Tiffany Behringer
(Ware College House)
PHF Undergraduate Coordinating Research Fellow
C’05, Anthropology, Health and Sciences
Title |
Embodied Dreaming: Utilizing Cognitive Anthropology and Bodylore
Theory to Explore Dreaming among Australian Aborigines
Within many Aboriginal communities
in Australia, there exists a cultural model surrounding sleep and
dreams. Most common within this cultural model is the belief that
ancestors guide aborigines through struggles and decisions during
their dreams. Thus, through dreaming, aborigines’ embodied souls
interact with their ancestors in order to create a new reality.
In order to examine dreaming among Australian aborigines in traditional
communities, I will analyze accounts of dreams from anthropological
research using the theories found in bodylore study. This process
will allow me to understand the divisions inherent between the physical
body and the traveling dreamer. In addition, I will apply cognitive
anthropology to understand significance of dreaming within aboriginal
communities. According to cognitive anthropological theory, knowledge
is organized into meaningful structures that allow individuals to
process information in a culturally appropriate manner. These structures,
known as cultural schemas influence decisions and perceptions of
the world and affect the way we learn about the world around us,
the way we categorize memories, and the way we think and react.
Thus, schemas influence beliefs and actions and therefore, understanding
schemas of dreams allows us to understand the cultural relevance
of dreaming within the present social system of aboriginal communities.
Cristina V. Alberto
C ’06, Visual Studies and Film Studies
Title | Kubrick’s
Eyes Wide Shut: Dreamscape, Dichotomies, and Pornography
I plan to investigate how the rating system in film
influences the general perception of what constitutes pornography.
Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut is the perfect vehicle for my investigation,
because its highly charged sexual content has generated much controversy.
This film works within an explicit sexual realm, and yet does not
seem to fit the genre of pornography because Kubrick’s portrayal
of nudity is devoid of eroticism. The way Kubrick handles nudity
in the film departs from any sort of orgiastic viewing pleasure.
Eyes Wide Shut, far from being a startling display of carnal pleasures,
has a dreamlike quality that inhibits a pornographic reading of
the text. Kubrick uses cinematic techniques to set the characters,
and the viewers, in “dream mode” so that the film becomes a realm
of fantasy rather than a base, mundane, pornographic adventure.
The fantasy aspect operates on both a narrative and cinematic level.
There are powerful dichotomies operating within this dream-like
aspect, such as wishful dream versus nightmare and reality versus
fantasy.
Julie Brown
C’05, English, Fine Arts, Visual Studies
Title | Dreaming
as a Model of Inspiration
What role do dreams play in artistic inspiration,
and what are some of the problems in translating between textual
and visual media. I expect to develop a minimum of one painting
for every fully developed dream that is recorded in the past year
and a half. I hope to discover why certain images fascinate and
how they re-present themselves in artistic practice. Using the paintings
as dream charts, one can begin to see the connections between colors,
forms, images, relationships, situations, ideas in their manifest
form—one can begin to think about how dream elements accrete into
meaning.
At stake on a personal level is my interest in the
notion of originality, and the question of whether one can create
something out of nothing. Are artists geniuses who imagine wondrous
things entirely of their own creation, or are they sensitive organizational
systems who synthesize data culled from the world? If we are the
latter, the field for creativity is open and free, and there is
no sense in perpetual struggle for something entirely new and original.
What we create must always refer to something else, but it must
also always be “new” because no two people, as they are separate
across time and space, will synthesize data in the same way.
Molly G. Cahill
College ’07, Biological Basis of Behavior
Title | Ethics
and Sociological Consequences of Modafinil
Modafinil, marketed as Provigil, is on the verge
of becoming America’s new miracle drug. It works by replacing sleep
with a pill. No extra sleep is required to recover from Modafinil,
and the drug is not addictive. Research subjects have remained awake
for as long as 60 hours on Modafinil without suffering any decline
in their cognition or other adverse effects. FDA approval of the
drug is intended expressly to treat specific sleep disorders. In
a country as sleep-deprived as the United States, however, the potential
for widespread off-label use is huge. What are the ethical issues
surrounding Modafinil and its relation to our society?
