Twin Peaks and Dream Interpretations

Posted February 5, 2010 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Film & Television, Psychology / 7 Comments

Culture is all around us, especially in the music and the media, but we tend to miss it. I missed this one because I missed the show entirely but this bit of insight makes me want to watch the show.

David Lynch’s cult classic Twin Peaks has a few great examples culture. Mainly the use of dream-analysis; Dale Cooper solved the death of Laura Palmer in his sleep, literally. But he doesn’t remember, he knows that he knows but it’s been kept from him. He states in the show ‘My dream is a code waiting to be cracked – break the code, solve the crime’

Interestingly enough Lynch didn’t have an interpretation of the dream, it was an after thought; he had a ‘waking dream’ of this whole dream sequence and decided to add it into the show.

I’m sure The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud would have come in handy in solving the crime. But what is the book really about? Freud description is;

In the following pages, I shall demonstrate that there is a psychological technique which makes it possible to interpret dreams, and that on the application of this technique, every dream will reveal itself as a psychological structure, full of significance, and one which may be assigned to a specific place in the psychic activities of the waking state. Further, I shall endeavour to elucidate the processes which underlie the strangeness and obscurity of dreams, and to deduce from these processes the nature of the psychic forces whose conflict or co-operation is responsible for our dreams.

Though the book is widely considered to be his most important contribution to psychology, I have serious doubts about this book. For starters, people think differently and I suspect that they would dream differently as well. I don’t pretend to understand the whole Dream Interpretation theories; I just don’t think every dream would fit neatly into these interpretations.

Cogito Ergo Sum

Posted February 1, 2010 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Philosophy / 0 Comments

Cogito Ergo Sum (I think therefore I am) is a popular phrase but do we really known what it means?

The phrase comes from solipsism; everything outside the mind is unjustified and unproven. The philosophical idea has been considered to be scepticism simply because they believe that others experiences can only be known by analogy.

Sophists live by the idea that ‘My mind is the only thing that I know to exist’.

The theory of solipsism merits close examination because it relates to three widely held philosophical presuppositions, which are themselves fundamental and wide-ranging in importance. These are that:

My most certain knowledge is the content of my own mind—my thoughts, experiences, affects, etc.;
There is no conceptual or logically necessary link between mental and physical—between, say, the occurrence of certain conscious experience or mental states and the ‘possession’ and behavioral dispositions of a ‘body’ of a particular kind;
The experience of a given person is necessarily private to that person.

Though the theory can sound complicated and even absurd; in modern society it does seem to be a common practise. People would not call themselves Sophists but they still choose to Wikipedia information to verify and prove to themselves the info is real and factual. To me that sounds very much like that whole bases of Solipsism.

The Sub-Cultures – Emo

Posted February 1, 2010 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Culture / 3 Comments

Disclaimer: While I don’t agree in the whole Sub-Culture labeling it does play a big part in culture itself. So I will try to remain unbiased and not try to stereotype any sub-culture.

Possible one of the most misunderstood sub-cultures is the Emo movement. While there is a lot of stigma with this group there really aren’t grounds for it. The Emo movement is based around the rock genre of the same name, though no band claims to be an Emo band.

The Non-Existent Genre

The genre of music began in the mid 80’s as an off shoot of the Hardcore and Punk genre. In those days these styles and even grunge music was very political based and the people listened to it, while they enjoyed the music didn’t really care about politics. So a whole lot of bands started popping up that would start singing about something other that politics, they started singing something more personal. Those bands were labelled Emocore or Emo, the artists themselves never claimed to be apart of the genre, they just claim that they writing songs about their emotions and what’s going on in their world. If no band claims to be an Emo band, can it really be a music genre? Thus the reason why this is a non-existent genre

The Sub-Culture

“We’re all alone, together”

This is the response a girl said when asked about being an Emo. While amusing it does sum up the movement pretty well. The whole culture has been considered to be all about social withdrawal and suicide but the people that do claim to be Emo would probably say otherwise. They would probably say it’s not about self injury but more about expressing emotions, speaking out about the feelings of alienation, depression and angst.

