ANALYST FOR INTERPRETATION IN PSYCHOANALYTC …...the dream, explicit levels of wish or fantasy, levels of problem solving, the emotional qualities of the dream such as levels and

WHO IS THE ldquoAUTHORrdquo OF THE DREAM THAT IS PRESENTED BY THE

ANALYST FOR INTERPRETATION IN PSYCHOANALYTC FORUMS

Siamak Movahedi PhD

University of Massachusetts Boston amp

Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis

ABSTRACT

ldquoWe share a world when we are awake each sleeper is in a world of his ownrdquo

This is the Heraclitean principle that according to Michel Foucault sets up the

dream as the manifestation of the soul in its inwardness But what is the world

that we share and what is the world of onersquos own And what is this ldquowerdquo and

what is that ldquoonerdquo This paper contains some reflections on the relationship

between the dreamer the dream the audience and the telling The discussion

will begin with the report of a quantitative study aimed at detecting those

aspects of the manifest content of dreams that would remain relatively stable

across different individuals but would cluster around certain clinical constructs

such as levels of projections or narcissism One of the aims of this paper is to

show that statistical analysis and hermeneutics are not mutually exclusive And

also to show that if dreamsmdash intentional dialogic textual discourse using

Mikhail Bakhtinrsquos wordsmdash are transformed into voiceless things (statistical

categories) correlations among (otherrsquos) wordsmdashmasquerading as variablesmdash

continue to speak about dialogic activities rather than about causal

relationships

ldquoWe share a world when we are awake each sleeper is in a world of his ownrdquo

This is the Heraclitean principle that according to Michel Foucault (1954) sets up the

dream as the manifestation of the soul in its inwardness But what is the world that we

share and what is the world of onersquos own And what is this ldquowerdquo and what is that

ldquoonerdquo Also there is hardly any paper on dream that does not exploit Freudrsquos (1900)

assertion that Dreams is the Royal road to the unconsciousrdquo But is the unconscious

the world that we share or is it the world of my own And if the unconscious is ldquothe

thought without thinkerrdquo which according to Lacan (1964) is constructed like a

language where can it be located but in the symbolic spacendashin the social unconscious

that we all share when we are awake And what is the nature of this symbolic space

Is it Lacanrsquos reified and magical chain of signifiers that imprisons the ghost or is it

Wittgensteinrsquos linguistic practices or rules of interpretation And if we are willing to

entertain Thomas Mannrsquos (Saal 1982) theory that dreams are dreamt because they

have been already interpreted am I the author of my dreams or am I simply repeating

the interpretation of the Other

This paper contains some reflections on the relationship between the dreamer

the dream the audience and the telling We do not however take the relationship

between the dreamer the narrator of the dream the subject of the dream and the

audience for granted The author of the dream may not be the same as the subject who

reports the dream the external addressee may be in part a projection of the internal

audience and the internal audience may keep on changing representing different parts

of the self

This paper seeks to explore this question by presenting the outcome of

a project in a psychoanalytic research workshop in a quantitative analysis of dreamsrsquo

manifest content My aim in the secondary analysis of that data was to detect those

aspects of the manifest content of dreams that would remain relatively stable across

different individuals but would cluster around certain clinical constructs such as levels

of projections or narcissism and co-vary with some sociological variables such as

class or gender

I am aware that the meaning of a dream on its manifest level may be

deciphered only within the transference-countertransference matrix of the analytic

situation Nevertheless if a dream is divorced from the analytic process it may at

least inform about the subjectrsquos mode of object relations and his or her preferred style

of engagement with the external world A modal pattern of engagement with the object

world by itself may also provide some anthropological or sociological insights Although

the interpretation of dreams calls for an ideographic method the study of those aspects

of manifest dreams that remain relatively stable across different individuals calls for

a nomothetic method

This project emerged from a Psychoanalytic Research Conference attended by

forty five analysts One critical aim of the conference was to address the hotly debated

controversy over the ldquoproperrdquo set of criteria for the evaluation of psychoanalytic

knowledge-claims We are all aware of the call for new approaches to research and for

new forms of data analysis in psychoanalysis Yet an epistemological confusion about

the nature of empirical knowledge continues to add fuel to the fire of this

methodological controversy Empirical knowledge has come to be associated with

quantification Empirical research has been understood as any systematic study that

allows for some form of statistical data analysis (Cooper 1992) Nevertheless a major

part of the psychoanalytic profession views psychoanalysis as a form of hermeneutics

a method of interpretation One of my aims in leading the discussion in this Conference

was to show that statistical analysis and hermeneutics are not mutually exclusive And

also to show that if dreamsmdash intentional dialogic textual discourse using Bakhtinrsquos

words (1986)mdash are transformed into voiceless things (statistical categories)

correlations among (otherrsquos) wordsmdashmasquerading as variablesmdash continue to speak

about dialogic activities rather than about causal relationships

The project involved coding dreams in terms of theoretically imposed categories

such as the relationship between self and others the number of characters the

intensity of interaction among them and the spatial settings of dreams The analysis

was conducted not to validate any hypothesis about the storytellerrsquos internal structure

but to examine hermeneutically any pattern that may emerge and any cultural voice

that may be heard Similar to clinical vignettes presented in psychoanalytic papers

the findings on the complex pattern of relationship among various variables are

presented here only to facilitate a discussion and not to make any statistical inference

to a particular population

THE PROJECT

The forty five analysts who participated in the Conference were all asked ahead

of time to bring four or five dreams (ldquorawrdquo dreams with no interpretation) from four or

five different analysands They were specifically asked not to try to look for necessarily

exotic dreams Any dream no matter how short or meaningless was acceptable A

short inventory consisting of eight questions was also sent to the participating analysts

that had to be accompanied with every dream Some of the items were primarily

diagnostic assessing the dreamerrsquos level of projection narcissism and tolerance for

