Dreams change under authoritarianism (2019)

https://www.newyorker.com/books/second-read/how-dreams-change-under-authoritarianism

by apollinaire • 4 years ago

139 107 4 years ago

newyorker.com

hulitu• 4 years ago

Dreams change under authoritarianism (2019)

But propaganda never changes.

birdyrooster• 4 years ago

What sort of vague comment is this? What do you mean?

tigen• 4 years ago

The comment needs little elaboration. It's devastatingly clear and almost vulgar, all the more truthful for its strangeness.

parker_mountain• 4 years ago

It sounds deep, but it really doesn't mean anything. Propaganda has a wide range of techniques, deployment, and permeation into society - some do it more than others, some do it differently than others.

akomtu• 4 years ago

psychoanalyst Frances Lang has noted, it’s strange, then, that Beradt’s book has gone “virtually unrecognised” in America

Such a book would make people think in wrong directions, i.e. directions that dont serve the ruling class.

DoreenMichele2• 4 years ago

In another, the woman found herself surrounded by workers, including a milkman, a gasman, a newsagent, and a plumber. She felt calm, until she spied among them a chimney sweep. (In her family, the German word for “chimney sweep” was code for the S.S., a nod to the trade’s blackened clothing.)

Terrific example of how dreams are an idiolect (a dialect of one person).

(Edit) In case it's not clear:

The point I am trying to make is that you wouldn't know why a chimney sweep would be an upsetting image without the part in parentheses clarifying what that meant to her. Dream imagery is a symbolic language drawn from our life experiences and much of it will not be obviously meaningful to an outsider who doesn't know the backstory.

1MachineElf• 4 years ago

The various tradesman here remind me of the Germans seen in Don't Be a Sucker (1945), a piece of war propaganda produced by the US Army: https://youtu.be/vGAqYNFQdZ4

wruza2• 4 years ago

Interesting, I’ve never noticed such symbolism in my dreams (that I remember), neither enough reasoning abilities to relate something symbolic to a real phenomenon.

One of my recent dreams was about me in a room full of indifferent people and one with a knife looking at me. I took a knife away from him, pushed him onto a window sill and carved crosses on his knees.

I have no idea what this means.

Jarwain• 4 years ago

Feels like something about the bystander effect, about feeling attacked or threatened while everyone around you is indifferent. And how in such a situation, you want more than just defence or neutralizing the threat, but some sorta vengeance? Ensuring that it won't become a problem again? Taking power/agency to do so, in a situation where noone else will?

This is just what kinda popped into my mind. Nightcap guru (from the other top post) suggested this:

This dream likely symbolizes a feeling of helplessness and vulnerability in your current life.
The indifferent people in the dream could represent a lack of support or understanding from those around you. The figure with the knife symbolizes someone or something that is causing you fear and anxiety. By taking the knife away from them and carving crosses onto their knees, you are asserting your power over the source of your fear and taking control of the situation. This dream could be interpreted as a sign that you have the strength and courage to overcome whatever is causing you fear and anxiety.

DoreenMichele2• 4 years ago

It's not enough info to interpret it. You would need to start by breaking down some of the symbols.

Crosses are a Christian symbol. Are you Christian or not?

Crosses were used by the Roman Empire to punish people and were so painful they had to invent a new word for it: Excruciating.

Crosses get used in popular fiction as protective symbols against monsters, like vampires and werewolves.

But what does a cross mean to you?

Knees can be a symbol of humbleness, a la "get down on your knees." They can also be a symbol of a point of vulnerability.

But what do knees mean to you?

A window might be a "window of opportunity" -- ie a time frame in which something could occur. Pushing a person onto a window sill could be putting something in place for a particular time frame.

But what does a window sill mean to you?

Dreaming of individuals you actually know rarely is about that person. Instead, that person symbolizes something to you or sometimes your description of them in the dream is a play on words. When I had a corporate job, dreams of my ex husband were really dreams about my job. I was "working for The Man" and "married to my job," so my job was "The Man in my life."

