Dream Liberation

Dream Liberation

What if a dream was not just a dream, what if it was more than a dream? These types of question are the types of questions that great philosophers like Freud and intuitive theorists like Nietzsche knew were worth exploring. They understood that knowledge, dreams, and simply concepts are things that so many people take for granted. But when these things are not being taken for granted it opens up a whole new realm of possibilities. It is a place where the answers to questions are even more complicated questions and place where people crave to understand the unexplainable. However even in this realm of pursuing and inquiring there is a lack of true originality. In this world we can only give images of what is already there because everything we know is not ours. We use our own logic and experiences to justify our imagination and creativity when we are thinking but even then it is still borrowed knowledge. We understand addition because we were taught, or we know the difference between right and wrong because we were told, or we can think of an idea because we have seen other ideas being thought of. There is nothing we just know, we acquire what we know. This idea aligns with Nietzsche’s idea of a “cathedral of concepts” in his piece On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense (pg. 879, 1873). He is intrigued how the human mind constantly builds off the things they already know like a cathedral and he is astonished how humans always adapt to their surroundings. However even then at the very core, we do not know anything until we have been taught, or we learned, or we watched, or we really thought about it. Just as cathedral, our knowledge starts on the ground and is assembled piece-by-piece, meaning every piece has to already exist to be built upon however in a dream there are exceptions to this theory.

        The biggest sense of originality in this world is sporadic images and ideas being put together in a unique way to create something new but even then it is not necessarily original. Take something physical as a cell phone for example. While the idea of an actual cordless device used for communication may have been unique and new it was not original. A cell phone was not the first form of communication. Before iPhone 6’s there were phones with cords, pagers, radios, telegraphs, written letters, and one of the oldest forms of communication – writing on the cave walls. But even a nonphysical concept like electricity that was discovered by man was inspired from a lighting bolt. So while it was unique it still was not original. This goes to show that individuality is not equivalent originality. The short film Meshes of the Afternoon verifies this. This movie is undoubtedly unique. There is constant contrast between light and dark, and stillness and motion, and calmness and chaos. It can be challenging for the viewers to understand what is supposed to be learned because the film is so different than so many others. But at the end of the day Meshes of the Afternoon is a movie. It uses a camera to record a story for people to watch, so the process of creation is not original. However what makes Meshes of the Afternoon so enticing is that all these sporadic images and ideas were put together in a very unique way to create a new experience for its viewers.

         This goes to show that indisputable originality is seemingly impossible in this world unless it is not accepted in which case it can be original. For example, someone could make their own language and say that “olleh” means hello in their language. This could be true, and this could be original, but if no one else knows that “olleh” means hello in a self proclaimed language then this original idea is useless. If original ideas are not established by a society then they mean absolutely nothing to the world as a whole. The movie Christmas in July supports this notion. The main character Jimmy thought of the slogan, “It’s not the coffee, it’s the bunk” for a competition meaning that it is not the coffee that keeps you up at night it is the bed. Jimmy’s slogan did not make a lot of sense to anyone and people did not care for it much until him and everyone else thought he won the competition and at that point people accepted Jimmy’s slogan making his slogan applicable. A general acceptance is imperative in creation because without approval the creation does not matter. Nietzsche writes something comparable in piece On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense. When discussing truth he claims, “Yet we still do not know where the drive to truth comes from, for so far we have only heard about the obligation to be truthful which society imposes in order to exist” (pg. 878, 1873). Nietzsche understands that the actual truth does not matter; it is irrelevant, however a society’s truth does matter. And a society’s truth relies on a general acceptance on what their truth is. Similarly, a person’s entirely original idea does not matter if no one else accepts the idea. So if it is not accepted then it is debatable if the original idea even matters.

        It seems as if in the world originality does not exist because every idea is borrowed, nothing is actually ours. And even if someone could find a way to make something completely original if it is not accepted then unfortunately the originality may not even matter. However an exception to this notion exists in dreams. To start with the process of dreaming can be very contradicting. When a person falls asleep they see darkness and then they start dreaming and they see images in their head like movie playing so subsequently they then see light. Also how people tend to fall asleep in silence and then they start dreaming and there is noise again filling their head. There additionally tends to be an aspect of peacefulness and serenity with falling asleep but then dreaming can be chaotic. These constant contradictions illustrate how dreams can be so liberating because for a moment in time they contradict life and can be everything the world is not. Dreams are unforeseen, they have no past or future they merely exist. Dreams are private; they do not judge or care. Dreams are free, they are sometimes unexplainable and they do not have to be explained. And ultimately for once in our lives dreams are completely our own. Our dreams cannot be taken, manipulated, altered, touched, borrowed, or seen by anyone except ourselves. In a dream world a person stands at the precipice of partial reality and partial imagination and for once in their lives they encounter something that is utterly original – their dream itself. As they fall asleep they lose control yet still have all the power and they are left with the one creation that they can finally call their own.