A Lacanian Approach to Dream Interpretation

Filip KovacevicUniversity of Montenegro, Podgorica, Montenegro

In the century-old history of psychoanalysis, Jacques Lacan was one of itsmost controversial practitioners. Though found opaque and convoluted bymany, Lacans ideas have transcended the confines of psychoanalytic practiceand have since the 1960s been applied to the study of cultural, social, andpolitical processes and phenomena. In this article, the author presents themain aspects of a Lacanian approach to the interpretation of dreams. Heexamines Lacans reinterpretation of a crucial dream from Freuds classicwork Interpretation of Dreams: Freuds own dream of Irmas injection. Heshows the importance of Lacans conceptualization of the psyche as thestructure containing the registers of the Imaginary, the Symbolic, and the Realfor the interpretation of this dream. Furthermore, he demonstrates theapplicability of a Lacanian approach by interpreting several other dreams:Descartes 3 dreams, which have determined the development of modernscience, and his own dream. The article is intended for all audiences and itsaim is to expand the number of theoretical approaches available in the fieldof dream interpretation.

Keywords: dreams, desire, death, Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan

Many historians and scholars of psychoanalysis consider Jacques Lacan(19011981) to have been one of the most talented, though controversial, psycho-analysts, the so-called French Freud. Lacan himself thought that he was the mostfaithful interpreter of Freuds ideas to such an extent that, in the 1950s, hepresented his year-long seminars to the French intellectual elite at the Parispsychiatric hospital St. Anne under the title of a return to Freud.

Among many of Freuds ideas that Lacan discussed and commented upon inthese seminars, the key place was taken by the reexamination of Freuds firstground-breaking book Interpretation of Dreams (Traumdeutung) and certain dreaminterpretations Freud presented there. In this article, I will offer a close reading ofLacans analysis of Freuds dream interpretations to extract what can properly becalled a Lacanian approach to dream interpretations. Later, I will use this approachto interpret certain dreams important for the history of philosophy, such asDescartes three dreams.

Appropriately enough, Lacan mentioned Freuds book in the very first publicseminar he gave, the seminar on Freuds technique in the academic 19531954.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Filip Kovacevic, AssociateProfessor of Political Psychology and Psychoanalytic Theory, University of Montenegro, 81000Podgorica, Montenegro. E-mail: filip@ac.me

78Dreaming 2013 American Psychological Association2013, Vol. 23, No. 1, 7889 1053-0797/13/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0032206

Here he compared Freuds work on dreams with Maimonides Guide to thePerplexed. Namely, the idea common to both Freud and Maimonides is thatdiscourse (be it a dream discourse or a public discourse under strict censorship)reveals by its organization and style what cannot, or must not, be said openly.1 Thisis why Freud compared every dream to a rebus and posited the mechanisms ofcondensation and displacement as keys to the interpretation of its meaning.2 Theday-residues (Tagesresten), which, according to Freud, make up most of the dreamcontent acquire, within the dream structure, a meaning different from the one theyhad during the day. The structure of the dream, brought into being by anunconscious desire, which we only ever see silhouetted at back, assigns them arole to play according to the utility they have for the desires covert manifestation.3

This desire, according to Freudand Lacan put an added stress on this claimisalways addressed to an other, a person with whom the dreamer is in an intimateemotional (transferential) relationship. For those undergoing an analysis, thisperson is the analyst.

To provide an example of how exactly this works in practice, Lacan mentionedthe dream of a Freuds patient, of which the patient could recall just a singlewordthe word channel.4 After a session of free-associating with Freud, thepatient recalled that the impetus for the dream was the French witticism ostensiblycommenting on the FrenchBritish relations, but which, in the actual dream, wasput into the service of expressing the patients unconscious attitude towardpsychoanalytic procedures. The untranslatable witticism goes, De sublime auridicule, il ny a quun pas. Oui, le Pas-de-Calais [that is, the English Channel].5

Hence the key importance of the word channel.

