Open AccessDreaming about the body: Daniel 2:32–35 interpreted from a psychoanalytical perspective
Author(s) -
Pieter Van der Zwan
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
hts teologiese studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2072-8050
pISSN - 0259-9422
DOI - 10.4102/hts.v74i3.5095
Subject(s) - dream , psychoanalysis , unconscious mind , context (archaeology) , perspective (graphical) , interpretation (philosophy) , psychoanalytic theory , psychology , statue , epistemology , philosophy , history , art , psychotherapist , art history , linguistics , archaeology , visual arts
Just as the text is layered by redactional processes and its effects by reception processes, so different meanings of the statue of a human body in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream can be psychoanalytically ‘excavated’. Following a typical psychoanalytical dream interpretation, the possibility has therefore been explored of the body referring to the king as an individual before it was reinterpreted as a societal, collective body, the latter serving as a defence against the anxiety which the former would cause. Re-experiencing these common, human, unconscious anxieties and processing them could facilitate psychological healing and health, especially in the postmodern, pluralistic and eco-threatened context, which the dream seems to adumbrate.