08234987234987218• 4 years ago

I wonder what authoritarian[0] evangelicals' sleeping dreams are like. I have read theories[1] that suggest their waking dream of establishing Gilead is because they fear the the outside world[2], and considering that even I don't care much for this XXI, I suppose they must be near paranoia with progress.

[0] the adjective is very important here; supposedly Carter has complained in public about the hijacking of US evangelical churches by godbotherers, but while plausible I haven't confirmed the quote.

[1] Bob Altemeyer had academic studies of correlation between fear levels and willingness to follow authoritarian leaders; to me it sounded awfully like the phenomenon of fear-biting in dogs (a vice to be avoided if one is looking for a good hunting prospect).

[2] evidently never having heard « Il faut de tout pour faire un monde » ?

badrabbit3• 4 years ago

You speak in propaganda terminology, your assumptions cloud your views imo.

08234987234987218• 4 years ago

If you explain which assumptions you find cloudy, I can either justify or reëvaluate them.

If you explain which wordings you find propaganda terminology, I might attempt to restate them.

====

Edit: following Linebarger's injunction from Psychological Warfare[0]:

The point will invariably arise: "This tells me how to listen to a foreign radio. Okay, I'll get the news, the lectures, the plays—all the rest of it. But so what? How am I going to know what's the truth and what's propaganda? How can I tell 'em apart? Tell me that!"
The answer is simple: "If you agree with it, it's truth. If you don't agree, it's propaganda. Pretend that it is all propaganda. See what happens on your analysis reports."

let's do an analysis of my post:

Source: 082349872349872 (ostensible, first-use, and, I claim, also the true source), transmitted on HN

Time: Monday morning, no retransmission, non-peculiar time.

Audience: HN

Subject: query on the relation between fear, dreams, and authoritarian evangelicals

Mission: white propaganda soliciting information about content of dreams outside the author's social circles, and informing about the existence of academic studies relating fear and following authoritarian leaders. potential ostensible second-use wrt James "Jimmy" Carter.

Exercise: perform your own analysis, according to the STASM model or your own.

[0] https://www.gutenberg.org/files/48612/48612-h/48612-h.htm#Pa...

bheadmaster2• 4 years ago

Useless comment. Brings absolutely no new information to the table.

Anyone can accuse anyone of speaking in propaganda terminology, it doesn't mean anything in itself, as there's no clear distinction between "propaganda terminology" and "non-propaganda terminology" - propaganda often uses terminology that is also used in non-propaganda conversations.

And our assumptions are always influencing our views, that's kind of a given - you can't have views without assumptions. Are you implying that you, yourself, don't have any assumptions, but instead rely on some kind of divine truth?

trelane4• 4 years ago

"propaganda" is overstating it, but it's hardly a respectful engagement (e.g. "godbotherers"). They appear to have no deep engagement with real evangelical Christians, preferring to argue from stereotypes and pure conjecture arising therefrom.

Anyway, you're not entirely correct, but they're pretty clearly bordering on trolling.

Borrible• 4 years ago

One Man's Dream Is Another Man's Nightmare.

therockspush• 4 years ago

Every man I know has had a dream about not being able to punch in their dream.

Every person I know that went to college has had a dream about being lost or stuck on campus.

Dreams about being in the backseat of a car unable to reach the pedals are so common it makes me wonder.

Roark662• 4 years ago

It is worth mentioning there is a difference in general how people think in new authoritarianisms and in those that have been ongoing for decades. Here someone dreams that dreams are forbidden and does it anyway. When one's lived their entire life under authoritarian rule one's dreams are often already self censored. When your next door neighbor is dragged out of his flat at 4am by secret service never to appear again and You think that is how things should be any manifestation of "reactionary" thought is unbearable. This makes the fact we have diaries and books written even in places like Russian gulags in which people record such thoughts even more astonishing. Long time ago as a teenager I hated being forced to read those "horribly depressing" books, but now I think it should be required reading in schools specially in countries that did this stuff to their citizens and others.

stdbrouw2• 4 years ago

Language nitpick: a reactionary reacts against reform and favors the status quo, in authoritarian regimes revolutionary thoughts become unbearable.

yostrovs• 4 years ago

Authoritarian regimes often come from revolutions and present themselves as revolutionary, even many decades after the revolution. So anyone suspect of being against the regime is described as being reactionary.

boredumb2• 4 years ago

Since he referred to the gulag in Russia, which was authoritarianism installed by left wing revolutionaries, using the word reactionary is accurate.

eli_gottlieb• 4 years ago

In capitalist America, being against the government is revolutionary.