A FREUDS DREAM

Although in Seminar I Lacan does offer several perceptive insights on Freudsdream theory, he does not go into the extensive analysis of a single dream until thesecond part of Seminar II, held the following year.6 The dream in question isFreuds own dream, which in the psychoanalytic literature came to be known as thedream of Irmas injection. Heres the text of the entire dream:

A large hallmany guests, whom we receive. Among them Irma, whom I immediately takeaside, as if to answer her letter, and to reproach her that she doesnt accept the solutionyet. I say to her: If you still have pains, it is really only your fault She answers: If you knewwhat pains I have now in my throat, stomach and abdomen, its tightening me up. I am

1 Lacan, Seminar I, p. 245.2 Lacan, Seminar I, p. 266.3 Lacan, Seminar I, p. 155.4 Lacan, Seminar I, pp. 4546.5 Literally, From the sublime to the ridiculous, there is but a step. Yes, the Step-of-Calais

[which is how the French call the English Channel].6 In his seminars, Lacan very rarely mentioned Karl Jung, another great interpreter of dreams. But

there is a reference to him in the Seminar I, when Lacan, in passing, made a critique of Jungs theoryof the archetypes, rhetorically asking how are they truer than what is allegedly at the surface? Is whatis in the cellar always truer than what is in the attic? See Seminar I, p. 267. This critique has to do withLacans claim that truth is what is said in speech that is, what is on the surface, even if it is (very likely)not heard.

Lacanian Approach to Dreams 79

startled and look at her. She looks pallid and puffy; I think, after all I overlooking somethingorganic. I take her to the window and look into her throat. With that she shows someresistance, like women who wear a denture. I think to myself, she doesnt need to do that.Her mouth then opens properly, and I find on the right a large white spot, and elsewhere Isee some remarkable curled structures which evidently are patterned on the nasal turbinalbones, extensive white-gray scabs. I quickly call Dr. M., who repeats and confirms theexamination . . . Dr M. look entirely different from usual: he is very pallid, limps, is beardlesson the chin . . . My friend Otto now also stands next to her, and my friend Leopold percussesher over the bodice and says: She has dullness below on the left, points also to aninfiltrated portion of the skin on the left shoulder (which, I, in spite of the dress, just as he,feel) . . . M. says: Without a doubt, its an infection, but it doesnt matter; dysentery willfollow and the poison will be eliminated . . . We also directly know where the infectioncomes from. Recently my friend Otto, when she was not feeling well, gave her an injectionof a preparation of propyl, propylene . . . proprionic acid . . . trimethylamine (whose formulaI see in heavy type before me) . . . one doesnt give such injections lightly . . . Probably, thesyringe wasnt clean.7

Lacans approach to interpreting this dream consists of interpreting it togetherwith Freuds own interpretation of it. For Lacan, both the dream and itsinterpretation form a whole, which, if properly analyzed, could offer a significantinsight not only into Freuds unconscious, but also into the structure of theunconscious in general.8

In other words, his framework includes two aspects. First, what Lacan calledimagining the symbol, that is, analyzing the transformation of the symbolic ideainto the image, which is the work of actual dreaming with the dream as the finalproduct. And, second, symbolizing the image, transforming the given image intothe symbol, which is the work of actual dream interpretation. Here Lacanintroduced one of the ideas that marked his entire psychoanalytic opus, which isthat the unconscious is structured like a language.9 This means that what is donein dream interpretation is actually the kind of translation of the material which wasalready translated once before. And, as in every other translation, certain shades ofmeaning (sense) will inevitably be lost. This is why Lacan emphasized Freudscorrectness in claiming that no dream could be completely analyzedthere isalways something that cannot be recalled on awakening. In this particularcase, as Lacan pointed out, Freud consciously decided not to pursue certainassociations and so the full meaning of his dream will forever remain unknown.10

Yet, there is still quite a lot to analyze.

THE EGO AND THE DESIRE OF THE UNCONSCIOUS

For Lacan, the reason that this dream is important is that it can help him revealwhat he claimed is the true nature of the ego. In the early 1950s, this was the hot

7 Quoted in Lacan, J., & Miller, J.-A. (Ed.) (1988). The seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book II: TheEgo in Freuds Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis, 19541955 (Sylvana Tomaselli, Trans).New York, NY: Norton, 1988, pp. 148149.