Clara W. Chow
College & Wharton ’07, International Studies & Business, French
Title | Myth and
Mysticism :
Mystic Yearning and Slumbering Consciousness
What if you
slept? And what if, in your sleep, you dreamed? And what if, in
your dream you went to heaven and there plucked a strange and beautiful
flower? And what if, when you awoke, you had the flower in your
hand? Ah, what then? —Coleridge
The world becomes a dream, and the dream becomes reality.
—Novalis
According to Ludwig Binswanger, the Romantic period (1800–1865)
was one of three great “dream renaissances” in history. The dream
sequences and mystic moments in the works of English Romantic poets
have elements that suggest that their art was their way of capturing
the mystic union they attained in their dreams.
Although virtually unknown in English,
Novalis (Friedrich von Hardenburg) was a towering figure in German
poetry. He created the Blue Flower, the central symbol of the Romantic
movement in Germany and the embodiment of the yearning of the age.
I examine the dream vision that transformed Novalis into a Romantic
poet: a mystical experience at the grave of his beloved 15-year-old
fiancee Sophie von Kuhn. She became, for him, his "Spirit's Guide"
and Saviour; Novalis came to identify her with the divine Sophia
and with Christ. Through close textual analysis of Novalis's Hymns
to the Night and a study of his unique, lyrical dream language,
I show how Novalis fused Christianity with his love for Sophie
into a religion by which he lived for the remainder of his short
life.
Joshua Duyan
C’05, Photography and Design
Title | The Play
of Photography in Evoking the Dreamlike
I am using abstract and surreal photography as a means
to visually communicate the singleness of dreamlike imagery. By
contrasting the two-dimensional and the three-dimensional, I hope
to show spatial relations, light, and the tension between symmetry
and asymmetry. Imagery abstraction detracts from the sense of normalcy
that is often associated with the photographic medium. Abstract
and surreal imagery can evoke dreams and represent the emotions
and relative cognition associated with them. By employing these
truths, parallels in the imagery can be drawn to our lives. The
viewer will not only see the photograph as an image, but also experience
it with reminiscent emotions.
Sidi D. Gomes
(Gregory College House)
C’ 05, Architecture, Fine Arts
Title | Drawing
with Light—Exploring the Flexibility of the Negative
Is it possible to turn a photo camera into a video
camera? Instead of capturing a moment in time, like common photography,
I wish to record periods of time in a single negative. In a sense,
these photos would actually be more complete than videos, because
one sees both the movement taking place, as in videos, but also
the history of the movement in one single image. Dreams are a great
source of inspiration for the moods, settings, and images I will
try to achieve with my pictures.
Dana Katz
C’ 05, Art History
Title | Jacob’s
Dream in Northern Sicily
Jacob’s Dream plays an important role in the Biblical
tradition as the event in which the patriarch is divinely selected
as the father of the Chosen People of Israel. This Old Testament
scene appears in two narrative cycles of mosaics set by Byzantine
artisans in the twelfth century Cappella Palatina and the Cathedral
of Monreale in Sicily. This island has a mixture of artistic traditions
reflected in the remaining art and architecture as Sicily was colonized
successively by the Greeks, Romans, Arabs, and Normans. This multi-ethnic
society was reflected in the court of the Norman ruler Roger II
in which Arabic, Latin, and Greek were spoken and the three monotheistic
religions of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity were practiced. Dreams
play an important part in the narrative of these three faiths and
in the legitimization of the chosen leader of the people in its
texts. Roger II was a descendent of the Normans who conquered Sicily
with papal support in the late eleventh century, built his royal
palace with the adjacent Cappella Palatina soon after his coronation
in 1130, which was contested, by Pope Innocent II and the Holy Roman
Emperor. By incorporating scenes such as Jacob’s dream from the
Old Testament in the mosaic cycles of his private chapel, Roger
II was attempting to legitimize his kingship. By examining these
narrative cycles with a focus on Jacob’s dream, I will attempt to
assess the appropriation of the symbolism of dreams by the Norman
kings of Sicily
Ruth M. McAdams
C’06, English
Title | Ulysses and Finnegans Wake: The Syntax of Sleep
In his two great novels, Ulysses and Finnegans Wake,
James Joyce represents a spectrum of states of consciousness—from
the wakefulness of Leopold Bloom’s morning routine, to the daydreaming
of the “Circe” episode, to HCE’s sleeping dreams. Ulysses chronicles
the lives of three characters over a single ordinary day in Dublin,
while Joyce’s “book of the night,” Finnegans Wake, describes one
man’s dreams over the course of a single 628-page night. Joyce’s
novels have often been criticized as being incomprehensible and
overly obscure, and to me, one of the most interesting aspects of
this incomprehensibility stems from non-standard syntactical and
formal structures that create Joyce’s distinctive voice. I am researching
Joyce’s use of syntax to determine how and why he bends and breaks
the rules of the English language, and how these deviations create
a grammar and syntax that attempts to mimic the various levels of
wakefulness represented by the two novels. I will attempt to determine
how distinct these syntaxes are from each other and to what extent
they follow predictable rules, in an effort to better understand
the relationship between language and consciousness.
