Freud: Poets and Daydreams

I have always been puzzled by a group of poets (artists) who cannot be seen in ordinary eyes, how they create their works, what they rely on to attract readers, and also attract us Emotions like never before. In my exploration of this question, I am a bit like the cardinal who kept asking Areiosto questions.

Most poets give inexplicable responses to our questions, and even the reluctant explanations of individual poets hardly satisfy us. So far, no one has been able to explain exactly what determines the poet's choice of imaginative material, or what ability they use to create these imaginative works, including great characters with great observational abilities, though nonetheless , but it does not affect our enthusiasm for researching this problem at all.

How we wish we could find in ourselves or in others like them imaginative activity similar to the poet's writing, and if so we might, by scrutinizing this activity, discover the true nature of the creative imaginative power of poetry. In fact, we have done the same, and have achieved certain results: writers have long been committed to closing the gap with ordinary people, and they often encourage that, in fact, deep down in everyone is a poet's world, when this When there is only one person left in the world, the only certainty is that this person is a poet. We have tried to find in the child a potential expression of this imaginative activity, and it is well known that the activity in which the child is most attentive and attentive, and most attractive to him, is play, that is, children in play are like poets who develop imagination, Rearrange his life in the game so that everything around him is presented the way he likes.

There is no doubt that children's understanding of the environment is real, and they are really involved in the game, willing to spend their efforts and emotions here; therefore, "serious" is not really the opposite or opposite to the game, "real" "That's it. Of course, the child is very attentive to the game, not obsessed with the imaginary world, he just moves the visible and touchable objects, scenes, etc. in reality into his imagination. "Daydream" is different in comparison, it has no connection between games and reality, but pure imagination out of reality.

Similar to children playing games, the poet treats the illusory world he creates as reality. This means that he strictly separates the poetic world from the real world, but puts a lot of real emotion into the poetic world. We can clearly see the similarity between children's play and the world created by poets in human language, for example, people often express in language some imaginary creation that can be reproduced in some way as " Games" (the word in English also means drama, performance, and pretend), which contain all kinds of real or accessible things, and people who express the imaginary world are also called "performers" or "actors" in the language. ". However, many important literary effects arise from the unreal imaginary world of poetry, such as many things we see in reality, we may not find it beautiful or pleasant, but when it becomes the poet's writing The object becomes a very beautiful thing and makes people feel happy; so is the emotion, many very painful emotions in reality, once turned into a literary work, the listener and reader feel a kind of pleasure.

We also have a view on the difference between reality and play, when a child grows from a child to an adult, he stops playing games and lives in real life only dealing with reality for decades, maybe one day, He would suddenly enter a realm where there is no difference between games and reality, and he remembered in a trance how seriously he played games as a child. At this time, if he compared the imagined world with reality, he couldn't help but want to enter poetry forever. In the world, to get the fun of humorous imagination, and do not want to bear the burden of real life.

As long as people grow up, they will stop playing games, but this does not mean giving up on getting happiness from games, because, for a person who knows a little about spiritual life, they can feel that giving up the fun they once enjoyed is extremely important. tough things. In fact, we just changed the form, used a kind of effort to get the "substitute" of this thing, and didn't really give up. So, when people grow up and stop playing games, they create an unreal thing like a castle in the sky to replace the original game, which we call "daydreaming". I believe that as long as one is alive, one creates one's own daydreams and keeps them going. But for a long time, this fact has been ignored, and many people have not fully and correctly recognized its importance.

Human hallucinations are less perceptible than children's games. It is true that children's games are generally played by one person, but even if several children do it together, there must be a common secret kingdom in their minds for the purpose of play. Children do not hide these secrets whether adults are interested in children's games or not. But when an adult is daydreaming, he doesn't want others to know, and he is ashamed of these dreams. From another point of view, this is the adult's cherishing of dreams, treating them as hidden treasures, and would rather speak out about their own mistakes than tell others about their daydreams. Perhaps, he thinks that this fantasy exists only in him, and he does not know that everyone in the world has an unknown secret. Therefore, the continuation of the game is a daydream. Because of the different motivations and purposes later, the specific behavior of children's games is not the same as the daydreams of adults.

Children's special wishes determine the content of children's games. For children, most of them are very eager to grow up and become adults. This is their only greatest wish. Therefore, they realized this idea in the game, imitating the adult life they usually observed through the game, and pretending to be an adult. In the game, they did not need to cover up their wishes. But adults will have all kinds of scruples and be in a dilemma. On the one hand, he feels that he should strive for success in the real world, and should not indulge in games or daydreams; on the other hand, he must hide many wishes so as not to form daydreams. It is to suppress these, because he thinks these things are too naive, and it will be very embarrassing for him to be known by others.

But if everyone hides their daydreams from outsiders, then we will not be able to understand that human beings have this tendency to create illusions, and scientific research will not be possible. In order to explore human beings, God has opened another window for us. There are still some mentally ill people in the world. These goddesses representing "inevitability" seriously proposed such a task to them, and they can put their own experiences as they are, Whether it is painful or pleasant, they tell the doctor not only about various things, but also tell the doctor about their various hallucinations. Of course, the purpose is for better psychological treatment. This kind of telling is what we know about the secret fantasy. the best source. Through medical practice, we know what they tell doctors that healthy people would never say.

