Logic of Dreams

Logic of Dreams

Dr. Idit Alphandary

Course Description
One third of your life is spent asleep, and the life of sleep is dreams. And yet the images, sounds, and language of waking life almost totally dominate discussions of human goals, motivations, and meaningfulness. The last century began with a different dream: that dreams, rightly understood, would give us an unprecedented view of the hidden objectives of human behavior. “The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind,” Freud wrote in 1900. This seminar will be a discussion about dreams and an inquiry into what they may still mean, more than one hundred years later. We will take our departure from a careful reading of Freud’s 1899 Interpretation of Dreams, which makes huge claims for the importance and meaning of dreams and proposes methods for their interpretation. Critiques and extensions of Freud’s theory will point up its strengths and limitations. Throughout the seminar we will read literature and watch films in which dreams play a central role. Students are expected to keep a dream journal to record and analyze their own dreams.
Films Films can be streamed on the course website and must be watched before the class session in which they are discussed.
Books Available online
Calderon de la Barca, Pedro. Life is a Dream. Penguin Classics, 2006.
Descartes, René. Meditations on First Philosophy. Cambridge UP, 1996.
Freud, Sigmund. Interpretation of Dreams. Basic Books, 2010.
Other readings will be available as PDFs, on the reader, and on the course website.
Coursework
Students in this course will be required to keep a private dream journal throughout the semester, which may require making adjustments to sleeping habits. Dream journals will be checked. Beyond this important work, other more tangible and public work for the course will include two papers, one short midterm paper (3-5 pages) and one longer final paper (6-10 pages), plus one brief (10 min. max.) presentation to the class.
Grades
Attendance and Participation 20%
Dream Journal 15%
Presentation 10%
Midterm Paper 25%
Final Paper 30%
Please note: all electronic apparatuses must be turned off during class time