others while the rest asked for age gender socio-economic status and the length of

the time that the dreamers had been in psychoanalysis or psychotherapy All questions

were to be answered by the analysts based on their clinical data or their perception of

their dreamers

A sample of dreams was read in the workshop in order to develop a set of

theoretically informed coding categories A number of categories were agreed upon

that assessed the manifest dreamsrsquo levels of object relations the number of people in

the dream explicit levels of wish or fantasy levels of problem solving the emotional

qualities of the dream such as levels and types of expressed or exhibited affects the

spatial settings of the dream etc The whole group then coded a number of dreams

as an exercise in calibrating the coding protocol When all participants felt they had

understood the explicit set of criteria for coding the manifest content of dreams they

were divided into groups of three in order to code jointly the dreams of their

patients The three analyst- members of the groups had to agree on any specific

coding category If they failed to achieve consensus on any specific category the

judgment of the two out of the three analysts was to be adopted The numerically

coded dreams were then collected computerized and subjected to various statistical

analyses

At the expense of being redundant I should again add at that this work is

presented as an exercise in collective dreams It represents an interface of various

fantasies at different levels Theoretical coding and statistical analyses are to be taken

metaphorically as what a practicing analyst does implicitly in listening or in making

sense of dreams Assessing the extent to which analystsrsquo fantasies theories

affiliations and expectations shape the ldquofindingsrdquo of the analyses they conduct does

not confer any additional respectability to the non-analyst social and behavioral

scientist The extent to which the so-called ldquoscientistsrsquordquo fantasies theories affiliations

and expectations (ideologies) shape their findings is the main topic of the sociology and

philosophy of science Rituals of experimental or survey designs random sampling

inter-rater reliability mathematical modeling statistical analyses etc are themselves

grids for the sociological and psychoanalytic mills If this position comes across as

skeptic so be it No amount of ldquoscientificrdquo ritualism would remove a work from the

hermeneutic circle

RESULTS

The analysis of the manifest content of dreams has been of much interest to

psychologists and sociologists Although Freud himself pioneered the analysis of

manifest dream content most psychoanalysts have shied away from such

research[1] Analysts have generally maintained that the manifest content of dreams

has its own structure which is intimately linked to the dreamerrsquos intrapsychic

functioning and to his or her mode of object relations Analysis of our data reveals

some interesting and theoretically meaningful patterns of multivariate relationships

Without questioning the personal and private domain of dreams we wonder how we

should account for their statistically significant common patterns

The Analystrsquos Evaluation of the Patientrsquos Social Class Standing and the Manifest

Content of Dreams

In the sample of dreams presented by analysts in the workshop there is no

relationship between the dreamerrsquos social class standingmdashas rated by the analystmdash

and the number of people in the dream This finding is contrary to other manifest

dream research according to which lower class subjects report a greater frequency of

human characters in their dreams (Brennis 1975) However there is a significant

relationship between the dreamerrsquos social class standing and the analystrsquos evaluation

of the dreamerrsquos level of projection and reality testing That is the higher status

analysands are perceived as less projective and more realistic in their perception of

others than are the lower status analysands At the same time there is a significant


of his or her level of narcissism (lack of need or tolerance for others) The lower the

social status of the analysand the more likely is the ldquodiagnosisrdquo of narcissism Since

social class standing was measured by the subjective estimate of the analyst this may

simply mean that the analyst gives higher social class standing to less narcissistic (or

pathological) patients It is interesting that the dominant feelings among the analyst ndash

rated higher-class dreamers are fear and happiness in comparison to anger and

confusion among similarly rated lower status analysands This may say something

about the kinds of affects that are more socially acceptable in different classes It also

suggests that analysts may give an evaluation of lower class staining to analysands

who display negative feelings such as anger or confusion

Narcissism amp the Presence of Others in Dreams

The intrapsychic world of the narcissist as projected on the dream screen is

thinly populated (Kernberg 197585) The number of people in the dream as well as

the types of feeling may say a great deal about the level of narcissism In this study

the presence of others in the dream is significantly related to the types of feeling

present in the dream When there is no one else in the dream the dominant feeling is

fear with little anger and sadness implying that anger and sadness are more in need of

objects than is fear

The presence of others in the dream is significantly related to the dreamerrsquos level of

narcissism as independently rated by the analysts reporting on dreamers It is also

related to dreamersrsquo level of conflict resolution their level of object relatedness and

their level of reality orientation in their dreams That is narcissism reality sense of the

dream and object relations all co-vary with the presence of others in dreams There is

also a significant relationships between the analystrsquos subjective rating of the dreamerrsquos

level of narcissism and the level of object relationship in dreams This may speaks to

the validity of the analystsrsquo diagnostic perceptions

The Analyst and the Analysandrsquos Gender

The gender of both analyst and patient is related to the presence types of

feelings and level of object relationship in dreams Womenrsquos dreams score higher on

the level of object relationship wishful thinking and levels of feeling than menrsquos

dreams

Since reporting a dream is a communication to the listener the relationship

between the analystrsquos gender and other variables was examined To begin with no

relationship between the gender of the therapist and the gender of the patient was

noted in this data

In general the major types of affect in dreams reported to both men and

women analysts are negative (anger fear sadness etc) Yet the dominant feeling of

dreams reported to female analysts is fear while the dominant feeling expressed in

dreams to male analysts is sadness There is also a more clear expression of wish in

dreams reported to male analysts than those reported to female analysts While

women analysts are more likely to rank their patients lower on reality testing that are

the men analysts dreams reported to male analysts tend to exhibit more conflict

resolution than those reported to female analysts

Men and women analysts may elicit different feelings from their patients or they

may be more sensitive to different feelings Patients easily detecting their analystsrsquo

generalized affective states may unconsciously produce dreams or fantasies that would