Let's discuss the characteristics of daydreaming: First of all, as long as people who have fantasies are people whose wishes are not fulfilled, happy people do not need to fantasize, this is certain. In other words, unfulfilled wishes are the driving force behind the fantasy, and the fulfillment of each wish is a separate fantasy or an improvement on a dissatisfied reality. Due to different desires, the fantasies generated from desires, coupled with the influence of factors such as gender, personality, and environment, have different styles. We can roughly divide it into two obvious and easily distinguishable types, one is ambition, that is, the desire to drive the dreamer to a high position; the other is sexual desire. For young women, most of their fantasies are driven by sexual desire, and their ambition is included in the pursuit of sex; while for young men, in addition to sexual desire, there are ambition and self-interest in common created their fantasies. Although there are differences between these two tendencies, we can see their consistency.

In most people's daydreams, there is always a woman hidden in a small corner of the dream, just like the inconspicuous image of Thor in a corner of many church altarpieces, which appears in Germanic mythology, All that the dreamer obtains is fully presented by him, and from this we can see a powerful motive for people to hide their hallucinations. For a girl, especially a girl with a good education, it is impossible to show a very strong sexual desire, only a small sexual desire can meet social standards and be praised; and for a boy, he wants to be in this society. To stand on his feet, he must learn to restrain his excessive self-love, which he had cultivated in his childhood by being spoiled, and now he must be quite restrained in a society made up of so many people who share his aspirations.

We must know that these various illusions, castles in the air, daydreams, etc. formed by hallucinatory impulses can be changed, and they are not always the same. With the change of real life impressions, they will also make corresponding adjustments. The markers of time are all created by a deep new impression. To sum up, fantasy has a very important relationship with time or era. Usually, the same fantasy at a certain point lingers in three periods that are representative of our three fantasies. First, the fantasies in the mind are connected with the present, because some events that are happening now arouse strong desires under certain forces; Early experience corroborates it; in the end, fantasizing creates something that might happen in the future, an event that represents the fulfillment of that wish. This kind of event includes not only the events that directly caused him in the present, but also some memories of the past. Through the main thread of "wish", the past, the present and the future are linked together, which is the so-called daydreaming or fantasy.

In order to express it vividly, we can illustrate this problem with an example. Suppose a poor and lonely little boy is on his way to apply for a job with a letter of recommendation. Because of his desire, he can easily fall into a daydream that corresponds to his current situation: he goes to the employer , the employer was very satisfied with him and decided to hire him on the spot; then, he worked hard and quickly became the employer's right-hand man. In this case, it was easy to be appreciated and favored by the employer's young and beautiful daughter. He became a member of the family; he continued to assist his father-in-law in the family business, and due to his old age, he became the logical heir to his father-in-law's business. As a result, in this dream, he once again felt the happiness he once had in his childhood: a safe and warm home, a kind and capable father, and a girl who once made his heart flutter. From this, we can clearly see how a person's wishes, based on present events, plus past experiences, have envisioned a bright and beautiful future for themselves.

We have a lot to explain about fantasies and daydreams, and for now, we just want to give a brief overview, that if these fantasies are too rich or powerful, they will definitely lead to schizophrenia or psychosis. This means that fantasies are only the way we now treat the initial state of the patient's disease, but this phenomenon no longer belongs to the scope of our psychology, but is something that is studied by pathology.

We also need to analyze the relationship between fantasy and dreams. By studying dreams, we know that night dreams and fantasy are the same in essence. The incisive language of "daydream" reveals the essence of the illusory objects created in fantasy. . Despite this, most ordinary people still do not know the nature of dreams. This is because we are usually reluctant to disclose and ashamed to disclose wishes. We always try to hide them. After a long time, they are suppressed into the unconscious, and we are completely unaware. Unconsciously, they are only active at night. However, these repressed desires and various deformations did not completely disappear. Scientific research distinguishes desires from the metamorphosis of dreams in the case of complete disguise. Therefore, nighttime dreams are exactly the same as daydreams, and it is also a way to realize desires. Let's stop here for the moment.

Now let's talk about poets. Is an imaginative writer the same as a daydreamer? And is the poet's creation the equivalent of a daydream? In my opinion, they still have many differences. Daydreaming is the material that the dreamer creates his own material by instinct, which is very different from the "ready-made" that poets and epic writers and tragic writers in the past draw from. In discussing this issue, I have selected a number of writers with a broad readership of both men and women, who are mostly more easygoing, less pretentious writers of legends, novels and short stories, although they are not highly praised by critics, but Still very popular with the public.