In Soviet Russia, being against the government is reactionary!

cryptonector• 4 years ago

Except it depends on usage. In Soviet times and places "reactionary" meant being against the regime.

badpun• 4 years ago

Dostoyevsky is a good example of that - he was caught taking part in (relatively innocent) freethink anti-carist meetings and got sent for 8 years to a severe Siberian labor camp for it. While staying there, he gradually converted to being pro-carist and pro-regime, a stance that was not just a fake to potentially get him out of there sooner.

failuser• 4 years ago

The conversion is not fake, that is a pretty common trajectory. BTW, he was scheduled for execution, brought to the gallows and pardoned at the last second. That alone changed him.

FpUser• 4 years ago

"but now I think it should be required reading in schools"

Let me up the ante. Put real unedited war / oppression / prison / etc. etc. footage including most gory stuff on youtube and TV and feed it to people every day "specially in countries that did this stuff to their citizens and others."

Bet this will destroy quite a few governments.

08234987234987218• 4 years ago

It had come to [Squealer's] knowledge, he said, that a foolish and wicked rumour had been circulated at the time of Boxer's removal. Some of the animals had noticed that the van which took Boxer away was marked "Horse Slaughterer," and had actually jumped to the conclusion that Boxer was being sent to the knacker's. It was almost unbelievable, said Squealer, that any animal could be so stupid. Surely, he cried indignantly, whisking his tail and skipping from side to side, surely they knew their beloved Leader, Comrade Napoleon, better than that? But the explanation was really very simple. The van had previously been the property of the knacker, and had been bought by the veterinary surgeon, who had not yet painted the old name out. That was how the mistake had arisen.

martopix• 4 years ago

A nice novel to read, somewhat related to the topic: The palace of dreams, by Albanian writer Ismail Kadare

nonrandomstring2• 4 years ago

Under authoritarianism people stop seeing things. "Percepticide" is what Diana Taylor calls it [1] and what Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann refers to as the "Spiral of Silence" [2]. Dreams contain unprocessed experience and suppression pushes that down into the unconscious where it is processed and expressed in a creative and safe way. Such sublime, symbolic expressions are extremely powerful weapons against the suppressing force, and this is why (real not imitative) art, writing and Psychoanalysis is feared by all mechanical and authoritarian regimes.

[1] Diana Taylor, Disappearing Acts: Spectacles of Gender and Nationalism in Argentina's Dirty War.

[2] Noelle-Neumann, The spiral of silence: Public opinion, our social skin, University of Chicago Press (1973)

bowsamic3• 4 years ago

(real not imitative) art

What is real art vs imitative art? I've never heard of these terms

class4behavior• 4 years ago

Read the overview on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art

msla• 4 years ago

This is utter nonsense, of course, and precisely what an authoritarian would say.

tryauuum• 4 years ago

I didn't read the article but I want to ask

How do you even distinguish dreams (plans or visions of future) from dreams (experiences your have while sleeping) in English language? In my mother tongue there are different words for these things

08234987234987218• 4 years ago

Context is the only method of which I'm aware. Or expanding, as you did parenthetically.

DFHippie• 4 years ago

There are different words in English, too. You yourself have used a few; e.g., "plans". It's just that the standard term for the night hallucination is "dream" and a standard metaphorical use of this term is roughly "ideal future". Generally context is sufficient to determine whether you are using the term literally or metaphorically. If you are determined to make it absolutely clear which use is intended, you can crack open a thesaurus, but when you would want to do this -- in a psychology paper, say -- is precisely when the context is particularly good at disambiguating the two uses.

