Date: Thu, 03 Feb 2000 09:56:40 -0800
From: "Wilkerson, Richard" <rcwilk-AT-dreamgate.com>
Subject: Postmodern Dreaming


Hello,

  Seeking Advice.

   I have not read very much of Lyotard but have a project that often 
crosses his themes.  I'm looking for :

  1. A suggested course of reading
   2. A Starting point
   3. General suggested texts and articles.
   4. Things you think should be read *before* reading Lyotard


   My background and subject are given below.


Background:  Interest in postmodern writers, but not a heavy reader. When I 
first came across Deleuze & Guattari's  Anti_Oedipus I had only a 
background in psychotherapy and psychoanalytic theory and practice, and 
some undergrad college courses in philosophy.  I was a bit overwhelmed and 
went and read the intro to postmodern texts to try to figure out what had 
just happened to me. I have a *very* general sense now of the flow of 
issues, the semiological shift, the influence of Lacan, the political ties 
to liberation of marginalized groups and the deep involvement with signs. 
Still, I often feel like I am drowning.

    The only thing that saved me was I had been studying James Hillman's 
work for sometime, which is kind of the postmodern response to Jung. That 
is, there are archetypal forces, but no center self, just a cosmos of 
powers all trying to be our dominate perspective. To the degree they are, 
we are possessed by them and act out their game.

    My interest was in how to have non-representational dreamwork that 
wasn't just passive watching. That is, how to approach the dream image or 
narrative without wholly turning it into a object for the day-use or just 
have it become the representational object of a particular interpretive 
theory. Just as I would like to approach my friends, without these 
particular interpretive theories (he's just like my father, mother, 
brother) so to I like the dream to emerge as wholly other.
    Now much of dreamwork *is* practicing non-representational relations 
with dreams and dreaming. But the theoretical part, in my mind, is still 
very under-developed.

  When I looked into Postmodern writers, they pretty much neglect dreams, 
or they are way too influenced by one or two psychoanalytic 
perspectives.  Freud, Lacan, Freud, Lacan, Freud, Lacan.
    So I went to the Lacanian institute here in San Francisco for a few 
weeks for a variety of lectures. Quite fascinating, but they are not very 
interested in dreams. They still have the notion that dreams are signifying 
nothing to nobody and approaching them is only adding more layers of 
twisted signification.  ( I did successfully use Lacanian theory to quit 
smoking - wow, now a decade ago).

  I have some papers and articles on this and some other postmodern writers at
http://www.dreamgate.com/pomo/

    When I heard about Lyotard and grand narratives vs pagan-voice(?) this 
seemed like something that paralleled the notion of liberation I have been 
developing, where we can have contact with dreams in the old way 
(representationally) to see what grand narratives we are unconsciously 
acting out, and in a new way (non-representationally) which allows the 
marginalized  dream to have a voice.

   But these are just intuitions skimmed from brief readings of Lyotard 
Reader, Best/Kellners intro and contact with online groups interested in 
his work.     I really want to read more, but am lost as where to begin.

( I have read "The dreamwork does not think" but again, feel postmodern 
writers were/are too steeped in theories of dreaming that were developed 
1900s and earlier. Most of the theorizing was pre-REM studies)

   Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

  -Richard