bring them emotionally in line with them Women analysts may be more sensitive to

fear than male analysts who may in turn be more sensitive to depression One may

also surmise that the analytic discourse with a woman analyst is different from the

analytic discourse with a male analyst Also since these dreams were reported by

analysts the dreams may communicate something about the analysts own feeling

states Why should male analysts report dreams with different feeling tones than those

reported by women analysts Women analysts may have been communicating about

their own fears while men analysts may have been communicating about their own

depression In this sense the analystsrsquo choice of dreams to report or to remember may

itself be autobiographical

Dreams and the Length of Psychotherapy

With the increase in the number of years a dreamer stays in psychotherapy or

psychoanalysis the number of people who show up in his or her dreams begins to

surge

The longer the length of the therapy the more realistic dreams begin to look albeit the

level of object relationship in the dream remains unchanged

The level of wishful fantasy changes inversely with the length of the treatment

ie wishful fantasy begins to decrease with increasing years in treatment Similarly

the level of feeling in dreams reaches its peak at the end of two years of therapy and

then begins to drop The same pattern seems to be true of the relationship between

length of psychotherapy and level of conflict resolution in dreams The relation is

curvilinear Dreams of the majority of the beginners as opposed to a few of those who

have had one or two year of psychoanalysis show no conflict resolution The level of

conflict resolution in dreams increases with the length of treatment reaching its

maximum at the end of the third year and then decreases again The type of feeling

is also related to the length of treatment At the beginning of the treatment the

dominant feeling in dreams is fear within the first year it changes into confusion it

changes into happiness within the second year and ends up in almost equally

distributed feeling types after three years The question is do patients in

psychoanalysis or psychoanalytic psychotherapy tend to become aware of their own

feelings the more they stay in therapy or that they come to learn a new language in

talking about their mental images And is it that these patients come to learn a new

language for talking about their mental states or their dreams unfold in terms of the

new discursive system ie captured within a new web of signifiers

The Spatial Structure of Dreams

There is a significant relationship between age and spatial structure of

dreams Two third of the dreams of those between 13-17 years of age are staged in

no space The level and types of feeling in dreams are significantly related to the

spatial structure of dreams There is much less feelings in dreams which are staged in

no space Fear and sadness are the dominant feelings in spatial and confusion and

happiness are the dominant feelings in space-less dreams

The interpretation of the dream space the spatial structure of dream narratives

is a complex question Is the meaning of space independent from the meaning of time

in dreams Space and time in dreams have nothing to do with the physical space and

time They are part of the private discourse of emotional experience In a therapeutic

situation where the fifty-minute analytic time is a function of the analystrsquos office space

space may signify an emotional communication as to the differential level of desire for

closeness In fact most reported dreams in this study had been staged indoors ndash a

pattern that may be different from reported or solicited dreams in non-therapeutic

situations

In this connection it may be of interest to point out that to Klein (1923)

displacement in space ldquothe change from intra-uterine to extra-uterine existence ldquois the

foundation of the orientation in time In psychosis similar to dreams the time and

space are interchangeable The psychotic may try to go back in time by taking steps

backward in space (Movahedi 1996)

The spatial pattern of a personrsquos recurring dreams may also speak to the dreamerrsquos

cognitive style the level of adaptive or defensive functioning or to the dreamerrsquos

differential self-states of existential grounding

We hypothesized that spacemdashany spacemdashsays something about the emotional

imbedding of the experience and about the existential grounding of the dreamerrsquos self

This is similar to Foucaultrsquos (1954) claim that the form of spatiality in dreams speaks to

the meaning and direction of the dreamerrsquos existence The relationship between the

spatial structure of dreamsmdashdreams staged in some space versus dreams staged in

no spacemdashand other variables are as follows The level and types of feeling in dreams

are significantly related to the spatial structure of dreams Fear and sadness are the

dominant feelings in spatial and confusion and happiness are the dominant feelings in

space-less dreams The analystrsquos diagnosis of the patientrsquos level of reality testing is

significantly related to the spatial structure of the dream The higher the reality testing

the higher the likelihood that the dream is spatial There is also significant relationship

between age and spatial structure of dreams Two third of the dreams of those

between 13-17 years of age are staged in no space We find this result rather

interesting It even fits the youth culturersquos lingo of being ldquospaced outrdquo But the question

again is whether or not the expression of the inner world in youthsrsquo reported dreams

reflects their alienation and crisis in identity or it reflects their developmental mode of

the organization of their story lines According to Bruner (1992) ten years old tend to

organize their stories in plots that are acted out by protagonistsrsquo subjective states

There seems to be little disjunction between the inner landscape of consciousness and

the outer one Teenagers depict the world in time pressed plights in which inner state

and external events are in a race with each other A sense of subjective urgency

permeates their stories Adults on the other hand tend to depict their experiences in a

dramaturgic mode Plight is organized in terms of agent action scene goal and

instrumentality A collision between two or more of these elements creates trouble

(Bruner 1992)

DISCUSION

The underlying theoretical assumption informing this analysis is that individuals

linguistically constructed unconscious fantasies would dominate their attitudes and

expectancies about the external world Such fantasies reflect relationships between the

self and other that are re-projected onto the external world Internal self-other

dialogues that are emotionally experienced emerge in dreams and are taken as a

reflection of such attitudes and expectancies However between the dreamerrsquos

imagery and the narrated dream there is a vast and complicated hermeneutic gap The

gap may be somewhat similar to that between Saussurersquos (1974) langue and parole

ie between images in a private psychic system and particular performance involving

emotional communication to an analyst within a particular discursive context Here I

cannot agree more with Gray (1991) and Pulver (1999 102) that ldquothere is no such thing

as the manifest dreamrdquo The manifest dream varies each time that a dream is

reported conveying the dreamerrsquos context specific immediate feelings wishes and

fantasies In that sense every so called manifest dream is a discourse of unconscious

