan, right.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that was kind of I guess, the White Rabbit

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Speaker 1: that I followed into all of this because it's an

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Speaker 1: interesting monster and it ties in with sort of practices

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Speaker 1: and superstitions concerning the manipulation of dream on our side

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Speaker 1: in the waking world, and I think we are going

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Speaker 1: to get back to that monster, perhaps in a forthcoming episode.

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Speaker 1: But as I was reading about this creature from Japanese tradition,

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Speaker 1: I started reading more about how some of these ideas

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Speaker 1: extended back through Chinese tradition as well, and so I thought, well,

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Speaker 1: I should maybe go a little broader and looking at

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Speaker 1: the larger slice of Sino Japanese thought concerning dreams, and

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Speaker 1: I ended up picking up this really fascinating book titled

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Speaker 1: The Dreaming Mind and the End of the Ming World

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Speaker 1: by Lynn A. Struve, published in twenty nineteen by the

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Speaker 1: University of Hawaii Press. It's an incredible book, and I

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Speaker 1: was particularly taken by Struve's discussion early on about the

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Speaker 1: mystique of dreams in various global cultures across time, with

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Speaker 1: particular times and places in which the focus of intellectual

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Speaker 1: and or theologic sections of the populace are just particularly

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Speaker 1: focused on the dream world and what is going on

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Speaker 1: in dreams and what we should draw from dreams, and

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Speaker 1: how much of our waking effort and time and thought

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Speaker 1: should be dedicated to dreams.

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Speaker 2: So you mentioned in the title of the book it

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Speaker 2: makes reference to the end of the Ming world. She

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Speaker 2: seems to draw attention to the especially the late Ming

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Speaker 2: period in China, as a time when there was a

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Speaker 2: lot of writing produced about dreams and focus on the

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Speaker 2: meaning of dreams, compared to maybe the same region of

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Speaker 2: the world in earlier or later times.

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Speaker 1: Exactly. Yeah, And this is something I had never really

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Speaker 1: thought about before, because obviously, to some degree it seems

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Speaker 1: like everyone is fascinated with dreams. If nothing else, you're

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Speaker 1: going to be interested in your own dreams. And then

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Speaker 1: any given culture is going to have some degree of

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Speaker 1: ideas about what they mean or what they don't mean.

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Speaker 1: And then you know, there's going to be sort of

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Speaker 1: a global trend towards you know, modernization and rational interpretation

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Speaker 1: of dreams. But I'd never really thought about this idea

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Speaker 1: that there are going to be times and places where

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Speaker 1: if you were looking at i don't know, some sort

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Speaker 1: of a mechanism that was giving you the readings. Right,

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Speaker 1: this is what dream fascination is looking like. Uh oh,

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Speaker 1: we have a spike. Why is it spiking? It certain

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Speaker 1: or does it seem to spike at certain points, and

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Speaker 1: so Struve is making a point largely for this period

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Speaker 1: of time at the end of the Ming daim Honesty

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Speaker 1: and its decline, as it's about to fall an end

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Speaker 1: and another dynasty is about to come to power. But

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Speaker 1: this argument that there are some other places as well,

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Speaker 1: where all the elements are just in proper place to

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Speaker 1: sort of push people inward, and particularly to push intellectuals

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Speaker 1: of the day inward, those who have more time to

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Speaker 1: devote to these matters, and then also you know, the

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Speaker 1: ability to write about them and have their words passed

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Speaker 1: on to subsequent generations. So in the books she naturally

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Speaker 1: discusses the subjective nature of dreams, their wide variety, and

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Speaker 1: how the quote deficit of logic and rationality unquote in

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Speaker 1: dreams has inspired both suspicion and celebration, which is this

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Speaker 1: duality will come back to several times in this episode.

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Speaker 1: Also key to all of this, of course, is that

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Speaker 1: dreams arise unbidden. Certainly we have no power over what

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Speaker 1: other people may dream, but generally we lack control over

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Speaker 1: what our own dreams are going to consist of, and

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Speaker 1: this can prove again a source of great inspiration even

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Speaker 1: divine inspiration. You know, Look what the dream world has

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Speaker 1: given to me, Look what the powers beyond the dreams

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Speaker 1: have given me. But in some cases and some worldviews,

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Speaker 1: it may also be seen as threatening or truly terrifying,

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Speaker 1: especially within worldviews where rigorous control of thought, desire, and

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Speaker 1: emotion are key. You know, It's like, perhaps you're a

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Speaker 1: person and in your religious devotion, you spend a lot

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Speaker 1: of time denying yourself, say lustful thoughts, and then you

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Speaker 1: enter into the dream world, and there are no guarantees

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Speaker 1: that those lustful thoughts will not arise there and take

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Speaker 1: on forms that may seem at odds with what you're

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Speaker 1: trying to do with your waking self.

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Speaker 2: Yes, and of course that can be threatening and unsettling

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Speaker 2: to people. But coming back to the first half of

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Speaker 2: what you said about dreams being an inspiration and having

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Speaker 2: a kind of power or authority, I think that is

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Speaker 2: linked to the fact about them seeming to be unbidden,

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Speaker 2: the fact that they seem to come from somewhere other

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Speaker 2: than your own thoughts. I mean, you could say that,

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Speaker 2: we'll wait, where do your waking thoughts really come from?

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Speaker 2: Those if you examine them more closely, might come to

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Speaker 2: seem as unbidden as dreams, but at least we have

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Speaker 2: a sense more like our thoughts in our waking state

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Speaker 2: are more under our control and our thoughts in the

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Speaker 2: dream world or not. And because they feel like they're

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Speaker 2: they're less under our control than thoughts in the waking state,

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Speaker 2: they can take on a kind of third party authority.