Revisiting an Old Movement

The whole culture behind Emo’s is nothing new, in fact it’s almost modernising the whole Romantic Movement. There is so many connections between the two, both Romantism and Emo focus on the emotion and not order and both would be considered socially outcasts in there relevant societies.

Ultimately the whole movement is a much mocked, maligned, and misunderstood term for melodic, expressive people.

Poetic Shock

Posted January 29, 2010 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Art, Culture / 0 Comments

Possibly my favourite Surrealist would be René Magritte, one of the main reasons what because he ignored the previous 30 or so years of art and went back to basics, combining realism with surrealism. For example: in the painting ‘The Son of Man’ he painted an apple that looks like an apple (realism) but the apple was placed in front of a mans face (surrealism). Another artist that did some similar was Paul Delvaux and his reason for this; “to produce poetic shock by putting heterogeneous but real things together in an unexpected way.”

Poetic Shock has been used a lot nowadays, most notably in the 70’s by British graphics arts group Hipgnosis. The difference between Hipgnosis and the Surrealists was not only LSD, but the graphic design group used Poetic Shock to send very basic messages. Look at two Pink Floyd albums done by the group, Wish You Were Here and Animal. Wish You Were Here depicts two business men shaking hands but one is on fire (Getting burned in a business deal) and Animal simply has an inflatable Pig floating through the air (Pigs can fly). Magritte’s The Lovers shows two people sitting back to back with their face covered by a white sheet. Though Magritte never explained the meaning of his paintings, many have believed it’s a picture of loneliness and alienation.

Poetic Shock has also been used in Movies to scare people, one of the best example of this is the 1980’s horror classic The Shining. Danny was riding his bike around the Overlook Hotel and ran into the twins. Where normally people would think nothing of this, in the movie the twins were not expected to be there, leading to a perfect example of Poetic Shock in a movie.

NaNoWriMo and Automatism

Posted January 28, 2010 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Writing / 6 Comments

André Breton, not only a poet but the founder of the Surrealist Movement took a big interest in Freud’s works on the unconscious mind. Breton found an unexpected beauty in the ravings of the unconscious patients. In attempt to capture that untapped beauty, Breton discovered Automatic Writing. A process of writing where the content does not come from a conscious thought from the writer. In some cases the writer does it in a trance but most of the times the writer does not thing about what he writes, they just write to see what comes out.

This lead to Automatism; which coved Automatic Writing, Drawing and even Music (most commonly in Free Jazz) is part of the bases of the Surrealist Movement. André Breton described the movement as “Pure psychic automatism” an attempt to capture pure untapped beauty.

Now days Automatic Writing is not used too often, but projects like NaNoWriMo, though not intended as a Surrealist project seems to push writers into a state of Automatism.

NaNoWriMo is a creative writing project that takes place in November where the participants try to write a 50,000 word story in 30 days. With a time frame like that, planning and story boards are out the window for the writer. This kind of deadline tends to lead to a lot of Automatism, giving a writer insight to a whole new way of writing.

Automatism seems to produce some very random and unusual content, but also some unexpected beauty.

The Medium Is The Message

Posted January 27, 2010 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Culture / 0 Comments

Canadian philosopher/scholar Marshall McLuhan’s work is sometimes referred to as the cornerstone of media and communication theories. But what exactly does the phrase “The Medium is The Message” mean?

Well you could read his book “Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man” to understand it fully or I will attempt a brief sum up. McLuhan believed that the media and not the content that had the affects the society. Let me try to break this down by trying to explain this by using three different times of History.

Ear Oriented: In the early days stories and knowledge was passed down verbally, from elders to the younger. This was the social norm; to get all the knowledge told to them verbally. This means that the media around back; their medium for getting the message out there would be verbally.

Eye Oriented: With the invention of the printing press came a change in the way people would get there news. Socially, people changed the way they receive their news. Have you heard the saying ‘I won’t believe it until I see it in black and White’? That is a shining example of the shift in society.