Although the quantitative approach used for the analysis of dreams in this paper

attempted to study dialogical text monologically we have to return back to the original

dialogic contexts to make sense of statistical patterns We have to convert the data

back to its multi-authored and polyphonic status To begin with the above dreams

coming from the analytic couch should be viewed as a part of the analytic exchange

Analytic exchange is an enactment of passion textually symbolized in a discourse of

fantasy between two subjects It is as Kristeva (1988) puts it a discourse of love It is

a discourse of fantasy itself on the level of dream it is a waking dream The function

of this exchange and the goal of this dialogue are as Ricoeur (1977) puts it the

restoration of the ldquooriginalrdquo latent text in desire Reporting a dream by the patient is

itself an act of textual restoration or self-interpretation A reported dream is hardly a

description of images or of photographs or a film of fantasies that have been played

out on the stage of the internal theater

To Barthes (1977) we cannot describe even a photograph without imposing a

code on it The photograph has a denotative status containing a first-order message

which exhausts its analogic content This message being absolutely analogical that is

lying ldquooutside of any recourse to a coderdquo is ldquoneutralrdquo and ldquoobjectiverdquo However the

press photograph is connoted It is reworked in terms of aesthetic or ideological codes

The ldquoobjectiverdquo message paradoxically becomes ldquoinvestedrdquo In dream images are on

the other hand invested to begin with There is no such thing as purely analogic

content in dreams We doubt whether there is such a thing as an image without a code

even in photography[2] A photograph becomes ldquoinvestedrdquo by the fact of being a

photograph a selected image of literal ldquorealityrdquo There is no need for an accompanying

textndashparasitic text according to Barthesndashto carry out the signification

In fact in later work Barthes (1982) admits that the distinction between the

literal image and symbolic image is an arbitrary one introduced only for the operational

reason ldquowe never encounter a literal image in the pure state even if an entirely

ldquonativerdquo image were to be achieved it would immediately join the sign of naiveteacute and

be completed by a third symbolic imagerdquo (P31)

Nevertheless the difference between the images in dreams and photographic

images in the press is that the latter images are observed in the context of words that

are there to ldquoquickenrdquo the message with second order signifiers while the former

images come to us ndashthe non-dreamersmdashas only parasitic text We may then have to

conjure up some parasitic images in our mind to link the dreamerrsquos signifiers to our

own

The patientsrsquo dreams that are reported in psychoanalytic literature or in

conferences have all been in some sense invested by analysts The same holds true

in this study The dreams that the analysts provided us in that Conference were

themselves second order texts They were not the verbatim reports of the patients

They were the verbatim report of the analysts about the reports of their patients They

had all been edited Whether we like it or not editing is itself a hermeneutic exercise

ie a form of interpretation The process carries all the ideological and

countertransferential baggage of any other interpretation In that sense one may even

claim that I have studied the analystsrsquo modal receptions or their editorial practices on

dreams in the analytic setting In other words I have studied the public interpretive

performance of the patientsrsquo ideologically enveloped private experience through the

public interpretive presentation of their analystsrsquo ideologically receptive system

I should add that the storyline and the structure of the reported dreams in the

Conference nicely matched the grammatical structure of psychoanalytic interpretation

Many psychoanalytic writers speak about the linguistic structure of dream as though

they are dealing with the original text of the dream as it had appeared in the patientrsquos

mind or as some kind of ldquoreal photographic realityrdquo (Grotstein 1979Heynick 1981)

Dreams reported in analytic sessions are not independent manifestations of the

unconscious of one subject [ the patient] as understood by another subject [the analyst]

who are both constituted outside of the analytic discourse The analytic patient the

presented dreams the unconscious and the deciphering subject all belong to the same

epistemic system The unconscious is not outside of that system which renders

legitimacy or credibility to an interpretation Bakhtin (1981) the Russian linguist would

perhaps find the dream images in the private psychic system as themselves to be

dialogic ie intimate inner conversations among different voicesmdashintrapsychic

representationsmdash in a space located between the self and other

Reported dreams follow the rules of spoken language They are verbal speech

produced for the ear of the other the analyst in the interpersonal context of the

analytic situation However in reporting about the dream of the patient the presence of

the patient is filtered though the presence of the analyst (Olinick 1984) In

psychoanalytic reports papers or presentations we rarely hear the ldquovoicerdquo of the

patient The voices of participants are often heard through one anotherrsquos transference-

countertransference filters Nevertheless the clinical vignette is written by the analyst

And it is frequently a secondary elaboration clinical work similar to dream work except

that here the manifest content (the patientrsquos reported ldquovoicerdquo) lsquohidesrsquo the latent content

(the analystrsquos ldquovoicerdquo) (Movahedi amp Wagner 2005) Thus instead of talking about the

structure of dreams we should be talking about the structure of the analystrsquos listening

A similar point has been made by Bartlett (1932) In his experimental study on

memory and recall Bartlett gave his English subjects a story to read and reproduce

The story was a North American Indian folktale The War of the Ghosts He noted that

his experimental subjects unwittingly introduced much transformation omission and

reconstruction in the content and form of the story to normalize it and fit it into the

English narrative structure A very common remark that some subjects made about the

story was ldquoThat is not an English talerdquo Labeling a narrative as ldquonot Englishrdquo or calling it

a ldquodreamrdquo rendered it acceptable ldquoWhen an Englishman calls a tale lsquonot Englishrsquo he

can at once proceed to accept odd out of the way and perhaps even inconsistent

material with very little resistancerdquo (Bartlett 1932 p 85) We are faced with also

another problem We do not know why the above analysts presented those particular

dreams If a dream is an instance of self-other communication may we say that the

reciting someone elsersquos dream is also a self-other communication How much do such

dreams communicate about the analyst and how much about the analysand If any

analytic case presentation is an instance of countertransferential enactment as Robert