8 Lacan, Seminar II, pp. 152, 163.9 Lacan, J., & Miller, J.-A. (Ed.) (1978). The seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book XI: The four

fundamental principles of Psychoanalysis, 19641965 (Alan Sheridan, Trans.). New York, NY: Norton.pp. 149, 203.

10 Lacan, Seminar II, p. 152.

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topic in the psychoanalytic circles.11 The significant number of very influentialpsychoanalysts, including Anna Freud, Erik Erikson, and Lacans own analystRudolf Loewenstein, subscribed to the view that the key task of psychoanalysis wasto strengthen the ego. The strong ego was supposed to balance out the demands ofthe superego on one hand and the id on the other and to enable the individual tolead a psychologically fulfilling and stable existence. For instance, in an article thatLacan cited in the Seminar II, Erik Erikson examined the dream of Irmas injectionand interpreted it as revealing the stages of Freuds ego development.12 Lacanstrongly disputed this conclusion and rejects the idea that strengthening the egoshould have anything to do with the psychoanalytic cure. The individuals egocannot be the analysts ally because it is, according to Lacan, radically contingentconsidering that it is made up of the subjects imaginary identifications andnarcissistic fantasies. In Lacans picturesque analogy, the ego is like the superim-position of various coats borrowed from . . . the bric-a-brac of its prop depart-ment.13 The ego is a mask whose function is to censor and repress the articulationof unconscious desire. And, for Lacan, this is precisely what Freuds dream ofIrmas injection shows.

This is why Lacan voiced his suspicion of Freuds claim that this dreamprovides for the fulfillment of Freuds desire not to be held responsible for thefailure of Irmas treatment.14 This is no doubt the preconscious (ego) desire, butwhat about the unconscious desire, which, in Lacans view, reveals the subject trulydesires? How and where is this desire manifesting itself?

In attempting to uncover the unconscious desire of the dreamer, Lacansmethodology is straightforward and in line with his claim about the linguistic natureof the unconscious. As pointed out, Lacan put an interpreting emphasis both on thetext of the dream and the text of Freuds interpretation, and not only on the claimsof the dreamer Freud.15

What becomes apparent very quickly is the multiplicity (more precisely,tripling) of dream figures. There appear to be three male and three female figures.The three male figures (Dr. M, Otto, and Leopold)Lacan refers to them as thetrio of clownsare all there for a reason: all three have important functions inthe structure of Freuds psyche. In other words, according to Lacan, they are allsites of identifications which constituted Freuds ego.16 Dr. M, for instance, stoodfor Freuds imaginary father who, as Lacan reported, had the real-life equivalent inFreuds half-brother Emmanuel, who was the same age as Freuds mother and wasthe principal object of Freuds aggressive Oedipal tendencies. Otto and Leopold, onthe other hand, represented rival friend/enemy figures with which Freud alternatelyidentified. The presence of all three, according to Lacan, testifies to Freuds beingin the midst of intense inner questioning and uncertainty regarding his work: Am

11 This perennial, one can even say the eternal, question is still not conclusively resolved.12 Lacan, Seminar II, p. 148. Erikson, E. (1954). The dream specimen of psychoanalysis. Journal of

American Psychoanalytic Association, 2, 556.13 Lacan, Seminar II, p. 155.14 Lacan, Seminar II, p. 151.15 Lacan, Seminar II, p. 153.16 Lacan, Seminar II, p. 156.

Lacanian Approach to Dreams 81

I right or wrong? Where is the truth? Where am I placed? What is the meaning ofneurosis and the psychoanalytic cure?17

Moreover, the three female figuresIrma as the central one, but also the muchless visible Freuds wife and another more attractive patient of a colleague (whosurfaced in Freuds own interpretation of the dream)stood for Freuds concernwith the sexual nature of unconscious desire. In fact, one of the two crucialtransformative moments of the dream occurs when Freud looked into Irmasmouth. In Lacans words, everything blends in and becomes associated in thisimage, from the mouth to the female sexual organ . . . [it is] the flesh one never sees,the foundation of things . . .18 It is the sight carrying in its wake profound anxietyand, as Freuds own interpretation shows, the image of death, which heassociated with the recent nearly fatal illness of his daughter Mathilde and theactual death of the patient with the same name.19 And so, the key question forLacan remains the following: confronted with the anxiety-provoking situation, whydoes Freud not wake up?