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Speaker 2: So it's like you can report the contents of your dreams,

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Speaker 2: or even just contemplate the contents of your dreams, without

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Speaker 2: the sort of self doubt and anxiety that you might

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Speaker 2: have about if you were just, say, like offering your

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Speaker 2: personal opinion about something. When it's a dream, it's like

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Speaker 2: you're reporting something you read in another source as a

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Speaker 2: kind of third party authority. And often because dreams are

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Speaker 2: ascribed to gods or literal powerful figures or ancestors or

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Speaker 2: other you know, beings that have senses and information and

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Speaker 2: powers beyond what we have in waking life, the contents

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Speaker 2: of dreams can be interpreted to have power and authority

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Speaker 2: over other people. Like I can tell you my dreams,

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Speaker 2: and that might have a message that you think you

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Speaker 2: should pay heed to, because I'm not just saying my opinion,

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Speaker 2: I'm reporting what was revealed to me in a dream.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's interesting to sort of self analyze over this,

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Speaker 1: Like if if either of us were to tell our

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Speaker 1: spouses to report in the morning, Hey, I had a

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Speaker 1: dream in which I was wearing this green suit. It's weird.

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Speaker 1: I don't own a green suit, And then you kept

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Speaker 1: reporting this same dream over and over again, Like how

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Speaker 1: would they interpret it? How would you interpret it? Like

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Speaker 1: at some point would you just be taking it apart,

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Speaker 1: trying to think of what does green mean to me?

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Speaker 1: And like what is this coming from? In or they

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Speaker 1: might think, well, maybe my spouse really needs a green suit.

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Speaker 1: Maybe that's what the root of this is, like deep

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Speaker 1: down they desire it. Like there's so many ways to

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Speaker 1: sort of tease it apart and try and make sense

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Speaker 1: of it when ultimately, like the signal itself is irrational.

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Speaker 2: Of course, it gets even more complicated when the dream

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Speaker 2: is interpreted to include an exhortation or some kind of

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Speaker 2: guide to action, because consider the contrast between a couple

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Speaker 2: of other things. What if, on one hand, I just

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Speaker 2: say to my family, I think I'm going to shoplift

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Speaker 2: a green suit out of the clothing store, and I

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Speaker 2: just present that as my idea, it seemed like a

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Speaker 2: good idea to me. Versus I say, I have a

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Speaker 2: dream in which I take a green suit out of

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Speaker 2: the clothing store without paying for it, and I keep

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Speaker 2: having this dream. Well there, it kind of seems like, look,

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Speaker 2: it's not It wasn't my idea. You know, it came

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Speaker 2: to me from the dream. So it's like somebody else

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Speaker 2: is telling me I need to do it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, this idea that there's something about the dream that

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Speaker 1: does not seem to fully originate in ourselves. This is

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Speaker 1: a theme that we'll return to again and again here,

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Speaker 1: and something that various interpreters of dreams and sort of

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Speaker 1: dream theorists over time have latched onto. Now, coming back

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Speaker 1: to lynn A. Struve's book, she says that while in

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Speaker 1: some rare cases dreams have allegedly and allegedly is important

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Speaker 1: because the nature of other people's dreams is always alleged,

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Speaker 1: and even our own accounts of dreams that's subject to interpretation,

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Speaker 1: remembrance and reporting and so forth. In some cases you

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Speaker 1: have dreams that have allegedly directly informed history. But otherwise, like,

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Speaker 1: what does it matter that people are having dreams and

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Speaker 1: reporting them and focusing in on them. There's sort of

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Speaker 1: like two major areas that she looks out at here.

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Speaker 1: One is we'll explore is like what happens when you're

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Speaker 1: fascination with dreams kind of like bubbles over into making

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Speaker 1: decisions about the waking world. But the other one that

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Speaker 1: she touches on has to do with ultimately with like

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Speaker 1: how a given society viewed consciousness, how a society views

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Speaker 1: its dreams, especially in highly intellectual and authoritative cultures. You know,

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Speaker 1: you can look to the surviving writings on dreams dream journals,

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Speaker 1: and they can ultimately reveal much about that culture and

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Speaker 1: the individuals doing the dreaming and the writing, as well

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Speaker 1: as the inner workings of the mind. She writes, I

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Speaker 1: submit that dream writing can indirectly contribute to a history

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Speaker 1: of consciousness, not in the sense of what people were

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Speaker 1: conscious of over time, such as class identity, but in

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Speaker 1: the sense of what people thought consciousness was and how

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Speaker 1: they experienced it. Delving into this can illuminate how they

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Speaker 1: felt and understood themselves existentially, which underlay other actions and endeavors.

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Speaker 1: Consciousness at its most primal is a sense of being

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Speaker 1: an observant entity, and it builds and modifies selfhood by

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Speaker 1: the agency of narrating what is observed, attempts to narrate

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Speaker 1: that most ineffable kind of observation of what occurs to

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Speaker 1: us in dreams expose this process at the most elemental

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Speaker 1: level that is accessible to others and therefore on which

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Speaker 1: self interacts with society. So dream talk can give us

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Speaker 1: valuable information on how people probed awareness itself, under what

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Speaker 1: circumstances they were moved to do so, and how they're

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Speaker 1: evolving selves negotiated nurotologically with their sociocultural milieu.

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Speaker 2: Okay, so this is interesting. So Struve is making the

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Speaker 2: argument that even if you don't have people, say writing

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Speaker 2: philosophical treatises on what they believe the nature of consciousness

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Speaker 2: to be, you can infer a lot of things about

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Speaker 2: what certain people at certain times thought believe the nature

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Speaker 2: of consciousness to be by reading their reports about dreams

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Speaker 2: and how they talked about dreams. Because in a sense,

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Speaker 2: dreams are a dreams are relating and experience of consciousness

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Speaker 2: separated from action and waking life.

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Speaker 1: Right right, Yeah, It provides this this sort of distance

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Speaker 1: on inner thought process. That's and again I'd never really

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Speaker 1: really thought about this either. It's easy to sort of

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Speaker 1: think of accounts of other people's dreams as either you know,

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Speaker 1: interesting or boring, or interesting only to them, or perhaps

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Speaker 1: interesting in terms of like exactly how it is interpreted

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Speaker 1: based on everything else, and all that's valid, but this

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Speaker 1: added level of like, yeah, you're to some degree, these

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Speaker 1: are accounts of people thinking about their own consciousness. Now.