Wohlf• 4 years ago

Context clues, it's rarely an issue in practice for native speakers:

- "I dreamt about you last night" - clearly a sleeping dream

- "I dream of being a doctor" - clearly a future desire

- "It's a dream come true" - ambiguous but the difference isn't important

In my experience there's also a cultural implication/expectation that the different meanings are often intertwined, i.e. desiring something so strongly you have dreams about it.

wbazant• 4 years ago

Really cool to see that the libraries have preserved this book. It's out of print for so long that the copies on Amazon are 400$ upwards, but I was able to fetch a pdf from LibGen - someone has digitised a copy from a Turkish university library.

FailMore2• 4 years ago

I wrote a paper on dream interpretation that explains the neurology of REM sleep. It is common for us all and I believe has a consistent impact on the content of dreams. If you'd like to read it you can check it out here: https://psyarxiv.com/k6trz

It was discussed on HN here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19143590

08234987234987218• 4 years ago

Since then have you had more success with content prediction?

FailMore2• 4 years ago

Not formally (as in a formal experiment), but the theory has remained consistent from my interactions. I'm training to become a psychotherapist so I will be curious to see how things hold up in the consulting room

blumomo2• 4 years ago

How Dreams Change Under Authoritarianism When the Nazis came to power, the writer Charlotte Beradt began collecting dreams. What did she learn?

Also true, as everyone can confirm who did this: Dreams significantly change when you start paying attention to your dreams, i.e. by collecting them.

So, is authoritarianism really the _cause_ of the dreams changing, in the case of Charlotte Beradt? I bet, not.

hairofadog• 4 years ago

But how would a person know if their dreams had changed before & after they started paying attention to them?

Yesterday my partner and I walked past a restaurant and the sign had changed from whatever it was to “Rosie’s” and I said, “Oh look, that’s different” and she said, “it’s been like that for years”.

blumomo2• 4 years ago

Dreams always change if you pay attention to them. Focusing on dreams by nature changes/develops your consciousness. So that you can’t attribute these changes to outer conditions.

Your example with the restaurant sign doesn’t work because your consciousness didn’t alter the signs. But looking at your dreams will.

swayvil2• 4 years ago

http://libgen.rs/search.php?req=Third+reich+of+dreams&lg_top...

God bless Libgen

swayvil2• 4 years ago

Speaking of dreams, I have friends who tell me that they never dream. (Or perhaps they never remember their dreams.)

I know that Vipassana meditation increases dreaming. And weed decreases dreaming. And maybe intense mental labor or media-consumption has an affect on it too.

What else affects how much you dream?

didsomeonesay• 4 years ago

Speaking from personal experience, regular distance running increased my dreaming (among other things).

seneca• 4 years ago

Sleep apnea is a big cause of people not dreaming. They're not consistently getting into deep sleep cycles due to the constant breathing interruptions is how I had it explained to me.

LarryMullins3• 4 years ago

Regular cannabis consumption can suppress dreams. Quitting cold turkey may subsequently cause a week of intense vivid dreams, followed by a return to normal dreaming.

giuppep• 4 years ago

Another interesting article about dreams under (foreign) authoritarian rule: https://aeon.co/essays/britains-imperial-dream-catchers-and-...

"In the early 20th-century Age of Empire, when European colonies stretched across the world, psychoanalysis was the novel technique of the moment. In an attempt to better understand their colonial subjects in those years, officials in the British empire undertook a curious and little-known research project: to collect dreams from the people of South Asia, Africa and the Pacific."

08234987234987218• 4 years ago

Whether in Freudian or Jungian perspective, Seligman saw that the colonial subjects’ dreams pointed in the direction of one unexpected conclusion. As he put it in 1932 : ‘The savage mind and the mind of Western civilised man are essentially alike.’

That this was a novel conclusion shocks me, less than a century later!

Linebarger makes similar points to what the British discovered here in his Psychological Warfare book I've cited in another thread; reading between the lines he makes a strong, if implicit case, for desegregating the US Army in the 1940s edition (something they would eventually do ~Korea — but still in advance of much of civilian society) and for taking decolonisation seriously in a later, domino-theory-era, edition.

Dreams change under authoritarianism (2019)

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