In Lacans view, the explanation has to do with the strength of Freuds desireto discover the secret of the dream life.20 Freud was committed to persist even withextreme anxiety all around. Still, the confrontation with the image of death doeshave an impact on the dream. According to Lacan, Freuds ego dissolved into theseries of egos, the series consisting of Dr. M, Otto, and Leopold.21 These variousego-identifications had a function of helping Freud come up with the answer tohis enigma about dreams. And, then, all of the sudden the answer popped up: Itsthe formula for trimethylamine, which Freud saw in heavy type (in symbols)before him. For Lacan, the sudden appearance of this formula is the second crucialtransformative moment of the dream. It reveals the predominance of the symbolicfunction in the constitution of the stable identity out of the endless succession ofidentifications. In other words, prior to signification and speech, the subject is, inLacans terminology, in-mixed with things and objects and they exist only as hisor her ego-images. It is only with the emergence of the symbolic order (speech andlanguage)22 that there appears the neutral ground for the resolution of allimaginary rivalries and the foundation of (intersubjective) truth. Dreams could notexist without language. In fact, they are an enigmatic language that one candecipher if one takes the text of the dream literally.

As for Lacan, he used the dream of Irmas injection to score a point in hisbroader argument on the linguistic nature of the unconscious. He took this dreamas the account of Freuds heroic confrontation with anxiety and death to wrest thetruth of dreams and, in the fashion of Prometheus, bring it to the people. And this

17 Lacan, Seminar II, p. 157.18 Lacan, Seminar II, pp. 154155.19 Lacan, Seminar II, p. 164.20 In fact, Lacan says that the Irma dream is the dream of someone who is trying to find out what

dreams are. Lacan, Seminar II, p. 137.21 Lacan, Seminar II, pp. 164165.22 Lacan also called this order the big other as it is always beyond the subject and his or her ego

identifications. In this context, Freuds statement to his correspondent and friend W. Fliess becomesunderstandabledreams are located in another psychic locality. Lacan, Seminar II, p. 131.

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emerging truth has all the ingredients of Hegels cunning of reason, because theirrational turns out to be rational after all: dreams speak.23

The analysis of dreams therefore should be structurally similar to logical andgrammatical analysis. Here Lacan relied on the advances in modern linguistics,especially the formulations regarding metaphor and metonymy. For Lacan, meta-phor is structurally similar to condensation and metonymy to displacement.Because the laws of dreaming are the laws of language,24 Lacan rejected anythingthat may appear as an intuitive approach to dream interpretation.25 There is noarbitrariness in dreams. The structure can be revealed if one follows the correctmethodology.

DREAM, DEATH, AND THE REAL

The claim that dreams may point to a structure, a register, or a reality morefundamental for the subject than the ordinary, waking reality is substantiated byLacan in his discussion of two particularly distressing dreams conveyed to Freud byhis patients. The first dream is from Freuds 1911 article Formulations Regardingthe Two Principles of Mental Functioning and is dreamed by Freuds patient whohad taken care of his father while the old man was sick and dying. The dream wasdreamed after the fathers death and went as follows (paraphrased by Lacan): Hisfather was alive once more and he was talking to him in his usual way. But he feltit exceedingly painful that his father had really died, only without knowing it.26