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Speaker 1: In this book, Struve ultimately dives into the particularities of

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Speaker 1: Late Ming Dynasty China during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,

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Speaker 1: but she also highlights other times in places that seem

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Speaker 1: particularly focused on the power of dream So, you know,

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Speaker 1: it's all interesting, I think, coming from our current place

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Speaker 1: in the consideration of dreams, sort of the tail end

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Speaker 1: of what she classifies as an accelerating Western decline in

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Speaker 1: the belief of prophetic and oracular dreams. And she argues

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Speaker 1: that this decline has been accelerating, at least among the

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Speaker 1: educated since the seventeenth century. I mean, we're still obsessed

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Speaker 1: with our dreams, we still talk about our dreams, right,

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Speaker 1: They still have the power to fascinate us, terrifies and

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Speaker 1: all that. But we're generally more inclined, it seems to

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Speaker 1: me anyway, to dismiss them as nonsense or the scrambled

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Speaker 1: remnants of waking experience, thoughts and feelings. I remember David

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Speaker 1: Eagleman when I initially interviewed him the interview before last,

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Speaker 1: he said that he mentioned that he had always thought

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Speaker 1: of it as sticking his head in the night blender,

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Speaker 1: which I thought was rather apt. You know, this idea

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Speaker 1: that yeah, this is what this is what you get.

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Speaker 1: You know, these are just the mental leavings from the

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Speaker 1: previous day, and you can pick through them. You can,

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Speaker 1: you know, maybe you'll find something useful that is provides

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Speaker 1: some inner reflection, but ultimately the thing itself has no meaning.

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Speaker 1: It is like a waste product that is extruded from

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Speaker 1: the mind.

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Speaker 2: Well. Yeah. Eagleman's particular theory about the adaptive function of

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Speaker 2: dreaming was that it is a defensive action of the

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Speaker 2: visual center of the brain to prevent takeover of that

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Speaker 2: tissue in the brain by other senses during the dark

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Speaker 2: period and the night, so that when you know it's

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Speaker 2: nighttime and you have your eyes closed so you're not

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Speaker 2: using the visual centers of your brain, those brain cells

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Speaker 2: don't start to get recruited too much by other functions

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Speaker 2: of the brain, because our brains are very plastic, and

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Speaker 2: part of the evidence he produced for that was that

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Speaker 2: there seems to be across the human life span and

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Speaker 2: across different animals, there appears to be a negative correlation

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Speaker 2: between the plasticity of brain tissue and how much dreaming

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Speaker 2: you do.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so it was an interesting hypothesis that he came

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Speaker 1: to after initially seeing it as the night blender. But

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Speaker 1: you don't hear someone like David Eagleman talking about dreams

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Speaker 1: being the vehicle or the instrument through which God is

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Speaker 1: speaking to him, or to us, or to random people.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you will find it in the modern world,

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Speaker 1: but for the most part, we don't really lean into

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Speaker 1: that on the whole.

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Speaker 2: I mean, I guess technically, I want to say, those

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Speaker 2: are two separate scientific questions. One would be what is

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Speaker 2: the adaptive function of dreaming in the first place? Like

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Speaker 2: why do we dream? And I think that's the main

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Speaker 2: question that Eagleman was answering when we talked to him

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Speaker 2: about that, that the purpose of dreaming is to prevent

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Speaker 2: the nighttime takeover a visual tissue by other functions. But

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Speaker 2: there's a totally separate question, which is what determines the

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Speaker 2: actual contents of dreams, and you could have you in

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Speaker 2: a way that's kind of unrelated to the other theory.

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Speaker 2: You could just say, well that you know, the fact

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Speaker 2: that we need to prevent the takeover of that brain

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Speaker 2: tissue means you've got to have something going on in there.

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Speaker 2: What's going on in there? What kinds of stuff you

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Speaker 2: see and imagine in a dream? I mean, it could

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Speaker 2: be anything. So why do we see the things we see?

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Speaker 2: And that's an interesting psychological question that seems somewhat separate.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I see what you're saying. Yeah, I mean, certainly

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Speaker 1: you could have a situation where if the Eagleman's hypothesis

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Speaker 1: was correct, that you could still have God speaking through

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Speaker 1: the content of the dreams, because it's like the brain

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Speaker 1: just needs something to keep the to keep things visually

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Speaker 1: powered up, but it doesn't particularly care what is in there.

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Speaker 1: And then yeah, you could have God or God's slipping

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Speaker 1: a message in to the stuff in the same way

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Speaker 1: that you might be able to cut up open the

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Speaker 1: entrails of an animal and supposedly, you know, determine the

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Speaker 1: future based on what they contain. Ah.

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Speaker 2: Yes, So it's technically there's no conflict between you being

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Speaker 2: able to read the future in the in the guts

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Speaker 2: of a chicken, and the fact that the guts of

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Speaker 2: a chicken are used for digestion by the chicken.

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Speaker 1: Yes, all right. Coming back to these different periods and times,

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Speaker 1: there's been an uptick in interest in the contents of

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Speaker 1: dreams and this idea that there's something meaningful there to

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Speaker 1: really latch onto. One of the periods that Struve touches

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Speaker 1: on is the Romantic period in Europe, particularly late eighteenth

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Speaker 1: through early nineteenth centuries. Shruve writes that the quote felt

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Speaker 1: limitations of an Enlightenment rationalism and mechanism, especially as a

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Speaker 1: concern the human body and the inner workings of the mind,

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Speaker 1: led to a kind of increased interest in the non

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Speaker 1: rational and the mysteries of the self, consciousness and the

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Speaker 1: unconscious mind. She writes, quote with growing interest in dreaming

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Speaker 1: as a medium through which to link these compulsions. Dreams

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Speaker 1: came to feature prominently in natural philosophy, medical thought, the

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Speaker 1: budding field of anthropology, art in art theory, personal notes,

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Speaker 1: and especially creative writing and literary criticism. This occurred as

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Speaker 1: intellectuals responded with elan and or anxiety, hope, or dismay

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Speaker 1: to the ethical French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, rising nationalisms,

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Speaker 1: and socio and environ mental changes attendant on the early

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Speaker 1: Industrial Revolution.