Michael (2000) has eloquently argued why not the same can be said about the

presentations of patientsrsquo dreams ie the analystrsquos choice of dreams for the

Conference Do the patientsrsquo dreams that their analysts remember report or write

about come to represent the analystsrsquo own dreams[3] Also if in narration of dreams

the individualrsquos voice is audible through a public performance addressed to a particular

self-object within a particular discourse and in a particular dialogue who is the author

of the dream That is who owns the dream Whose fantasy does it represent

Although some analysts may insist that dreams have their own intrapsychic

meanings that are independent from their analytic social and cultural surrounds we

cannot find any non-corrupting privileged language in which we can capture

them Translation of the dream language into the ordinary language to decipher its

meaning is interpretation And it is reasonable to argue that dreams in their ldquoprivaterdquo

culturalized language are interpreted fantasies We may even take Thomas Mannrsquos

(Saal 1982) position that dreams are dreamt because they have been already

interpreted As Wittgenstein has argued ldquothe idea that there is a hidden meaning

which is the meaning of the dream can in fact only be the result of a decision about

the kind of interpretation we are willing to considerrdquo In other words ldquoit is the

acknowledgement of the interpretation that determines and defines what we are

looking for in our search for meaningrdquo (Bouversse 1995117)

Free association may be a strategy or incentive to get the analysand directly

involved in the construction of the dream or in re-dreaming the dream in the analytic

context However construction of an interpretation on the basis of free association

does not logically give us a better translation or a ldquotruerrdquo narrative

We wonder whether there is even such thing as the ldquooriginal textrdquo--the ldquolatent

contentrdquo-- of the dream to be excavated by free association The role of free

association however is to provide a discursive context for such construction In terms

of Foucaultrsquos (1970 xiv) methodology in his own analysis of The Order of Things

Freudrsquos analysis of dream is based ldquonot on a theory of the knowing subject [the

dreamer or the interpreter] but rather on a theory of discursive practicesrdquo What is a

ldquohidden unconscious discourserdquo as opposed to a ldquosuperficial manifest conversationrdquo

has to do with discursive rules that structure what can and cannot be thought and

expressed in an analytic session and with the rules that prescribe who is and who is

not in a position to decide on a particular narrativemdashamong manymdash

as the favorite unconscious communiqueacute

Bertram Lewin used to ask the members of his dream seminar to interpret the

latent meaning of a dream without knowing the dreamer her association or the context

of the dream He would do this by asking them to free-associate collectively to the

elements of a dreamrsquos manifest content The seminar membersrsquo interpretation would

closely match the ldquoactualrdquo latent meaning of the dream that had been previously arrived

at by the dreamerrsquos analyst based on both the patientrsquos free associations and years of

analysis (Allison et al 1993) To test the validity of Lewinrsquos method of dream

analysis Allison Loeb and Spain (1993) conducted a ldquodouble blindrdquo study by asking 21

analytic subjects to free associate to manifest contents of two dreams The two dreams

came from the file of an experienced analyst who had discovered the latent meaning of

these dreams based on the patientsrsquo free association to elements of the manifest

dreams The studyrsquos findings corroborated Lewinrsquos method of group free association

There was ldquoa close correspondence between [the] subjects opinions and the treating

analysts opinion as to the latent meanings of the dreams This shows that without the

dreamers associations dreamer the context in which the dream occurred or the

dreamers associations to the dream some individuals can sometimes arrive at the

principal latent meanings of manifest dreamsrdquo (p 147)

But who are these ldquosome individualsrdquo They are analysts or analytic candidates

who believe in the same psychoanalytic theory and belong to the same analytic

institute In Allison Loeb and Spain lsquos (1993) study neither the single Klienian analyst

nor any of the ldquoanalytically naiumlve laypersonsrdquo in the original sample rendered an

acceptable interpretation The responses of the latter group were completely left out of

the data analysis Didnrsquot these researchersrsquo data simply reflect rules of analytic

interpretation of dreams based on a particular psychoanalytic theory I believe this is

an excellent corroboration of Wittgensteinrsquos view on textual interpretation To

Wittgenstein the ldquomeaningrdquo of dreams is not independent from the ldquorulesrdquo for their

interpretation The notion of an objective meaning in a dream at a latent or manifest

level should be replaced by engagement in the psychoanalytic language game that is

an engagement in a specific linguistic practice in a particular social context What we

have in dreams is the individualrsquos fantasy communicated through role specific

discursive performance Discursive performances are rule governed and the rules

reside in a shared symbolic space that may account for much consistency across

individuals With no private language for the individual to express his or her ldquoinner

realityrdquo (inner speech) we are at the mercy of our intuition to listen to the personrsquos

private voice through the public performance And as Rorty (1991) has argued by

quoting Wittgenstein ldquointuition is never anything more or less than familiarity with a

language-gamerdquo

Statistical analysis may capture some patterns and regularities But statistical

methods of analysis are themselves a form of interpretation providing grounds for even

additional interpretations The patterns and regularities picked up by statistical

methods may also speak to some dream genres Following Bakhtinrsquos (1986) analysis

of speech genres we may introduce a distinction between primary (simple) and

secondary (complex) dream genres Freudrsquos (1900) discussion of recurring dreams like

flying dreams falling dreams death dreams loosing tooth dreams etc may exemplify

simple symbolic frame for molding dreams Dreams presented in psychoanalysis have

their own more complex genres This is perhaps why there is much emphasis on the

patientrsquos first dream in analysis when it is relatively uncorrupted by the analytic

discourse However this does not mean that the dreamerrsquos authorship is absent in

reported dreams Similar to novels written in a same historical and literary genre every

reported dream is a psychic construction of the individual and represents the particular

stylemdashindividualitymdash of the dreamer But this authorship ldquois present only in the whole

of the work not in one separate aspect of this whole and least of all in content that is

severed from the whole He is located in that inseparable aspect of the work where

content and form merge inseparably and we feel his presence most of all in formrdquo