Freuds interpretation sounds simple enough. The dreamer actually wished hisfather to die because the father in his illness suffered so much and it was the factthat the fathers suffering had not ended that made seeing him alive painful to thedreamer. Freud believed that the key to the dream interpretation was the insertionof the short phrase as the dreamer wished the father to die into the dream. Theoriginal, infantile (Oedipal) wish was in this way disclosed and the dream turnedout to concern the very core of the dreamers identity. Lacan pointed out that thisdream is structured as a metaphor, because it revealed something new which hasa meaning . . . no doubt enigmatic . . . [but] one of the most essential forms ofhuman experience.27 It provided additional evidence for Freuds basic claim aboutthe ambivalence of feeling toward the parents. In this dream, the father as the rivalwas wished into disappearance, and yet the fathers death left the dreamerdefenseless against his own death.28 This is so because, according to Lacan, thefather is a sort of shield . . . a substitution for the absolute master, death.29 Andthis is why he did not know refers as much to the dreamer as to the father whois dead. The he did not know shows that the dreamer (and all human beings)prefer ignorance to facing the hard fact of death, that all who are born must die.

23 Lacan, Seminar II, p. 168.24 See Lacan, J., & Miller, J.-A. (Ed.) (1993). The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book III: The

Psychoses, 19551956 (Russell Grigg, Trans.). New York, NY: Norton; dreams speak the same way asone speaks, p. 10.

25 Lacan, Seminar III, p. 239.26 Lacan, Seminar VI, the session of November 26, 1958.27 Lacan, Seminar VI, the session of November 26, 1958.28 Lacan, Seminar VI, the session of December 10, 1958 and the session of December 17, 1958.29 Lacan, Seminar VI, the session of January 7, 1958.

Lacanian Approach to Dreams 83

In connection to this dream, Lacan also told of Trotskys dream of Lenin afterLenins death. Namely, Trotsky dreamed of Lenin praising him on his health andcould not bring himself to tell Lenin that he had died, so he replied yes, but thethings are not as good as during the time before you were unwell. In other words,according to Lacan, Trotsky wanted to face neither his own wishes for Lenin to dienor the fact of his own imminent death. Just like Freuds patient, he at the sametime wanted to get rid of the father and keep being shielded by him.30

In this and other seminars, Lacan referred to the realm of the absolute master,the realm of death as the register of the Real. The Real is that reality or a registerbeyond any articulation, of which nothing can be said, except that it exists. Certaindreams, according to Lacan, bring the subject to the precipice of the Real and it isprecisely this that causes the awakening. The awakening is therefore a sort ofescape into the structured symbolic reality where the subject has his or her placethat is, identity fixed and defined by the others.

An example of such a dream is the dream Freud described in the last chapterof his Traumdeutung. It is a dream of a father who has gone to sleep in a roomadjacent to the room where his sons dead body is laid. The father is awakened byhis sons reproach Father, cant you see that I am burning? and rushes to the nextroom just in time to witness that one of the candle-holders had been overturned andthat his sons body was indeed on fire.31 Lacan posed the key questions: What is themeaning of this chilling coincidence? What kind of desire is satisfied? And,finallythe question that in his analysis of dreams Lacan always found the mostinterestingwhat wakes the dreamer?32

According to Lacan, the image that awakes the dreamer is the one that bringshim or her the closest to the realm of the Real, to the dreamers disappearance asthe ego.33 It is exactly the anxiety of this encounter, this trauma that precipitates theescape into the waking life. In this particular dream, the anxiety must have involvedthe relationship between the father and the son. Freud mentioned nothing about it,but I think we are justified in speculating that this relationship had its share ofambivalence on both sides. What wakes the father was coming face to face with thesons direct complaint (which was likely never voiced during the sons lifetime) andwhich led to the intensification of the fathers guilt. The dream can therefore beseen as fulfilling the fathers desire to address the secret antipathies of his sontoward him. But the cruelty of death has eliminated forever the possibility ofreconciliation. This is why Lacan claims that this dream (as perhaps any dream thatbrings us to the edge of the Real) is an act of homage to the missed realitythereality that can no longer produce itself except by repeating itself endlessly, in somenever attained awakening.34

30 Lacan, Seminar VI, the session of January 7, 1958.31 Lacan, Seminar XI, pp. 34, 5556. There is evidence that the child in question was a son, though

Freud in retelling the dream used the term child, which does not specify gender.32 Lacan, Seminar XI, p. 57. See also the earlier discussion of Freuds dream of the Irmas injection.33 The Real is to be sought beyond the dreamin what the dream has enveloped, hidden from

us, behind the lack of representation. Lacan, Seminar XI, p. 60.34 Lacan, Seminar XI, p. 58.