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Speaker 2: If I understand Struve's argument correctly, this seems to fit

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Speaker 2: with the pattern of the late Ming period in that

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Speaker 2: I think she understands an increased focus on dreaming among

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Speaker 2: the people producing writing as a common feature of periods

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Speaker 2: where there is a lot of where there is a

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Speaker 2: lot of strife and rapid change.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I think so. And I think that's that's

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Speaker 1: one of the main reasons that the Romantic period here

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Speaker 1: is such a nice parallel example. Now, in bringing up Romanticism,

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Speaker 1: you know, the mind instantly goes to particular authors of

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Speaker 1: that period, say Samuel Taylor Cooleridge, who lived seventeen seventy

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Speaker 1: two through eighteen thirty four, whose work often explored dreams

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Speaker 1: as well as those visions brought about through the use

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Speaker 1: of opium. So I wanted to look at like another

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Speaker 1: text that dealt with this topic, and I ran across

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Speaker 1: a very interesting book from nineteen ninety eight titled Coolidge

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Speaker 1: on Dreaming by Jennifer Ford, and it explores this naturally.

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Speaker 1: In the specifics of the poet's work, but also in

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Speaker 1: the large, the larger context of eighteenth and nineteenth century

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Speaker 1: dream fascination in the West. You see examples of this

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Speaker 1: in the work of other notable Romantic authors as well,

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Speaker 1: like Lord Byron and Thomas de Quincy, who, of course,

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Speaker 1: of course also famously imputed opium. Ford writes that there

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Speaker 1: was no consensus concerning the nature of dreaming at the time,

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Speaker 1: during the Romantic Romantic period, with opinions are really centering

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Speaker 1: on the big three interpretations. So one potentially divine visions

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Speaker 1: you know, could be could be God sneaking in a

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Speaker 1: voice or a message there, or some you know, supernatural

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Speaker 1: entity with our interests at heart. I guess you could

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Speaker 1: also look at that as too, a font of creativity

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Speaker 1: and inspiration, a natural place for the poets in the

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Speaker 1: writer's mind to go in the artist's mind or three

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Speaker 1: dreams as residue or byproduct, which is, you know what.

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Speaker 1: We've been discussed this idea that maybe dreams are nothing

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Speaker 1: but just sort of the reassembled contents of things we

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Speaker 1: thought about or observed, etc. During the course of our day.

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Speaker 2: Now.

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Speaker 1: Coolridge was much inspired by the writings of antiquity on

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Speaker 1: the matter, considering the idea of prophetic dreaming especially, but

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Speaker 1: he also consumed contemporary writings that included both serious attempts

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Speaker 1: to understand dreaming from the vantage point of current medicine

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Speaker 1: and physiology, as well as magical and mystical strains of thought.

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Speaker 1: Now this is kind of an aside here, but one

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Speaker 1: of the things that Ford points out is that one

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Speaker 1: of the authors that he would have, of course read

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Speaker 1: from antiquity would be Homer, and who in the Odyssey

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Speaker 1: describes the two gates from which dreams may arise Quote four.

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Speaker 1: Two are the gates of shadowy dreams, and one is

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Speaker 1: fashioned of horn, and one of ivory. Those dreams that

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Speaker 1: pass through the gate of saun ivory deceive men, bringing

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Speaker 1: words that find no fulfillment. But those that come forth

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Speaker 1: through the gate of polished horn bring true issues to

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Speaker 1: pass when any mortal sees them.

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Speaker 2: Well in a way, that belief is not very helpful.

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Speaker 2: So it's like some dreams could contain prophetic content and

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Speaker 2: other dreams are there to deceive and misguide you, but

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Speaker 2: you can't you can't know which or which.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it reminds me a little bit of the ideas

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Speaker 1: presented by the gomork and the never Ending Story, you know,

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Speaker 1: the idea of this link bit and creative creativity and

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Speaker 1: deception between dream and creations of imagination and lies. But

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Speaker 1: and I guess this get touches on, like one of

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Speaker 1: the real problems of valuing the content of dreams is that, like,

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Speaker 1: sometimes dreams are just stupid. I mean, there are gonna

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Speaker 1: be maybe some there's some versions of it where you're like, okay,

398
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Speaker 1: there's always something there might be cryptic, but there's something

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Speaker 1: there that might be your viewpoint regarding dreams. But at

400
00:22:48,960 --> 00:22:50,840
Speaker 1: times you're gonna have an uphill battle because you're going

401
00:22:50,920 --> 00:22:53,840
Speaker 1: to have that dumb dream where you're what like in

402
00:22:53,880 --> 00:22:56,480
Speaker 1: the the the words of Mitch Hedberg, you know, had

403
00:22:56,480 --> 00:22:58,359
Speaker 1: a joke about a dream in which he had to

404
00:22:58,359 --> 00:23:01,040
Speaker 1: build a go kart with his old boy, something like that.

405
00:23:01,119 --> 00:23:04,160
Speaker 1: You know, you're gonna have dreams that you're really gonna

406
00:23:04,200 --> 00:23:06,880
Speaker 1: have to have to try hard to find some sort

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00:23:06,880 --> 00:23:12,560
Speaker 1: of prophetic interpretation or meaningful interpretation of what's there. So

408
00:23:12,800 --> 00:23:14,960
Speaker 1: easier to say, well, you know, sometimes they come through

409
00:23:14,960 --> 00:23:17,159
Speaker 1: this gate and they mean something. Sometimes they come through

410
00:23:17,200 --> 00:23:19,520
Speaker 1: the other gate and it's just complete crap.

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Speaker 2: Now.

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00:23:20,280 --> 00:23:22,600
Speaker 1: Ford has a section here where she briefly goes through

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Speaker 1: mentioning you know what other writers of antiquity had to

414
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Speaker 1: say about it, Like Hippocrates and much later Gallan, both

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Speaker 1: agreed that dreams mattered and they were connected to health.

416
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Speaker 1: They also wrote that Galen in particular wrote that they

417
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Speaker 1: could contain divine messages of healing contained in dream symbols

418
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Speaker 1: and so forth. But for both of these individuals, however,

419
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Speaker 1: food and digestion were deeply linked with dreaming.

