Art?

I've been thinking about Art recently. I think one of the main distinctions that can be made is the pre-reflective and the post reflective methods. The pre-reflective may reveal something about the cultural and biological world of human beings. Post-reflective can also show worlds that may not be obvious, like in modern art for example. It would appear at first modern art has no obvious world that it references to. But is this not the point? Modern art references the picture plane, through this it points to the world of art itself as a work among works.

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Dream Analysis Part 3: Lacan

Okay for the final analysis I will be working with an interpretation that I am not as experienced with. A Lacanian analysis of my dream. The ordinary interpretation that I have developed so far is that the dream is reminding me of my situation with love. But this is looking at the dream's symbolic content which may be distracting from its real content. What my secret wish was, to make the right choice no matter what regarding love, under the Freudian interpretation is not really important. What is more important is the fact that it used school, tests, teachers, extroverted classmates, and symbols that link to art history and geek culture to fulfill this wish. The dream had to use this because the unconscious ideas needed a way to be articulated in the symbolic order which makes them morally okay. The imagery of school is deemed as fine. All these things are removed from the world of dating and romance. This shows what exactly my unconscious thinks is okay, what can be allowed. School, girls I would never date, geek culture, and anime comics about romance are all fine for me. It betrayed itself most in the comic though and that is why the both the Freudian and Jungian analysis was able to get as far as it did. What exactly is wrong with romance? Well it goes back to my grand conflict with the religion that I am raised with. Under this religion dating is something that people in the market for marriage. Dating would be a sign of my rejection, thus my death on judgement day. This is the dream's real meaning under Lacanian interpretation.

Well that's all, I learned alot. Dreams have more meaning than you may think especially if you remember them. 

Dream Analysis Part 2: Jung

When undertaking a Jungian analysis then the question that must be asked: "What is the unconscious trying to tell me?" I must consider the dream's symbolism. So I'll start with the location: The school-  authority, learning, and social life. Sue and Jen- Humor, weirdness, and extroversion. Doctor- Knowledge, Religion, Buddhism, Christianity, Science, and Old Times. The weird symbol itself- The empire is a repressive regime with cool looking aesthetics, the rebel cause is about freedom however its a rather quaint bunch of heros (rather traditional, American made), the symbol seems ancient as if I've seen it somewhere before, looks somewhat heart shaped. Tests: Hard, bad, failure, risk, work, systems in the political sense. I think the narrative of the cartoons has been explained (I can't remember anymore than that which I've written down) above all I associate it with Heather.

Maybe Doctor is a wise old man archetype? If so, then he is testing us for some reason. Testing me about love? Maybe this dream is simply making clear to me where I stand with love in my mind. I draw the symbol easily with all its associations. Love looks cool, seems dangerous, yet also carries with it a quaint normalcy which I don't like. The extroverts take a different view of it than me, un-understandable to me yet equally right in the eyes of wisdom. So I work well with the idea of love, yet when faced the actual narrative reality, seeing a reproduction of my real situation with others, of it I am powerless. And what Doctor tells further alerts me to this fact.

I think I got somewhere with that. Next and finally Lacan.

Dream Analysis Part 1: Freud

Dream: I walk into a class room at my school. Two girls who will be called Jen and Sue are there talking to the teacher affectionately known to the school as The Doctor. He says the test is not too hard, though there are some tricky problems. One of the questions on this test appears to be an instruction to draw a symbol. The girls say they can't draw the symbol, they draw it in a weird sideways fashion while I draw it well right side up. They symbol has a curve at the top which connects through a line to some other curves. It reminds me of the Star Wars symbol for the Empire. Doctor says both symbols are acceptable. I sit down to take the rest of the test. The test shows an anime cartoon of about a a love triangle between a girl and two guys. The test then ask questions like: What are these character's relationships? I find the test too hard and ask Doctor what exactly the questions are for? He says he won't tell but that some questions on the test are tricky. I feel a breeze coming from outside the door.

