Drömkultuer
(2017) ILHK02 20162Division of History of Ideas and Sciences
- Abstract
- The aim of this essay is to shed light on a part of the human consciousness that has been given little attention in the history of ideas, the dream. Through a historicizing of dreams, this essay wants to make history out of something natural, a way to see culture where there used to be nature. This is done by looking at three explanations of dreams, from different points in time, in order to examine if or how the understanding of dreams has changed.
The first explanation presented is the premodern-view, a biblical explanation of dreams with roots in the antique philosophies in this essay represented by the Swedish scientist, theologian and philosopher, Emanuel Swedenborg in his Drömboken (1752). The second explanation is Sigmund Freud’s... (More) - The aim of this essay is to shed light on a part of the human consciousness that has been given little attention in the history of ideas, the dream. Through a historicizing of dreams, this essay wants to make history out of something natural, a way to see culture where there used to be nature. This is done by looking at three explanations of dreams, from different points in time, in order to examine if or how the understanding of dreams has changed.
The first explanation presented is the premodern-view, a biblical explanation of dreams with roots in the antique philosophies in this essay represented by the Swedish scientist, theologian and philosopher, Emanuel Swedenborg in his Drömboken (1752). The second explanation is Sigmund Freud’s psychodynamic theory of dreams which he presented in Die Traumdeutung (1900) and the last explanation is the experimental, neurological theories of today, seen through the eyes of modern psychology and the technical equipment of neuro science. The study shows that the explanation of the dream has shifted from being described as messages from spirits and God with content that could predict future events to being productions of the dreamers own mind. With Freud the dream is no longer dealing with future events but with the past, child hood memories and traumas and the dreams are all expressions of supressed wishes. Furthermore, the essay underscores that the dream today has been reduced to random neural activity that may, but most likely may not, have a meaning of its own. However, the dream has, to some extent, kept its relevance in medical studies with a certain diagnostic ability to distinguish between healthy and sick, normal and divergent.
Through this historicizing of dreams, this essay suggests the concept of “dream cultures”. This implies that the understanding of dream is, and have always been relative to the society and the context in which dreams has been explained. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/8904262
- author
- Folger, Simon LU
- supervisor
- organization
- alternative title
- En idéhistorisk undersökning av drömmen
- course
- ILHK02 20162
- year
- 2017
- type
- M2 - Bachelor Degree
- subject
- language
- Swedish
- id
- 8904262
- date added to LUP
- 2018-05-18 10:02:40
- date last changed
- 2018-05-18 10:02:40
@misc{8904262,
abstract = {{The aim of this essay is to shed light on a part of the human consciousness that has been given little attention in the history of ideas, the dream. Through a historicizing of dreams, this essay wants to make history out of something natural, a way to see culture where there used to be nature. This is done by looking at three explanations of dreams, from different points in time, in order to examine if or how the understanding of dreams has changed.
The first explanation presented is the premodern-view, a biblical explanation of dreams with roots in the antique philosophies in this essay represented by the Swedish scientist, theologian and philosopher, Emanuel Swedenborg in his Drömboken (1752). The second explanation is Sigmund Freud’s psychodynamic theory of dreams which he presented in Die Traumdeutung (1900) and the last explanation is the experimental, neurological theories of today, seen through the eyes of modern psychology and the technical equipment of neuro science. The study shows that the explanation of the dream has shifted from being described as messages from spirits and God with content that could predict future events to being productions of the dreamers own mind. With Freud the dream is no longer dealing with future events but with the past, child hood memories and traumas and the dreams are all expressions of supressed wishes. Furthermore, the essay underscores that the dream today has been reduced to random neural activity that may, but most likely may not, have a meaning of its own. However, the dream has, to some extent, kept its relevance in medical studies with a certain diagnostic ability to distinguish between healthy and sick, normal and divergent.
Through this historicizing of dreams, this essay suggests the concept of “dream cultures”. This implies that the understanding of dream is, and have always been relative to the society and the context in which dreams has been explained.}},
author = {{Folger, Simon}},
language = {{swe}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Drömkultuer}},
year = {{2017}},
}