(Bakhtin 1986160)

I view psychoanalysis like any other form of knowledge as a system of

propositions that aim to make sense of human conduct There is no inherent limitation

in the psychoanalytic data that may render it unsuitable for any form of analysis Any

observation or communication can easily be analyzed by some statistical method

Statistical analysis helps a researcher to search for some recurring patterns or

structural regularities in the data These patterns or structures are not inherent

properties of the phenomenon under investigation They are a function of both the

measuring instruments and of the statistical methods that are used in data analysis

Orders are theoretically imposed rather than discovered It is in this sense that even

the more rigid quantitative research is a form of interpretation Interpretation enters on

all levels of research at the level of conceptualization measurement coding statistical

analysis and finally at the level of the interpretation of the theoretically constructed

data In this sense all scientific endeavors begin and end in hermeneutics In fact one

may even arguemdashand I believe quite cogently-- that the reported statistical

relationships in this study rather than pointing to any interaction among

the signifieds speak only to the relationship among the signifiers that are being played

out through various actors on the analytic or scientific stage All the constructs that

were used in theorizing interpreting and telling of dreams had come from the same

grand symbolic space We may even want to postulate a theoretical construct such as

ldquosocial unconsciousrdquo that underlies the various actorsrsquo individual unconscious

REFERENCES

Allison G H Loeb F and Spain D H (1993) Lewins Manifest Dream Exercise

Revisited J Amer Psychoanal Assn 41127-150

Bakhtin MM (1986) Speech Genres amp Other Late Essays Translated

by Vernon W McGee Edited by Caryl Emerson and Michael

Hoquist Austin TX University of Texas Press

Barthes R (1977) Image Music Text New York Hill amp Wang

--------- (1982) The Responsibility of Forms Los

Angeles University of California Press

Bouversse J (1995) Wittgenstein Reads

Freud Princeton University of Princeton Press

Brenneis CB (1975) Theoretical notes on the manifest dream International Journal

of Psychoanalysis 56 197-206

Bruner J (1992) The original story and the considered story

Invited Symposium American Psychological Association Division

of Psychoanalysis Twelfth Annual Meeting Philadelphia

Cooper A (1993) Discussion On empirical research J Amer Psychoanal Assn

41S381-392

Foucault M (1954) Dream imagination and existence Pp 31-

78 in Keith Hoeller (edit) Dream amp Existence New Jersey Humanities Press

Freud S (1900) The interpretation of dreams In The Complete Psychological

Works Standard Edition Vols 4 and 5 New York Norton

Gray P (1992) Memory as Resistance and the Telling of a Dream J Amer

Psychoanal Assn 40307-326

Gill M (1982) Analysis of Transference New York International Universities Press

------- (1994) Psychoanalysis in Transition Hillsdale NJ The Analytic Press

Grotstein J S (1979) Who is the Dreamer who Dreams the Dream and who is the

Dreamer who Understands ItmdashA Psychoanalytic Inquiry Into the Ultimate Nature of

Being Contemp Psychoanal15110-169

Heynick F (1981) Linguistic Aspects of Freuds Dream Model Int R Psycho-

Anal 8299-314

Kernberg O (1975) Borderline Conditions and Pathological Narcissism New

York Jason Aronson

Lacan J (1964) [1995] Position of the Unconscious (Trans Fink B in (eds) Felstein

R

Fink B amp Jaanus M) Reading Seminar XI Lacanrsquos Four Fundamental Concepts of

Psychoanalysis New York The State University of New York Press

Michels R (2000) The case history J Amer Psychoanal Assn 48355-375

Movahedi S (1996) The Discourse of Time and The Structure of Psychic

Reality Modern Psychoanalysis 2(23)197-209

Movahedi S amp Wagner Aleksandra (2005) The ldquoVoicerdquo of the Analysand and the

ldquoSubjectrdquo of Diagnosis Contemporary Psychoanalytic 41 (No 2)281-305

Ricoeur P (1977) The question of proofs in Freudrsquos psychoanalytic writings J Amer


Rorty R (1991) Objectivity Relativism and Truth New

York Cambridge Uiversity Press

Saal F (1982) El lemguje en la obra de Freud in El lenguaje y

elinconsciene freidano Siglo XXI ed Mexico

Saussure F (1974) Course in General Linguistics translated by

Wade Baskin London FontanaCollins

Spence M (1982) Narrative Truth and Historical Truth New York Norton

SIAMAK MOVAHEDI PHD

Professor amp Chairman

Department of Sociology

University of Massachusetts Boston

Professor of Psychoanalysis amp Director

The Institute for the Study of Violence


Mailing Address

252 Waban Ave

Newton MA 02468

Tel (617) 332-3149287-6267

Fax (617) 287-6288

Email siamakmovahediumbedu

EDITOR

The Discourse of Sociological Practice

ISSN 1527-778X

MEMBER

Psychoanalytic Society of New England East

American Psychological Association

APA Division 39

American Sociological Association

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS IN THE FOLLOWING JOURNALS Journal of the

American Psychoanalytical Association American Imago American Psychologist

Contemporary Psychoanalysis The American Sociological Review The Comparative

Studies in Society and History Criminology Health and Social Behavior Organization

Modern Psychoanalysis Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin Sociology and

Social Research Urban Life

[1]

It should be noted that Foucault in both in his paper on Dream imagination and

existence as well as in the last volume of the History of Sexuality tries to reverse

Freudrsquos position on the relative importance of manifest content of the dream ndash saying

that the manifest content social level cosmos koinonia are the significant elements of

the dream not the latent content private level cosmos idios

[2]