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PRELIMINARY CONCLUSIONS

Based on the discussion above, I can now formulate several basic rules of theLacanian approach to dreaming which I will then apply in interpreting Descartesthree dreams as well as my own dream. It is clear right away that Lacan was heavilydependent on Freuds formulations but has more explicitly stated certain thingsthat Freud left obscure. First, every dream is an address to an other, that is, to asignificant other in ones life. In most cases, this other is a family member, a friend,or, if the dreamer is in an analysis (as Freuds patients were of course), then theother is the analyst. Second, the issue of the ego is crucial in dream interpretationin the sense that all figures in the dream are the ego identifications of the dreamer.The key point of dream interpretation is to uncover these identifications, recognizethem for what they are, and, in doing so, give expression to the unconscious desirethey are articulating. The articulation of the unconscious desire means bringing thedreamer the knowledge of his or her personal another locality (the unconscious),which, according to both Freud and Lacan, represents the true motivating source ofhis or her actions. Third, as far as the method of the interpretation goes, one musttreat the text of the dream as a censored but sacred text, because, as Lacan put it,what [the dream] articulates as not to be said is precisely what it has to say35

Therefore, all that transpires in the dream is to be read as the combination ofmetaphor and metonymy, trying to make sense of the fact of human mortality, thefact of death. We awaken when we go as far as we can before the veil is rent, theveil that hides the realm of the absolute master, the realm of the Real from whichwe came and to which we will return.

APPLICATION 1: THE THREE DREAMS OF DESCARTES

There are hardly more important dreams in the history of philosophy than thethree dreams Descartes dreamed on the night of November 10, 1619 when he was23 years old. These dreams, as we will see, are all related to the intense questioningabout the meaning of his life that preoccupied the young Descartes at the time.After waking up, Descartes seems to have acquired the necessary determination toseek a method that could lead him (as well as the others who followed the rules ofthis method) to absolute certainty. The dreams were as follows:36

Dream 1

A whirlwind revolves him violently upon his left heel. Later a strong wind forces him to bendover to the left. He is terrified by phantoms and experiences a constant feeling of falling. Heimagines he will be presented with a melon that comes from a far-off land. The wind abatesand he wakes up.

35 Lacan, Seminar VI, the session of December 10, 1958.36 Retrieved from http://www.phantazm.net/omni/dreams_and_visions/descartes_3_visions.htm

Lacanian Approach to Dreams 85

Dream 2

Claps of thunder wakes him. When he opens his eyes, the air seems filled with sparks flyingaround his room.

Dream 3

All is quiet. Before him two books. A dictionary, which appeares sterile and dry, of littleinterest. The other is a compendium of poetry entitled Corpus Poetarum in which appearesa union of philosophy with wisdom. Descartes opens it at random and reads the verse ofAusonius, Quod vitae sectabor iter (What path shall I take in life?). A stranger appearesand quotes him the verse Est et non (Yes and no).Descartes wants to show him where inthe anthology it could be found, but the book disappeares and reappeares. He tells the manhe will show him a better verse beginning Quod vitae sectabor iter. At this point the man,the book, and the whole dream dissolve.

The metaphor that characterizes the first dream is the violent whirlwind. It isexpressive of Descartes search for different signifiers to augment his identity,which, at the time, is in flux. He is no longer able to walk down the habitual path.The old ways of doing things cannot satisfy him anymore, they breed phantoms,terrifying beings with unclear identity. A Lacanian approach would stress Des-cartes desire for some kind of change, for new things in his life which, in the dream,are represented by a melon from a far-off land. This melon, which in the early17th century Germany must have been a rare and expensive gift, can be interpretedas that special signifier that Descartes was looking for to differentiate himself fromthe rest (from his soldier acquaintances, for instance), especially since the melon inNovember is way out of the season. It appears that Freud, when shown this dream,found some sexual significance in the appearance of the melon.37 In any case, it isclear that the melon is the object of desire, offering some kind of fulfillment. Thisis plausible because as soon as the thought of the melon takes hold, the wind (thedanger) is lessened and Descartes wakes up. There appear to be no clearlydiscernible ego identifications in this dream and perhaps this is why the entiredream scene (before the thought-image of the melon) shows such an intenseagitation and anxiety.