So now I must undertake an analysis of this dream. The first interpretation I will do will be Freudian. I know Jen and Sue were in my class last year with Doctor. Doctor's first class was hard, his second was easy. Doctor is a chemistry and physics teacher. The test will not be to hard but it will present some problems. The first challenge is the symbol. Like in the Prince and the Pauper I draw the symbol right, thus meriting something. But Doctor says both are right. Though I associate the symbol with the Star Wars Empire in the dream, upon reflection it appears to look more like the rebel symbol. The love triangle puzzles me and Doctor won't tell me the answer. 

My associations with Sue and Jen need to be talked about. They are friends with this girl I was thinking of asking out (which is a big deal for me). I also know they don't understand whatever Doctor teaches us. Since the manifest dream content seems to point toward the second, the unconscious meaning must be about the first. This becomes clear when I analyze the rest of the dream. Doctor has several associations for me. He is a spiritual and philosophical man. He had been coaching me on my Heidegger paper, but transfered me because he hated Heidegger's language. He would rant about how our generation was disrespectful and lazy sometimes.

The love triangle. Odd. First the story is presented in an Anime format, the only format that I can tolerate love stories in. My understanding of this is frustrated in the dream I think because in the dream I was think of it as an academic activity. How does one test on that? Yet I face the choice right now in my waking life of throwing myself into a love triangle. The girl (whom we will call Heather) who is friends with Jen and Sue is trying to get my friend to go to the dance with her. He does not want to because she already has a boy friend. The boy friend does not want to the dance and does not mind Heather going with my friend. She doesn't seem to like her boyfriend all that much. I face the choice of throwing myself in the middle of all this, telling Heather if my friend doesn't want to go I'll go. So I must take Sue and Jen as Heather or my relationship with Heather and the love triangle as my situation. Both my symbol and Heather's symbols are right in Doctor's eyes. If I pursue a relationship with Heather (the wrong way according to religious guilty superego) it still fine my dream tells me. And if I choose to not, that's even righter. The dream serves as wish fulfillment in both ways. The test serves as a distraction from this, reminding me that one can't calculate a matter such as this rationally and therefore not to deny the heart. Thus I can be right no matter what I do in relation to Heather. The dream fulfills my wish that I make a satisfying choice regarding Heather not denying my feelings yet also not denying the risks I fear with regard to entering a relationship.

I think I may have done something wrong here but I did the best I could. First time analyzing a dream like this. Next analysis: Jung

Dead and Undead

So I was listening to Zizek and Zizek harkens back to a Kantian idea. The difference between a negative and infinite judgement. "You are dead" negation "You are not dead.". "You are undead." affirmation of a non-predicate. This invokes the infinity of the supernatural. I have always regarded vampires as a symbol of the Anti-life no values nihilism. They feed off life (in the Bible blood is the symbol of life and God's holy gift) yet they are never alive, they only drag other people into their realm of Nonsein (not being). But this a problem because they are are there. They have impact on Dasein. This affirmation of a non-predicate (even though in Kant being is not a predicate, but Heidegger deals with him) gives evil its proper due. It is total defamation of the holy because it has infinite affirmation of the Other. Death is not the other. Death is what God brings to the Other because the Other's existence as a non-predicate. Death is the wages sin pays, and the undead is sin + infinity. Human sins are finite, we have a savior who takes them away. Undead is simply wrong without end unless something else that is infinite takes action through death. This shows the privilege given to God, blood, and humanity. It's the heart of the message. And while this morality seems fascistic, it is also a good defining point if we look at it in a non religious point of view. An interpretation of being that infinitely goes and conquers all must be counter acted by another one that does the same thing yet is privileged by virtue of its primordiality. One that embraces rather than cuts off and separates, that is, discloses more and more rather than covers over.

Possible problems: Where would plurality be in this interpretation I seek? I don't know too much about Derrida, yet I already can tell he would have several issues with my ideas here. A disclaimer is that the Christian remarks I have made were for thought experiment purpose alone, if Job teaches anything its that we should not assume too much about supernatural and divine matters beyond what God tells us. Also is there not a totalizing, everybody else has been totally wrong way in this. But that's more of a matter of phrasing, and besides I side with Heidegger at least and I see the wonders of Kantian logic. Need input.