A patient who had just got divorced was admonishing herself for having been a poor

observant of their wedding pictures ldquoLooking at our wedding pictures [she said] you

can clearly see how he [the husband] is distancing himself from me I donrsquot know how

I could have missed this rdquo

[3]

I have had the pleasure of being present at a number of presentations by an

internationally famous analyst In all of his presentations that I have attended there is a

reference fantasy or a vignette about ldquocutting vaginardquo Although the analyst is

presenting the fantasies of patients with malignant narcissistic personality disorders I

wonder whether the pattern of reported fantasies is itself a countertransferential

enactment

thought without thinkerrdquo which according to Lacan (1964) is constructed like a

language where can it be located but in the symbolic spacendashin the social unconscious

that we all share when we are awake And what is the nature of this symbolic space

Is it Lacanrsquos reified and magical chain of signifiers that imprisons the ghost or is it

Wittgensteinrsquos linguistic practices or rules of interpretation And if we are willing to

entertain Thomas Mannrsquos (Saal 1982) theory that dreams are dreamt because they

have been already interpreted am I the author of my dreams or am I simply repeating

the interpretation of the Other

This paper contains some reflections on the relationship between the dreamer

the dream the audience and the telling We do not however take the relationship

between the dreamer the narrator of the dream the subject of the dream and the

audience for granted The author of the dream may not be the same as the subject who

reports the dream the external addressee may be in part a projection of the internal

audience and the internal audience may keep on changing representing different parts

of the self

This paper seeks to explore this question by presenting the outcome of

a project in a psychoanalytic research workshop in a quantitative analysis of dreamsrsquo

manifest content My aim in the secondary analysis of that data was to detect those

aspects of the manifest content of dreams that would remain relatively stable across

different individuals but would cluster around certain clinical constructs such as levels

of projections or narcissism and co-vary with some sociological variables such as

class or gender

I am aware that the meaning of a dream on its manifest level may be

deciphered only within the transference-countertransference matrix of the analytic

situation Nevertheless if a dream is divorced from the analytic process it may at

least inform about the subjectrsquos mode of object relations and his or her preferred style

of engagement with the external world A modal pattern of engagement with the object

world by itself may also provide some anthropological or sociological insights Although

the interpretation of dreams calls for an ideographic method the study of those aspects


a nomothetic method


























THE PROJECT











their dreamers














analyses














hermeneutic circle

RESULTS











Content of Dreams









































dreams




noted in this data

























surge




































situations

































(Bruner 1992)

DISCUSION

















































own



























































































































language-gamerdquo


















(Bakhtin 1986160)





















REFERENCES

















41S381-392













Anal 8299-314


York Jason Aronson


R

















SIAMAK MOVAHEDI PHD







Mailing Address

252 Waban Ave

Newton MA 02468

Tel (617) 332-3149287-6267

Fax (617) 287-6288


EDITOR


ISSN 1527-778X

MEMBER



APA Division 39








[1]






[2]





[3]






enactment


a nomothetic method


























THE PROJECT











their dreamers














analyses














hermeneutic circle

RESULTS











Content of Dreams









































dreams




noted in this data

























surge




































situations

































(Bruner 1992)

DISCUSION

















































own



























































































































language-gamerdquo


















(Bakhtin 1986160)





















REFERENCES

















41S381-392













Anal 8299-314


York Jason Aronson


R

















SIAMAK MOVAHEDI PHD







Mailing Address

252 Waban Ave

Newton MA 02468

Tel (617) 332-3149287-6267

Fax (617) 287-6288


EDITOR


ISSN 1527-778X

MEMBER



APA Division 39








[1]






[2]





[3]






enactment

THE PROJECT











their dreamers














analyses














hermeneutic circle

RESULTS











Content of Dreams









































dreams




noted in this data

























surge




































situations

































(Bruner 1992)

DISCUSION

















































own



























































































































language-gamerdquo


















(Bakhtin 1986160)





















REFERENCES

















41S381-392













Anal 8299-314


York Jason Aronson


R

















SIAMAK MOVAHEDI PHD







Mailing Address

252 Waban Ave

Newton MA 02468

Tel (617) 332-3149287-6267

Fax (617) 287-6288


EDITOR


ISSN 1527-778X

MEMBER



APA Division 39








[1]






[2]





[3]






enactment












hermeneutic circle

RESULTS











Content of Dreams









































dreams




noted in this data

























surge




































situations

































(Bruner 1992)

DISCUSION

















































own



























































































































language-gamerdquo


















(Bakhtin 1986160)





















REFERENCES

















41S381-392













Anal 8299-314


York Jason Aronson


R

















SIAMAK MOVAHEDI PHD







Mailing Address

252 Waban Ave

Newton MA 02468

Tel (617) 332-3149287-6267

Fax (617) 287-6288


EDITOR


ISSN 1527-778X

MEMBER



APA Division 39








[1]






[2]





[3]






enactment




































dreams




noted in this data

























surge




































situations

































(Bruner 1992)

DISCUSION

















































own



























































































































language-gamerdquo


















(Bakhtin 1986160)





















REFERENCES

















41S381-392













Anal 8299-314


York Jason Aronson


R

















SIAMAK MOVAHEDI PHD







Mailing Address

252 Waban Ave

Newton MA 02468

Tel (617) 332-3149287-6267

Fax (617) 287-6288


EDITOR


ISSN 1527-778X

MEMBER



APA Division 39








[1]






[2]





[3]






enactment





dreams




noted in this data

























surge




































situations

































(Bruner 1992)

DISCUSION

















































own



























































































































language-gamerdquo


















(Bakhtin 1986160)





















REFERENCES

















41S381-392













Anal 8299-314


York Jason Aronson


R

















SIAMAK MOVAHEDI PHD







Mailing Address

252 Waban Ave

Newton MA 02468

Tel (617) 332-3149287-6267

Fax (617) 287-6288


EDITOR


ISSN 1527-778X

MEMBER



APA Division 39








[1]






