1st Edition
The Mindbrain and Dreams An Exploration of Dreaming, Thinking, and Artistic Creation
In The Mindbrain and Dreams: An Exploration of Dreaming, Thinking, and Artistic Creation, Mark J. Blechner argues that the mind and brain should be understood as a single unit – the "mindbrain" – which manipulates our raw perceptions of the world and reshapes that world through dreams, thoughts, and artistic creation.
This book explores how dreams are key to understanding mental processes, and how working with dreams clinically with individuals and groups provides an essential route towards achieving transformation within the psychoanalytic process. Covering such key topics as knowledge, emotion, metaphor, and memory, this book sets out a radical new agenda for understanding the importance of dreams in human thought and their clinical importance in psychoanalysis. Blechner builds on his previous work and takes it much further, drawing on the latest neuroscientific findings to set out a new way of how the mindbrain constructs reality, while providing guidance on how best to help people understand their dreams.
The Mindbrain and Dreams: An Exploration of Dreaming, Thinking, and Artistic Creation will appeal to psychologists, psychoanalysts, philosophers, and cognitive neuroscientists who want new ways to explore how people think and understand the world.
1: INTRODUCTION PART 1: HOW THE MINDBRAIN TRANSFORMS THE WORLD 2: THE MINDBRAIN CREATES ITS OWN VERSION OF THE WORLD 3: CONDENSATION, INTEROBJECTS, AND CATEGORIES 4: DISPLACEMENT 5: METAPHOR 6: PUNS – LINGUISTIC AND NONLINGUISTIC 7: HOMOFORMS AND HOMOMELODIES 8: METONYMY 9: SYMBOLS 10: DREAMS AND THE MINDBRAIN’S STRUCTURING OF EXPERIENCE 11: PSYCHOLOGICAL DEFENSES AND DREAMS PART 2: WORKING WITH DREAMS CLINICALLY 12: NEW WAYS OF WORKING WITH DREAMS 13: THE DREAM GUIDES ITS OWN ANALYSIS: HOW TO WORK WITH DREAMS OVER TIME 14: GROUP DREAM INTERPRETATION PART 3: DREAMS, KNOWLEDGE, MEMORY, EMOTION, AND THE MINDBRAIN 15: HOW NEUROPSYCHOANALYSIS AND CLINICAL PSYCHOANALYSIS CAN LEARN FROM EACH OTHER 16: ELUSIVE ILLUSIONS: REALITY JUDGMENT AND REALITY ASSIGNMENT IN DREAMS AND WAKING LIFE 17: WHEN YOUR MINDBRAIN KNOWS THINGS THAT YOU DON’T 18: MEMORY, KNOWLEDGE, AND DREAMS 19: LANGUAGE OF THOUGHT AND THE WAKINGWORK; LIST OF DREAMS
Biography
Mark J. Blechner, Ph.D., is a psychologist and psychoanalyst in New York City. He is a training and supervising psychoanalyst at William Alanson White Institute. He has taught at Columbia University, Yale University, and New York University.
