Peer-Reviewed Dream Studies Coming Right Up

This is just a heads-up about a new feature of this blog. I just signed up with Bloggers for Peer Reviewed Research Reporting. What this means is that when I blog about some peer-reviewed research article, I’ll have a flashy icon embedded in the post. The real benefit of this system is that tagged articles will be cross-referenced in the BPR’s library, so people who are looking for research about a certain topic will have a much easier way of finding them on the web.

Good dream and consciousness research is hard enough to find, so hopefully this tagging system will catch on. If not, forget I mentioned it.

Dream Interpretation and its Discontents

I just uploaded a new essay titled the Trouble with Dream Studies, which is meant to contextualize my perspective about dream research and its place – or misplace – within Western science. The essay also introduces a series of further thoughts about the mysteries of dreaming which explore how our beliefs can construct – and sometimes constrict – what we believe is possible in dreams and waking life.

As always, discussion is welcome.

The Trouble with Dream Studies

This essay introduces a series of articles about the difficulties facing dream studies as a field of knowledge. These difficulties emerge at every level of participation with dreaming, from third-person gathering of dream reports to first-person remembered experience. How do we know what we know? What is the spectrum of possibility for human consciousness? What is real?

In science, these values are usually not transparent. However, in the study of dreams our personal beliefs influence our perception so much that we literally experience different realities. That’s why dream interpretation is dismissed by hard scientists, and also why Freudians dream about their mothers and Jungians dream about Germanic mythological creatures.

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Laying the groundwork for conversation

My comrade-in-consciousness Kevin Kovelant wrote a post recently about how easily discussions about said consciousness can suffer from miscommunication. This is relevant here as we argue about the terms “lucidity” and “consciousness” in regards to dreams, but are often talking about different things altogether, such as awareness of one’s external environment, awareness that one is aware (meta-awareness), awareness that one is dreaming (meta awareness corner pocket) as well as the simple fact of being a sentient creature and being able to talk about it with other sentient creatures.

Check out Kevin’s post on the distinction between philosophical consciousness and psychological consciousness. This is drawn primarily from the work of philosopher Christian de Quincey, who BTW recently started his own panpsychist blog.

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