[2]





[3]






enactment




surge




































situations

































(Bruner 1992)

DISCUSION

















































own



























































































































language-gamerdquo


















(Bakhtin 1986160)





















REFERENCES

















41S381-392













Anal 8299-314


York Jason Aronson


R

















SIAMAK MOVAHEDI PHD







Mailing Address

252 Waban Ave

Newton MA 02468

Tel (617) 332-3149287-6267

Fax (617) 287-6288


EDITOR


ISSN 1527-778X

MEMBER



APA Division 39








[1]






[2]





[3]






enactment







situations

































(Bruner 1992)

DISCUSION

















































own



























































































































language-gamerdquo


















(Bakhtin 1986160)





















REFERENCES

















41S381-392













Anal 8299-314


York Jason Aronson


R

















SIAMAK MOVAHEDI PHD







Mailing Address

252 Waban Ave

Newton MA 02468

Tel (617) 332-3149287-6267

Fax (617) 287-6288


EDITOR


ISSN 1527-778X

MEMBER



APA Division 39








[1]






[2]





[3]






enactment






(Bruner 1992)

DISCUSION

















































own



























































































































language-gamerdquo


















(Bakhtin 1986160)





















REFERENCES

















41S381-392













Anal 8299-314


York Jason Aronson


R

















SIAMAK MOVAHEDI PHD







Mailing Address

252 Waban Ave

Newton MA 02468

Tel (617) 332-3149287-6267

Fax (617) 287-6288


EDITOR


ISSN 1527-778X

MEMBER



APA Division 39








[1]






[2]





[3]






enactment



























own



























































































































language-gamerdquo


















(Bakhtin 1986160)





















REFERENCES

















41S381-392













Anal 8299-314


York Jason Aronson


R

















SIAMAK MOVAHEDI PHD







Mailing Address

252 Waban Ave

Newton MA 02468

Tel (617) 332-3149287-6267

Fax (617) 287-6288


EDITOR


ISSN 1527-778X

MEMBER



APA Division 39








[1]






[2]





[3]






enactment

























































































































language-gamerdquo


















(Bakhtin 1986160)





















REFERENCES

















41S381-392













Anal 8299-314


York Jason Aronson


R

















SIAMAK MOVAHEDI PHD







Mailing Address

252 Waban Ave

Newton MA 02468

Tel (617) 332-3149287-6267

Fax (617) 287-6288


EDITOR


ISSN 1527-778X

MEMBER



APA Division 39








[1]






[2]





[3]






enactment


























































































language-gamerdquo


















(Bakhtin 1986160)





















REFERENCES

















41S381-392













Anal 8299-314


York Jason Aronson


R

















SIAMAK MOVAHEDI PHD







Mailing Address

252 Waban Ave

Newton MA 02468

Tel (617) 332-3149287-6267

Fax (617) 287-6288


EDITOR


ISSN 1527-778X

MEMBER



APA Division 39








[1]






[2]





[3]






enactment























































language-gamerdquo


















(Bakhtin 1986160)





















REFERENCES

















41S381-392













Anal 8299-314


York Jason Aronson


R

















SIAMAK MOVAHEDI PHD







Mailing Address

252 Waban Ave

Newton MA 02468

Tel (617) 332-3149287-6267

Fax (617) 287-6288


EDITOR


ISSN 1527-778X

MEMBER



APA Division 39








[1]






[2]





[3]






enactment


























language-gamerdquo


















(Bakhtin 1986160)





















REFERENCES

















41S381-392













Anal 8299-314


York Jason Aronson


R

















SIAMAK MOVAHEDI PHD







Mailing Address

252 Waban Ave

Newton MA 02468

Tel (617) 332-3149287-6267

Fax (617) 287-6288


EDITOR


ISSN 1527-778X

MEMBER



APA Division 39








[1]






[2]





[3]






enactment















(Bakhtin 1986160)





















REFERENCES

















41S381-392













Anal 8299-314


York Jason Aronson


R

















SIAMAK MOVAHEDI PHD







Mailing Address

252 Waban Ave

Newton MA 02468

Tel (617) 332-3149287-6267

Fax (617) 287-6288


EDITOR


ISSN 1527-778X

MEMBER



APA Division 39








[1]






[2]





[3]






enactment







REFERENCES

















41S381-392













Anal 8299-314


York Jason Aronson


R

















SIAMAK MOVAHEDI PHD







Mailing Address

252 Waban Ave

Newton MA 02468

Tel (617) 332-3149287-6267

Fax (617) 287-6288


EDITOR


ISSN 1527-778X

MEMBER



APA Division 39








[1]






[2]





[3]






enactment











41S381-392













Anal 8299-314


York Jason Aronson


R

















SIAMAK MOVAHEDI PHD







Mailing Address

252 Waban Ave

Newton MA 02468

Tel (617) 332-3149287-6267

Fax (617) 287-6288


EDITOR


ISSN 1527-778X

MEMBER



APA Division 39








[1]






[2]





[3]






enactment














SIAMAK MOVAHEDI PHD







Mailing Address

252 Waban Ave

Newton MA 02468

Tel (617) 332-3149287-6267

Fax (617) 287-6288


EDITOR


ISSN 1527-778X

MEMBER



APA Division 39








[1]






[2]





[3]






enactment

SIAMAK MOVAHEDI PHD







Mailing Address

252 Waban Ave

Newton MA 02468

Tel (617) 332-3149287-6267

Fax (617) 287-6288


EDITOR


ISSN 1527-778X

MEMBER



APA Division 39








[1]






[2]





[3]






enactment





[1]






[2]





[3]






enactment

Documents

ANALYST FOR INTERPRETATION IN PSYCHOANALYTC …...the dream, explicit levels of wish or fantasy, levels of problem solving, the emotional qualities of the dream such as levels and