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Speaker 2: Hmmm, yeah, you might be an undigested bit of beef

421
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Speaker 2: for cheese.

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Speaker 1: Exactly, yeah, exactly the example I thought of as well

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Speaker 1: from a Christmas Carol. Now, Plato, Aristotle, and for the

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Speaker 1: most part, and with some notable exceptions, argue that the

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Speaker 1: dreams were not prophetic. Apparently Cicero kind of was wishy

426
00:24:07,800 --> 00:24:11,320
Speaker 1: washy on this. Aristotle, however, was pretty firm on the matter.

427
00:24:11,760 --> 00:24:14,919
Speaker 1: Ford writes, quote he explained sleep as the rising to

428
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Speaker 1: the head of vapors from digestive processes. Dreams could be

429
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Speaker 1: explained by their relation to the material world and to

430
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Speaker 1: waking thoughts, and not as a result of prophetic messages

431
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Speaker 1: from gods. Totally in the potato camp.

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Speaker 2: Here, there's more of gravy than grave about you.

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Speaker 1: That's Aristotle, yeah, now, but still, this idea of prophetic

434
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Speaker 1: dreaming cast a long shadow across Western history. And of course,

435
00:24:38,640 --> 00:24:40,800
Speaker 1: you know, outside of what's going on in the like

436
00:24:40,840 --> 00:24:44,600
Speaker 1: intellectual realms of eating given culture, obviously you every kind

437
00:24:44,640 --> 00:24:47,639
Speaker 1: of deeply rooted folk traditions and so forth as well,

438
00:24:47,680 --> 00:24:51,160
Speaker 1: which you know, none of the things authors particularly get

439
00:24:51,160 --> 00:24:54,680
Speaker 1: into that as much. But with the Christian tradition, Ford

440
00:24:54,720 --> 00:24:56,480
Speaker 1: points out, there was always a lot of back and

441
00:24:56,520 --> 00:24:59,320
Speaker 1: forth on the matter because the Bible itself seemed to

442
00:24:59,320 --> 00:25:03,600
Speaker 1: be of two mind signs on prophetic dreaming, sometimes championing

443
00:25:04,040 --> 00:25:07,000
Speaker 1: the prophetic power of dreams and other times denouncing it,

444
00:25:07,080 --> 00:25:10,720
Speaker 1: in fact casting out the dream observers with the soothsayers

445
00:25:10,720 --> 00:25:12,960
Speaker 1: and the wizards in the Book of Deuteronomy.

446
00:25:13,320 --> 00:25:15,600
Speaker 2: Well, I feel like this is a repeating pattern, and

447
00:25:15,640 --> 00:25:18,320
Speaker 2: I think this will come up again in some stuff

448
00:25:18,359 --> 00:25:20,439
Speaker 2: we'll talk about later, either in this episode or in

449
00:25:20,440 --> 00:25:22,560
Speaker 2: the next one in the series. But there's always sort

450
00:25:22,600 --> 00:25:26,959
Speaker 2: of a tension in the practice, in the reception of

451
00:25:27,040 --> 00:25:31,480
Speaker 2: the practice of receiving revelations, whether that's through divination or

452
00:25:31,520 --> 00:25:35,639
Speaker 2: whether that's visions and dreams and so forth, because many

453
00:25:35,720 --> 00:25:41,000
Speaker 2: religions will have that type of content in a sanctioned way,

454
00:25:41,400 --> 00:25:46,959
Speaker 2: like maybe some of its orthodoxy or its history, its stories,

455
00:25:47,160 --> 00:25:52,440
Speaker 2: its current priesthood will practice things that involve some methods

456
00:25:52,440 --> 00:25:55,119
Speaker 2: of knowledge of that form, and that will be the

457
00:25:55,160 --> 00:25:58,600
Speaker 2: sanctioned version. But then there is sort of an unsanctioned

458
00:25:58,680 --> 00:26:03,199
Speaker 2: version that is not promoting orthodoxy or is subverting the

459
00:26:03,240 --> 00:26:06,480
Speaker 2: power of the priesthood or whatever, and well, you don't

460
00:26:06,480 --> 00:26:08,320
Speaker 2: want to allow that stuff. So it's kind of like,

461
00:26:08,359 --> 00:26:11,800
Speaker 2: you know, well, there were some visions and dreams that

462
00:26:12,119 --> 00:26:15,800
Speaker 2: were legitimate, and that's part of what we believe now.

463
00:26:16,080 --> 00:26:19,880
Speaker 2: But if somebody is telling you new information from visions

464
00:26:19,920 --> 00:26:21,840
Speaker 2: and dreams, then you've got to be careful about that.

465
00:26:22,400 --> 00:26:33,879
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's not canon. But anyway, during the time of

466
00:26:33,920 --> 00:26:37,080
Speaker 1: the Romantics, a lot of this increased interest and confusion

467
00:26:37,119 --> 00:26:40,199
Speaker 1: about dreaming had to do Ford stresses, with quote the

468
00:26:40,320 --> 00:26:47,200
Speaker 1: perceived unsatisfactory factory, mechanical and associationistic explanations of dreams offered

469
00:26:47,200 --> 00:26:52,080
Speaker 1: by John Locke, David Hartley, George Berkeley, and others. Interest

470
00:26:52,160 --> 00:26:55,240
Speaker 1: in the forces and features of psychic life began to increase,

471
00:26:55,400 --> 00:26:58,920
Speaker 1: and a concept of the unconscious mind began to emerge.

472
00:27:00,080 --> 00:27:02,960
Speaker 1: So it seems like a lot of these unsatisfactory ideas

473
00:27:02,960 --> 00:27:05,480
Speaker 1: involved digestions. So I guess, you know, ultimately it's not

474
00:27:05,640 --> 00:27:08,680
Speaker 1: very romantic for someone to say, look that dream you had.

