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A review by deea_bks
The Sorrows of an American by Siri Hustvedt
5.0
All the characters in this book have dreams they talk about at some point or another. Miranda draws her dreams. Other people talk in therapy about them. And, some people have a whole discussion over dinner about dreams.
There is an almost blind man who says that in his dreams now, his vision is just as faded as when he is awake.
In the past, I used to have repetitive dreams that were taking place in my parents’ house. In them, the building had a new wing and I kept exploring it. There was a lot of old furniture there that I kept wishing to replace. One character from this book has similar dreams. Jung would say that those rooms stand for hidden parts of the unconscious that we are trying to access, but we are slowed down (hindered?!) by old beliefs (the old furniture). Or would he?
I just love how Siri explores dreams, the subconscious mind and art in this book. Science might not have all the answers, but she sure makes you ask yourself the right questions. Her exploration of dreams goes a lot further than what I am writing here, of course, but I am choosing to only highlight these few snippets.
What do you dream about? Do you dream in colour or in black and white? (Apparently, that’s a thing as well.) Do you remember dreams? Do you maybe sometimes write them down? Are they charged with feeling? Does dreaming feel like seeing motion pictures? I do know that I have my own special cinema in my head and you most probably do too. If only we could see some other movies than our own as well, we'd maybe get to have a more comprehensive understanding of other people's inner worlds.
There is an almost blind man who says that in his dreams now, his vision is just as faded as when he is awake.
“I dream in a blur with sounds and words and touch”.There is another who says:
“I’ve been recording my dreams, and I realize that what happens on the other side is a kind of parallel existence. I have a memory of what’s happened there. There’s a past, present, and future.”And then, another guy, a researcher, says that Mark Solms (a psychoanalyst, brain researcher and neurologist) considers that:
“Patients with specific forebrain lesions stop dreaming altogether. He believes parts of the forebrain generate dream pictures, that complex cognitive processes are involved, so dreams do have meaning. Memory’s involved, but nobody knows exactly how.”A therapist (the main character) adds:
“There’s a lot of research that confirms that dream content reflects the dreamer’s emotional conflicts.”and
“By telling a dream, a patient is exploring some deeply emotional part of himself and creating meaning through associations within a remembered story.”Some interesting points, right? Do blind people not dream in images? Is the land of dreams a “parallel dimension” that mirrors everyday existence? What happens when/if we stop dreaming altogether? How is memory involved in dreaming? How should we interpret dreams? Is there a universal key for deciphering them? Jung says there isn’t. Each dreamer has to find his own translation for his dreams as they contain metaphors related to each individual’s past and his associated symbols.
In the past, I used to have repetitive dreams that were taking place in my parents’ house. In them, the building had a new wing and I kept exploring it. There was a lot of old furniture there that I kept wishing to replace. One character from this book has similar dreams. Jung would say that those rooms stand for hidden parts of the unconscious that we are trying to access, but we are slowed down (hindered?!) by old beliefs (the old furniture). Or would he?
I just love how Siri explores dreams, the subconscious mind and art in this book. Science might not have all the answers, but she sure makes you ask yourself the right questions. Her exploration of dreams goes a lot further than what I am writing here, of course, but I am choosing to only highlight these few snippets.
What do you dream about? Do you dream in colour or in black and white? (Apparently, that’s a thing as well.) Do you remember dreams? Do you maybe sometimes write them down? Are they charged with feeling? Does dreaming feel like seeing motion pictures? I do know that I have my own special cinema in my head and you most probably do too. If only we could see some other movies than our own as well, we'd maybe get to have a more comprehensive understanding of other people's inner worlds.