Now Days: Now with the invention of Television and The Internet people will get their news both audibly and visually. The AV society is moving towards a different and completely new way to obtain the knowledge. I have no fancy name for it like McLuhan did with Ear and Eye Oriented but I believe that people are choosing to gain the information themselves.

Soon it will be “You are the Message”

With the resources on the internet, people are choosing not to believe things from one source but looking though different sources to gain a better understanding.

Does this mean we will have a society with individual opinions?

Will people become only have a tiny bit of information on a broad range of subjects? And will this be the end of the so-called experts?

Benjamin Franklin & Perfectionism

Posted January 27, 2010 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Culture / 0 Comments

Benjamin Franklin was a brilliant scientist but one thing people don’t know about him, is his desire to be morally perfect. This is often known in philosophy as Perfectionism. It is important to know that the perfectionism does not believe that one can attain a perfect life or state of living. Rather, a perfectionist practices steadfast perseverance in obtaining the best possible life or state of living.

Benjamin Franklin set himself 13 virtues to live by in his attempt;

“TEMPERANCE. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.”
“SILENCE. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.”
“ORDER. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.”
“RESOLUTION. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.”
“FRUGALITY. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.”
“INDUSTRY. Lose no time; be always employ’d in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.”
“SINCERITY. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.”
“JUSTICE. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.”
“MODERATION. Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.”
“CLEANLINESS. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation.”
“TRANQUILLITY. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.”
“CHASTITY. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.”
“HUMILITY. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.”

My Reading List

Posted January 25, 2010 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Literature / 0 Comments

The more I read the more I discover, but also the more I find that I need to read. I keep finding more and more books that I really want to read. Like the ‘1001 Books you must read before you die’ I want to read all of them. I never use to be a read and I wish I trained myself to read when I was younger. I feel like I’ve missed so much by not reading. But now, with a passion for writing has also come a passion for reading and I want to explore this passion more and more.

For some reason I seem to ignore most of the modern books and I rather go for the classics. Not that it’s a bad thing; It is a great thing, though I feel like I’m reading a language that doesn’t get used anymore. The old 1800’s books have such beauty and elegance in the way they are written, it’s a shame that the English language has changed.

So If you look up the top of my blog I’ve now added my Reading Goals for people to look at and recommend more books to read.

Philosophy; an Endless Pursuit for Answers

Posted January 25, 2010 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Philosophy / 4 Comments

I’ve been thinking a lot about Philosophy lately. As most people know philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. It is an interesting concept and something I truly want to understand in greater detail.

So like most of my research, I started at Wikipedia, but that’s where I stopped. I’m not going to learn about Philosophy researching it. From what I can gather it is a lifelong pursuit. The word ‘philosophy’ comes from the Greek word ‘philosophia’ which basically means “love of wisdom”.

So there you have it, Philosophy wrapped up in three simple words; Love of Wisdom. I know that love and that desire to understand the world is almost an unreachable target and many spend their lives in the pursuit, so for now I’m just going to look at those people first. Learn from them before even considering learning the ways of the world.

My Thoughts on Writers Block

Posted January 24, 2010 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Writing / 0 Comments

I’ve been reading a few articles about how to cure writers block, but I thought it was about time I weighed in on the subject. I’m in no means an expert or have any answers what so ever, but I have found something that has been writing for me lately.

For me I’ve got a passion for music, so what I did was start a music blog, I’ve written a music review every day as well as adding interesting music news. This has gotten me into the habit of writing something every day.

As this habit has grown I’ve started to build an addiction. I feel like I need to write more and more every day. I’ve decided to write a cultural lesson now and I’ve also been writing ideas and concepts to work into stories.

Also there is something else that helps me and is a good idea for every aspiring writer. I believe it was Stephen King that gave this piece of advice to people wanting to be writers. He said “If you don’t have the time to read, you don’t have the time or the tools to write.” So read, read, read! Read everything and anything, just to get styles concepts and ideas planted in your mind.

When asked, “How do you write?” He also said “one word at a time.”