Soon Descartes falls asleep again and has a very brief second dream. Thedream involves auditory sensations (the claps of thunder). One can interpret thisdream as an unsuccessful and therefore aborted unconscious grappling with theissues of identity (ones vocation in life). Because Descartes awakens quickly, thekey issue remains unresolved and Descartes has to dream again.

The third dream is obviously the most significant. Here at the very beginningwe have an image of two books. They are the signifiers of learning and knowledgeand point to Descartes preoccupations at the time of the dream. There is thedictionary, sterile and dry, not so interesting to him because it represents the oldknowledge, the knowledge that is already codified by somebody else, the knowl-edge of the symbolic order into which he was born. On the other hand, whatDescartes is after is new knowledge and new ways of knowing. The second bookCorpus Poetarum is to him much more significant, because poetry represents

37 Retrieved from http://marilynkaydennis.wordpress.com/2010/08/26/

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creativity and originality (remember the melon from the first dream). Instead ofthe melon, in this dream we have the poetic body (the title of the book).According to Lacans approach, the title is to be interpreted literally as meaningthat Descartes ego-identification is precisely the one with the poetic body whichwould enable him to open up new and innovative paths to knowledge. After all, thepoets have historically been the trailblazers and the creators of new things and thisis why Descartes wants to identify with them. He then reads a verse of the poetAusonius: Quod vitae sectabor iter (What path shall I take in life?). It is afundamental question and a question always asked of the other. This question isakin to the question made well-known by Lacan in his graph of desireChe vuoi?What do you want of me?asks the subject of the other.38 It is not surprising thenthat the other immediately acquires an embodiment in Descartes dream. Astranger appears and quotes him a verse Est et non (yes or no). This is a nonsenseanswer to the postulated question, but it is the kind of answer that the othertypically gives, because the other does not know him/herself what he or she wants.The fact that the question what do you want of me? gets the answer Yes or nomeans that the being of the subject is in question: Descartes has to decide whetherhe really exists or not. But, as the dream shows, the answer to the question of beingcannot be found in the anthology. The book disappears and reappears. It is thequestion that comes very close to the edge of the Real, the question of humanmortality and death. The other (the stranger) leads Descartes away from theplunge into anxiety (the return to the first dream and the whirlwind) by his offerto help Descartes find the desired verse. However, this cannot be done as death isinevitable for all. This is why at this point the man, the book, and the whole dreamdissolve. The encounter with the Real and the attendant anxiety initiated thesubjects escape into the waking reality.

The interpretation of these three dreams shows the usefulness of the Lacanianapproach as it stresses the key issues of the subjects identity formation and itsrelation to the other and the symbolic order in which he or she is embedded. Thedreams give the sought-after direction in Descartes life and put him on the trackof the discovery of a method that promises to solve the mystery of being. AsDescartes later put it Cogito, ergo sum (I think, therefore I am). The derivationof being from thinking is no doubt something one could have expected from aperson who in his dreams identified himself with poets.

APPLICATION 2: THE AUTHORS DREAM

In lieu of the conclusion, I would like to offer a Lacanian interpretation of thedream I had while I was putting the finishing touches on the article. It is a dreamI had on the morning of April 16, 2011. Though it does not refer to the article in anynoticeable way, it is one of the dreams that show the dreamer encountering theedge of the Real and hence confirms the importance of Lacans insights on thismatter. The dream goes as follows:

38 See Lacan, J. The Subversion of the Subject and the Dialectic of Desire in the FreudianUnconscious, Ecrits, 690. (2006) (B. Fink with H. Fink & R. Grigg, Trans.) New York, NY: Norton.