Kenneth L. Pearce
SEAS ’07, Applied Science in Computer Science, Philosophy, Classics
Title | Are Dreams
Real?
For the last 2,500 years, philosophers have struggled
to define the connection between perception and reality. The idea
that our perceptions of the world might not resemble the actual
world with any great degree of accuracy was a critical force in
the development of philosophy and science. As philosophers have
puzzled over this question throughout the ages, dreams always seem
to have eluded them. Dreams introduce perceptions that the "common
sense" thinker will insist do not form a part of the actual world,
but how is it that these perceptions differ from those of waking
life? When the 18th century Anglican Bishop George Berkeley revolutionized
modern thought by constructing a beautifully simple yet wholly counterintuitive
metaphysics in which reality is defined by perception and not the
other way around, he too was faced with the problem of dreams, and
it is a problem that his writings alone may not adequately solve.
If, as Berkeley asserted, "to be is to be perceived," does it follow
that dreams are real?
Jane E.
Silfen (Spruce College House)
C’07
Title | The Stigmata:
The Actualization of a Dream
Recipients of the stigmata—Christ’s wounds manifested
on the body—are commonly regarded as either miracles or frauds.
Those who view stigmata as a gift from God struggle to explain the
inconsistencies of the wounds, both in how they differ from other
stigmata and from those received by Christ himself. Skeptics, however,
must acknowledge that physicians have closely examined stigmatics,
and the wounds have appeared in controlled environments and under
close observation. A third alternative is possible, one that explains
the stigmata as mentally self-imposed, but real nonetheless. By
analyzing the dream imagery described in first-hand accounts of
stigmatization, I will show that stigmatics receive the wounds of
Christ not as it was, but as they imagine it to be. Stigmata thus
remains a mark of faith, received only by those who meditate heavily
on the Passion. However, it is also something more: a portal offering
remarkable insight into the influence of dreams on the waking state.
Jenny Suen
C’06, Comparative Literature, Political Science
Title | The Dream
of the Red Chamber: How China Remembers a Story of Revolution, Holocaust,
and Social Degeneration
The Cultural Revolution in China (1966–76) was a profound
rupture in Chinese history, culture, and society. Imagine a decade
in which children did not go to school, but instead were sent away
to the countryside to be “re-educated” in revolutionary thought
and lifestyle. Imagine a decade in which people were slaughtered
for absurd, political reasons. It was a decade of immense trauma,
inflicted not only by demagogues from above, but also with the consent
and agency of the entire population. How is this decade “remembered”
in the so-called “scar literature” of the period? Many Chinese authors
have addressed problems of historical memory and the depiction of
trauma through dream sequences in their narratives or through dream-like
and surreal stylistic forms. Dreams act as a psychological mechanism
that complicates the notion of historical memory that is often found
in straightforward memoirs, which emphasize objectivity in a subjective
experience; it also functions to distance the individuals from their
own experiences. I will analyze the way dreams are used in the “scar
literature” from the period. My final project will be to write a
novel, in which I will explore the application of dreams as a literary
device, as well as a paper outlining my findings. |