475
00:27:08,680 --> 00:27:11,879
Speaker 1: I know it was really inspiring, but it was essentially

476
00:27:12,160 --> 00:27:15,520
Speaker 1: like you passing gas in the night. You shouldn't give

477
00:27:15,560 --> 00:27:18,239
Speaker 1: it a lot of attention unless it is, you know,

478
00:27:18,320 --> 00:27:21,160
Speaker 1: interfering with your ability to sleep. But it also comes

479
00:27:21,240 --> 00:27:22,840
Speaker 1: back to what you said earlier about like a time

480
00:27:22,920 --> 00:27:26,200
Speaker 1: of change, a time of like changing ideas and emerging ideas,

481
00:27:26,240 --> 00:27:28,159
Speaker 1: and sometimes this kind of feeling of like, well, no,

482
00:27:28,280 --> 00:27:31,680
Speaker 1: that that can't be right. That's not how I feel

483
00:27:31,720 --> 00:27:34,920
Speaker 1: about it. That's not what these voices from the past

484
00:27:34,960 --> 00:27:40,359
Speaker 1: have necessarily agreed with now. Coolerdg himself wrote that he

485
00:27:40,400 --> 00:27:44,800
Speaker 1: thought much of these discussions were too dismissive of the personal, psychological,

486
00:27:45,040 --> 00:27:48,600
Speaker 1: mysterious nature of dreams, as well as their overall value

487
00:27:48,640 --> 00:27:52,199
Speaker 1: to the dreamer. But he also read the writings of

488
00:27:52,520 --> 00:27:57,000
Speaker 1: Scottish metaphysical rationalist Andrew Baxter and was particularly taken by

489
00:27:57,000 --> 00:27:59,960
Speaker 1: his arguments that dreams did not originate in one's own soul,

490
00:28:00,359 --> 00:28:04,440
Speaker 1: but were brought on by external beings, so dream spirits

491
00:28:04,480 --> 00:28:07,399
Speaker 1: were to blame, because otherwise, how could we dream something

492
00:28:07,440 --> 00:28:11,199
Speaker 1: that we had never witnessed or thought or felt in

493
00:28:11,240 --> 00:28:13,520
Speaker 1: the waking world. How could we meet someone in dreams

494
00:28:13,560 --> 00:28:15,600
Speaker 1: that we had never met in reality.

495
00:28:15,920 --> 00:28:19,240
Speaker 2: This seems like an odd thing for Coleridge to be

496
00:28:21,240 --> 00:28:24,720
Speaker 2: enticed by, because, like, he was a writer, so you'd

497
00:28:24,720 --> 00:28:27,920
Speaker 2: think he'd be more familiar with the concept of creative imagination.

498
00:28:28,119 --> 00:28:31,680
Speaker 2: And how like, yes, a character can start talking back

499
00:28:31,720 --> 00:28:35,040
Speaker 2: to you in your mind and you you haven't met them,

500
00:28:35,200 --> 00:28:37,800
Speaker 2: You made them up. This is part of the creative process.

501
00:28:38,480 --> 00:28:41,520
Speaker 1: I yeah, it's a good point. I kind of interpreted

502
00:28:41,560 --> 00:28:46,400
Speaker 1: those being like again to her point, like recoiling a

503
00:28:46,400 --> 00:28:48,840
Speaker 1: little bit from this. You know what the rational world

504
00:28:49,000 --> 00:28:51,800
Speaker 1: is saying about dreams, You know that it's it is potato.

505
00:28:52,360 --> 00:28:55,760
Speaker 1: And then on the other hand, you know, wanting this

506
00:28:56,360 --> 00:28:59,160
Speaker 1: idea that's more in keeping with the muses, that dreams

507
00:28:59,160 --> 00:29:04,040
Speaker 1: are overpowered, that they that they are coming to us

508
00:29:04,040 --> 00:29:06,360
Speaker 1: and giving us something, giving us a creative gift that

509
00:29:06,400 --> 00:29:10,280
Speaker 1: we might run with. And apparently this is the kind

510
00:29:10,280 --> 00:29:12,080
Speaker 1: of thing that Baxter was talking about. You know, the

511
00:29:12,120 --> 00:29:15,240
Speaker 1: idea that the dreamer is visited during sleep and that

512
00:29:15,360 --> 00:29:18,880
Speaker 1: quote dreaming may degenerate into possession.

513
00:29:20,040 --> 00:29:22,800
Speaker 2: Oh okay, So you could imagine it being attractive for

514
00:29:22,880 --> 00:29:26,120
Speaker 2: Coleridge and other romantic writers to think like this in

515
00:29:26,200 --> 00:29:29,120
Speaker 2: the same way it might have been attractive for writers

516
00:29:29,160 --> 00:29:32,480
Speaker 2: who literally believed in the muses as entities, because it

517
00:29:32,560 --> 00:29:35,800
Speaker 2: gives that same kind of third party authority to what

518
00:29:35,840 --> 00:29:38,640
Speaker 2: you're writing that I was talking about with dreams earlier,

519
00:29:38,800 --> 00:29:42,080
Speaker 2: like you know, if oh, I didn't just make this up,

520
00:29:42,120 --> 00:29:44,840
Speaker 2: this was given to me by a divine being.

521
00:29:45,520 --> 00:29:47,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it reminds me a bit of some

522
00:29:47,240 --> 00:29:50,719
Speaker 1: of our past discussions about the bicameral mind hypothesis, you know,

523
00:29:51,160 --> 00:29:53,120
Speaker 1: as sort of like, okay, there's the idea that a

524
00:29:53,160 --> 00:29:55,520
Speaker 1: god might speak to you, but here's this other idea

525
00:29:55,680 --> 00:29:57,920
Speaker 1: that kind of gets you to a similar place, but

526
00:29:58,000 --> 00:30:01,720
Speaker 1: through a different, different strain of more rational thinking. Though

527
00:30:01,720 --> 00:30:02,920
Speaker 1: I guess at the end of the day, you're still

528
00:30:02,920 --> 00:30:05,920
Speaker 1: talking about some sort of entity outside of your own

529
00:30:06,280 --> 00:30:09,719
Speaker 1: being in the case of Baxter's writing. So I don't know,

530
00:30:10,400 --> 00:30:12,040
Speaker 1: but I guess I tend to sort of interpret it