Lacanian Approach to Dreams 87

I am on a tourist trip in some tropical country, which has similar churches like my nativeMontenegro and neighboring Croatia. The town I am in is by the sea and has a big squareand the big statue of the Venetian lion on the top of the hill. While I am taking photos of thesquare, there begins an armed attack of the rebels on the police forces. There is gunfire,bombs are thrown, and I am in the middle of it all. I seem not to be able to escape and thesoldiers [the police] surround me. When the soldiers surround me and I cannot escape, asthey think I am also a rebel, I wake up in fear. [While I am waking up, I have a thought thatI would have been out of the square by the time the attack began had I not returned tophotograph some enigmatic and beautiful buildings.]

Just like in the dreams previously discussed, here as well there is a discernibledissatisfaction with the status quo on the part of the dreamer. It is important for thedream interpretation for me to say that, as an independent intellectual, I am awell-known public critic of the current government in Montenegro. The practices ofthe government are far from democratic, and I have criticized these practices overa long period of time both in my newspaper columns and in my statements tovarious Montenegrin media. Also, it is important to note that the dream sceneryand architecture remind me of my hometown. Hence the entire dream setting isappears to be a movie-like dramatization of my daily life.

However, the key issue from the Lacanian approach to dreams is the search forthe ego-identifications in the dream and the way the tension between them (and theresulting encounter with the Real) is resolved. This dream shows that there is plentyof unresolved tension in my identity constitution. In other words, I still have notintegrated into my identity the signifiers necessary to make me a decisive andconfident rebel. The dream shows this clearly: When the soldiers surround me,thinking that I may be their enemy and I realize that I cannot escape, I wake up.Finding myself in the dangerous situation, I escape into the waking reality, takingthe emotion experienced in the situation with me as well. I do not, for instance,confront the soldiers and convincingly explain to them that they are mistaken. Or,alternatively, I do not remain in the dream and fight them back. No, I runawayand this shows that I still need to work on strengthening my (conscious)rebel identity.

In the end, it is also curious to consider the thought I had while waking up. Itappears that I was willing to expose myself to danger in order to photograph someenigmatic and beautiful buildings. It is here that I think that my motivating(unconscious) desire is revealed. It appears that I am willing to take risks and be arebel for the sake of personal aesthetic and hence libidinal considerations. Myromantic disposition that (in the words of Dostoevsky) beauty will save the worldmay therefore be the most revealing aspect of this dream, but (just as in TheBrothers Karamazov) there is a heavy price to pay to remain faithful to it.

REFERENCES

Freud, S. (2010). The Interpretation of Dreams: The Complete and Definitive Text (J. Strachey, Trans.).New York, NY: Basic Books.

Lacan, J. (2011). Lacan, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book VI: Desire and Its Interpretation,19581959 (C. Gallagher, Trans.), unpublished manuscript.

Lacan, J., & Miller, J.-A. (Ed.) (1978). The seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book XI: The Four FundamentalPrinciples of Psychoanalysis, 19641965 (Alan Sheridan, Trans.). New York, NY: Norton.

Lacan, J., & Miller, J.-A. (Ed.) (1988). The seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book I: Freuds Papers onTechnique, 19531954, p. 245 (J. Forrester, Trans.). New York, NY: Norton.

88 Kovacevic

Lacan, J., & Miller, J.-A. (Ed.) (1988). The seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book II: The Ego in FreudsTheory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis, 19541955 (Sylvana Tomaselli, Trans.). New York,NY: Norton.

Lacan, J., & Miller, J.-A. (Ed.) (1993). The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book III: The Psychoses,19551956 (Russell Grigg, Trans.). New York, NY: Norton.

Lacan, J. (2006). The Subversion of the Subject and the Dialectic of Desire in the Freudian Unconscious,Ecrits (B. Fink with H. Fink & R. Grigg, Trans.). New York, NY: Norton.

Lacanian Approach to Dreams 89

A FREUD`S DREAMTHE EGO AND THE DESIRE OF THE UNCONSCIOUSDREAM, DEATH, AND THE REALPRELIMINARY CONCLUSIONSAPPLICATION 1: THE THREE DREAMS OF DESCARTESDream 1Dream 2Dream 3

APPLICATION 2: THE AUTHOR`S DREAMReferences