Ernest Hartmann

1. Ernest Hartmann • Professor of Psychiatry at Tufts University • Former President of the International Association of the Study of Dreams • Director of the Sleep Disorders Center at Newton-Wellsley Hospital in Massachussetts • Author of eight books and dozens of articles on sleep and dreams • Met Freud (when he was 2)!

2. Hartmann’s Six Propositions (page 3) 1. First, dreaming brings a lot of material together. Dreaming is a process of making connections; it makes connections in what I shall call the “nets of the mind.” (But so does waking!) 2. Dreaming allows us to make connections more broadly and more inclusively than when we’re awake, because dreaming avoids the “tightly woven” or “overlearned” regions of the mind (such as those concerned with reading, writing, and arithmetic). 3. The connecting process is not random. It is guided by the emotions and emotional concerns of the dreamer. As most of us have always known, we dream of what is important to us. Dreams are not all “crazy” or arbitrary; this is especially evident when you know the dreamer’s emotional concerns. 4. The dream, especially the most striking, vivid part of the dream, pictures or provides a context for the emotion. In other words, dreaming contextualizes emotion. 5. Because of its broader connection making, dreaming is especially good at noting similarities and creating metaphor. Dreaming makes use of our visual/spatial picturing abilities and provides an explanatory metaphor for the dreamer’s emotional state of mind. 6. Finally, this broad making of connections serves a purpose. The making of connections simultaneously smoothes out disturbances in the mind by integrating new material—“calming a storm”—and also produces more and broader connections. These new connections, or increased connections, are what make dreaming useful in problem solving, as well as in scientific and artistic creation.

3. Hartmann’s Evidence You have twenty minutes to do the following: 1. Identify the central claim, or thesis, of the chapter. 2. Then, identify and discuss two pieces of evidence he uses to develop that claim. (Try to find two different types of evidence.) 3. Discuss the following questions: A. What idea does the evidence help Hartmann develop? B. Are you convinced by the evidence? Why or why not? C. How does the evidence fit in with the general aims of Hartmann’s book? 4. Based on your discussion, prepare a brief presentation for the rest of us, evaluating Hartmann’s evidence. End your presentation with a discussion question. In other words, present a question to the group for discussion. Make it a genuine question about Hartmann’s theories--one we can sink out teeth into. Chapter 1: Sara, Michael, Joanne Chapter 2: Jocelyn, Shane, Chris (2) Chapter 5: Brett, Elyse, Alison (5) Chapter 6: Danabelle, Hasina, Serinh, (6) Chapter 10: Eileen, Fotini, Kathleen, Melissa (10)

4. Can Dream Theory Help Us Understand Literature? In your groups, please do the following: 1. Come up with a question a smart reader would be likely to ask about Kafka’s “Children on a Country Road.” Keep #2 in mind as you work on this. When you have your question, get me to approve it. Once I’ve approved it, write the question down. 2. Talk about various concepts developed in the dream theory we’ve read so far. Might one of these concepts help readers address your question? If so, how? If not, why not? The birds flew up as if in showers, I followed them with my eyes and saw how high they soared in one breath, till I felt not that they were rising but that I was falling, and holding fast to the ropes began to swing a little out of sheer weakness. Soon I was swinging more strongly as the air blew colder and instead of soaring birds trembling stars appeared. --Franz Kafka, “Children on a Country Road”