531
00:30:12,080 --> 00:30:14,720
Speaker 1: here as being like, you know, it's the irrational in

532
00:30:14,800 --> 00:30:18,480
Speaker 1: the rational insight. Any given person's mind, and certainly you're

533
00:30:18,520 --> 00:30:22,200
Speaker 1: able to hold on to and be attracted to conflicting ideas,

534
00:30:22,480 --> 00:30:24,560
Speaker 1: but still from that idea, it's a short walk to

535
00:30:24,640 --> 00:30:27,720
Speaker 1: pre existing concepts of dreams brought on by demons and

536
00:30:27,760 --> 00:30:30,600
Speaker 1: the like. Believe Baxter wrote about the incubus and the

537
00:30:30,600 --> 00:30:34,320
Speaker 1: succubists a bit at least the general concepts the link

538
00:30:34,400 --> 00:30:38,040
Speaker 1: is made between nightmare and madness, and Ford makes special

539
00:30:38,080 --> 00:30:40,800
Speaker 1: mention of this quote. The notion of dreams as possessing

540
00:30:40,800 --> 00:30:43,880
Speaker 1: the dreamer provides a rich source of anxiety and thoughtful

541
00:30:43,880 --> 00:30:47,239
Speaker 1: deliberation for Coleridge and many others who ventured into the

542
00:30:47,240 --> 00:30:51,920
Speaker 1: often hostile territory of the dream. Dreams were involuntary events

543
00:30:51,960 --> 00:30:54,880
Speaker 1: and could not be controlled. Often the dream itself was

544
00:30:54,920 --> 00:30:59,840
Speaker 1: perceived as the controlling force. I know, in my case,

545
00:31:00,040 --> 00:31:03,920
Speaker 1: oftentimes I will sort of think, you know, vaguely about

546
00:31:03,960 --> 00:31:07,160
Speaker 1: like there being something that is programming my dreams, Like

547
00:31:07,200 --> 00:31:10,080
Speaker 1: there's a little person in my head that makes a

548
00:31:10,080 --> 00:31:12,680
Speaker 1: lot of programming choices, like it's a TV channel and

549
00:31:12,800 --> 00:31:17,160
Speaker 1: often makes just illogical programming choices, like like I'll look

550
00:31:17,200 --> 00:31:18,560
Speaker 1: at it and be like, well, think of all the

551
00:31:18,600 --> 00:31:21,320
Speaker 1: things that I did yesterday that I read about, or

552
00:31:21,360 --> 00:31:25,120
Speaker 1: experienced or watched on television, and this is the dream

553
00:31:25,160 --> 00:31:27,880
Speaker 1: you gave me. This was the programming that was selected

554
00:31:28,240 --> 00:31:29,840
Speaker 1: for my night's entertainment.

555
00:31:30,120 --> 00:31:33,440
Speaker 2: We're rerunning transfers five, five times in a row.

556
00:31:35,080 --> 00:31:39,080
Speaker 1: I would love transfer five dreams, but no, it's generally

557
00:31:39,400 --> 00:31:41,280
Speaker 1: a lot more boring. It's like, I don't think you

558
00:31:41,280 --> 00:31:44,040
Speaker 1: know the target audience here. But anyway, one sees this

559
00:31:44,120 --> 00:31:46,280
Speaker 1: idea of dreams possessing the dreamer and the works of

560
00:31:46,320 --> 00:31:51,240
Speaker 1: Coleridge to Quincy, Wordsworth and others. But Coleridge again also

561
00:31:51,360 --> 00:31:53,920
Speaker 1: kept abreast of modern medical writings, as we as the

562
00:31:53,920 --> 00:31:57,800
Speaker 1: writings of people like the physician Erasmus Darwin, who stressed,

563
00:31:57,840 --> 00:32:01,760
Speaker 1: quote the terror of involuntary thoughts, sleep and dream as

564
00:32:01,840 --> 00:32:04,920
Speaker 1: a sub human state in which we cannot fully exert

565
00:32:04,920 --> 00:32:08,120
Speaker 1: our will. So, you know, I guess this seems to

566
00:32:08,120 --> 00:32:10,080
Speaker 1: be just a common theme that everyone who's thinking about

567
00:32:10,120 --> 00:32:12,160
Speaker 1: dreams have to come up against, is that there's we

568
00:32:12,440 --> 00:32:14,560
Speaker 1: can't fully control it. And what does that lack of

569
00:32:14,560 --> 00:32:15,200
Speaker 1: control mean?

570
00:32:15,640 --> 00:32:18,240
Speaker 2: Well, again, when I really think about it, the question

571
00:32:18,320 --> 00:32:20,840
Speaker 2: it raises is what does it mean when we do

572
00:32:20,920 --> 00:32:23,720
Speaker 2: feel like we're in control of our thoughts? What causes

573
00:32:23,760 --> 00:32:28,200
Speaker 2: that sensation because again, like I feel like the closer

574
00:32:28,280 --> 00:32:31,600
Speaker 2: you look at the moment to moment functioning of your

575
00:32:31,640 --> 00:32:36,000
Speaker 2: waking mind, the more mysterious the origins of your thoughts becomes,

576
00:32:36,040 --> 00:32:38,280
Speaker 2: and it can start to feel like a dream. We're like,

577
00:32:38,480 --> 00:32:40,640
Speaker 2: wait a minute, why did I just think about that?

578
00:32:40,880 --> 00:32:45,480
Speaker 2: Did I really have control of thinking about that? What

579
00:32:45,680 --> 00:32:49,720
Speaker 2: made me say transfers five? Where did that come from? Yeah?

580
00:32:49,800 --> 00:32:51,960
Speaker 1: Though, I know what you mean. Though, I guess at

581
00:32:52,000 --> 00:32:54,160
Speaker 1: times there are waking thoughts and you know, if we

582
00:32:54,200 --> 00:32:56,880
Speaker 1: have a really active, you know, default mode network, we

583
00:32:56,920 --> 00:32:59,360
Speaker 1: can kind of self analyze and we'd be like, oh, well,

584
00:32:59,360 --> 00:33:01,400
Speaker 1: this is why my when here, and then you know,

585
00:33:01,440 --> 00:33:04,360
Speaker 1: we can sort of try and trace it. But dreams

586
00:33:04,400 --> 00:33:08,080
Speaker 1: often are more difficult to interpret along those lines, like

587
00:33:08,120 --> 00:33:11,040
Speaker 1: they're less easy to interrogate.

