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Ambiguity as Dream Mentation: Supermasculinity and Ambivalence in American Dreams
Author(s) -
Mageo Jeannette
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
ethos
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.783
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 1548-1352
pISSN - 0091-2131
DOI - 10.1111/etho.12244
Subject(s) - dream , ambivalence , ambiguity , psychology , interpretation (philosophy) , meaning (existential) , psychoanalysis , aesthetics , social psychology , art , philosophy , linguistics , psychotherapist
Ambiguity, this paper argues, is not merely a property of dream imagery, but ignites a process that is dreaming thinking. When images are ambiguous, the mind cannot fix on a single meaning. Hence dream ambiguity catalyzes a play of possible meanings that implicitly raises questions, not only about personal memories but also about those cultural models that these memories evoke. Dream thinking, then, renders people's ongoing subjective reactions to culture into images. Through data from a 2004 to 2009 study of Northwest American student dreams and life histories, I propose that people think within dreams by representing daily ambivalences as visual ambiguities. Excerpts from this dream study illustrate seven types of visual ambiguity in dreams. Implicit in this taxonomy is a method of cultural dream interpretation that I present through an analysis of a full dream from a young man, Clarence. Through this analysis I show how ambiguities in Clarence's dream represent his ambivalence about an American masculinity model—one that may underlie the school shootings that are now so common in the United States.