588
00:33:11,240 --> 00:33:12,920
Speaker 2: Well, I guess sort of what I'm getting at is

589
00:33:12,960 --> 00:33:15,680
Speaker 2: that it seems like maybe the difference is that in

590
00:33:15,840 --> 00:33:19,880
Speaker 2: dreams we have less of the illusion of control over

591
00:33:19,920 --> 00:33:22,080
Speaker 2: the direction of our own thoughts that we feel we

592
00:33:22,200 --> 00:33:23,600
Speaker 2: have during waking states.

593
00:33:24,160 --> 00:33:26,840
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely so. You can see a number of these

594
00:33:26,840 --> 00:33:30,760
Speaker 1: ideas reflected in a poem by the romantic author Lord Byron.

595
00:33:31,760 --> 00:33:36,640
Speaker 1: This is a piece that Ford also references in the book,

596
00:33:36,960 --> 00:33:38,479
Speaker 1: but I thought it might be nice to read just

597
00:33:38,640 --> 00:33:41,440
Speaker 1: a portion of it here. Again, this is from Lord

598
00:33:41,440 --> 00:33:43,880
Speaker 1: Byron's The Dream. Joe, do you do the honors? Since

599
00:33:43,920 --> 00:33:46,000
Speaker 1: I read the boretes at the beginning?

600
00:33:46,280 --> 00:33:49,400
Speaker 2: Oh sure, let's see. So this is an excerpt from

601
00:33:49,440 --> 00:33:52,960
Speaker 2: The Dream. They pass like spirits of the past. They

602
00:33:53,000 --> 00:33:56,600
Speaker 2: speak like sybyls of the future. They have power, the

603
00:33:56,680 --> 00:33:59,840
Speaker 2: tyranny of pleasure and of pain. They make us what

604
00:34:00,160 --> 00:34:03,800
Speaker 2: we were, not what they will, and shake us with

605
00:34:03,880 --> 00:34:07,840
Speaker 2: the vision that's gone by, the dread of vanished shadows?

606
00:34:08,320 --> 00:34:12,000
Speaker 2: Are they? So? Is not the past all shadow? What

607
00:34:12,160 --> 00:34:14,400
Speaker 2: are they? Creations of the mind?

608
00:34:15,200 --> 00:34:16,759
Speaker 1: All right, Well, on that note, we're going to go

609
00:34:16,800 --> 00:34:19,160
Speaker 1: ahead and close out this episode, but we'll be back

610
00:34:19,600 --> 00:34:22,600
Speaker 1: in part two and we'll continue to discuss this idea

611
00:34:22,640 --> 00:34:25,120
Speaker 1: of the mystique of dreaming these different places where in

612
00:34:25,560 --> 00:34:28,240
Speaker 1: time where there's there seems to have been a surge

613
00:34:28,280 --> 00:34:31,360
Speaker 1: and interest in the power of dreams and the like,

614
00:34:31,400 --> 00:34:34,080
Speaker 1: the practicality even of dreams. So we'll look at a

615
00:34:34,080 --> 00:34:38,680
Speaker 1: few other different cultures, including the Ming dynasty example that

616
00:34:38,800 --> 00:34:42,400
Speaker 1: Struve is directly mentioning, and eventually we'll get to that monster.

617
00:34:42,440 --> 00:34:44,920
Speaker 1: I don't know that may be even further along. But

618
00:34:45,080 --> 00:34:46,640
Speaker 1: at the end, there's a monster at the end of

619
00:34:46,680 --> 00:34:47,720
Speaker 1: this book, is what I'm saying.

620
00:34:48,160 --> 00:34:50,680
Speaker 2: Will it steal my dreams? It might?

621
00:34:50,800 --> 00:34:53,319
Speaker 1: It meant very well, might, or it might just help

622
00:34:53,360 --> 00:34:56,239
Speaker 1: you build ikea furniture for all night long?

623
00:34:57,280 --> 00:34:59,080
Speaker 2: Will it steal a green suit for me?

624
00:34:59,640 --> 00:35:02,319
Speaker 1: Ooh, one would hope, One would hope that monster has

625
00:35:02,320 --> 00:35:05,279
Speaker 1: connections all right. Well. In the meantime, if you want

626
00:35:05,280 --> 00:35:07,920
Speaker 1: to write in about your dreams, hey, We're always happy

627
00:35:08,040 --> 00:35:11,640
Speaker 1: to hear them. Our listener mail episodes published on Mondays,

628
00:35:11,680 --> 00:35:14,880
Speaker 1: Core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Wednesdays we do

629
00:35:14,920 --> 00:35:17,440
Speaker 1: a short form monster fact or artifact episode, and on

630
00:35:17,480 --> 00:35:19,680
Speaker 1: Fridays we set aside most serious concerns to just talk

631
00:35:19,719 --> 00:35:21,920
Speaker 1: about a weird film on Weird House Cinema.

632
00:35:22,320 --> 00:35:26,080
Speaker 2: Huge thanks to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway. If

633
00:35:26,080 --> 00:35:27,600
Speaker 2: you would like to get in touch with us with

634
00:35:27,680 --> 00:35:30,200
Speaker 2: feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a

635
00:35:30,280 --> 00:35:32,440
Speaker 2: topic for the future, or just to say hello, you

636
00:35:32,480 --> 00:35:35,600
Speaker 2: can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your

637
00:35:35,640 --> 00:35:45,760
Speaker 2: Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production

638
00:35:45,880 --> 00:35:49,000
Speaker 2: of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, from My heart Radio, visit

639
00:35:49,080 --> 00:35:52,080
Speaker 2: the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to

640
00:35:52,120 --> 00:35:52,880
Speaker 2: your favorite shows

641
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Speaker 1: With Ratt