By reading their works, we found that the works they created all have a very obvious feature, that is, a sympathetic and respectable hero is created in the works. This hero always uses all the author's thoughts to render, let Readers are worried. For example, if the hero was badly wounded at the end of the first chapter and lost consciousness due to excessive bleeding, we would be worried, but when we opened the second chapter, we were pleasantly surprised to find that the hero got With careful care, our health is gradually recovering, and we will be happy; if at the end of the first volume, the protagonist suddenly encounters a sea storm and the ship he is on also hits the rocks and shatters, then we will definitely be in the second volume. The beginning of the discovery was at this critical moment that the hero turned the corner and was rescued, otherwise, the story could not continue.

We always have a sense of security for the hero, although it makes us happy and makes us worry, but in the process of going through all kinds of difficulties and dangers with him, there is always a sense of security accompanying him. This is the same as in reality, a hero who desperately dives to save a drowning person, or a hero who braves a hail of bullets to blow up an enemy's bunker, so does the hero in the story. This sense of security, in the words of a very good reader, is "I'll never be okay." There seems to be an "invulnerable" feeling, but I think it's actually an outpouring of "Your Majesty," a variant of this "self-majesty" that is the hero of all daydreams and fictional stories.

This "self"-centered story also has a beautiful woman in love with a hero, which is also an important feature. As we all know, this kind of plot is not reality, but it is the basic ingredient of daydreaming. In addition, all the people in the story are either "good people" or "bad people", those who are on the same front as "heroes" are good people, and those who oppose "heroes" are bad people, regardless of differences or preferences in reality.

We must admit that although many imaginative works have gone far beyond the limits and levels of the innocent daydreaming at the beginning, there is one thing I think must be adhered to, and that is that all daydreams, no matter how they go. How far it is, or what it becomes, can be restored to its original state through various transformations. Many psychological novels described by others include only one character, and this character must also be a heroic image, which impresses me deeply. This character is only shaped by inner description. The creator went into the depths of the character's heart, and looked at the people and things around him from the character's eyes. Generally speaking, the tendencies of modern writers expressed in such novels are unique to novels. The tendency of modern writers is to divide themselves into countless small components through self-analysis, and in this way, "personalize" the various opposition and conflict tendencies in the hero's heart, that is, each of his psychological tendencies is A character performance.

In addition, there is a kind of novel that is different from "daydreaming", which can be called "beyond the center" or the novel outside the center. In it, the protagonist is ostensibly cold and passive about everything, like a stranger who is indifferent to the actions and sufferings of others. This can be confirmed in Zola's novels. Psychological analysis of people who are not writers and who are abnormal in many ways shows that their daydreams all have the same expression, that is, in daydreams, the "self" is very happy to play the role of a bystander.

If the comparison between the writer and the daydream, between the writing of poetry and the daydream is of value, then this value appears to correspond to the actual situation. Now let us analyze the relationship between fantasy and the "wish" that runs through the fantasy from the point of view just now, and use the three periods of time involved in the fantasy, past, present, and future to examine the works of writers, and then use this inspection method. Evidence to analyze the relationship between the writer's own life and his work. Until now, some people have taken this very simple, and people have not been sure what basic concepts to use to view this relationship.

Through various studies of daydreaming, we believe that there may be some writers who are so impressed by his own real experiences that he recalls things like his childhood experiences, and thus generates some desires, and the creation of works is such a The only way for wishes to come true. So, from his work, we can discern recent events, but also recall early experiences.

There is absolutely no need to be surprised by the complexity of this creative process, because the facts are far more complex than generalizations, so it can only be an attempt to study real creation. Through my research, I think this way will definitely get grades. Since what the imagination creates is, like daydreaming, a continuation and substitution of children's play, I have always emphasized the writer's recollection of childhood.

There is also a kind of work that is not created by instinct, but is generated by reprocessing existing materials, and we cannot ignore this category. In this kind of work, writers often choose materials independently and make drastic changes, showing a certain degree of independence. The material formed by a nation's treasure trove of myths, legends, or fairy tales is actually the psychological creation of an entire nation. There are indications from the myth that this may be a fantasy or a metamorphosis of the fantasy generated by the aspirations of the whole nation (an old dream of a young nation), which we have not studied enough at present.

Some people may think that this article talks about daydreaming much more than writers and poets, and seems to have strayed from the title, and I agree with this point of view, but this situation is excusable now, because research on this aspect is now Minimal. I'm just now hoping to find some revelation and ask some questions from the study of hallucinations.

These problems actually go beyond the realm of psychology to the selection of literary materials.

We haven't discussed at all what means the writer uses to arouse the readers' emotions. I think there is a connection between the analysis of daydreams and the analysis of the effects of a writer's imaginative work.

As I have suggested in the past, the authors of "Daydream" felt that the hallucinations were vulgar, and so always managed to hide them from people. Now I'm sure that even if they reveal it to us, we won't be very interested and get pleasure out of it, instead, it'll turn us off or disgusted. But a writer with literary talent makes us happy from his "games" or "daydreams". We don't yet know exactly how the writers created this effect.

It is the essence of poetry or art to overcome people's feeling of boredom with a certain technique, and this feeling of boredom is closely related to the "barrier" between each individual and others. I think there are two ways to overcome this "obstacle": Artists use transformation or "camouflage" to weaken the "self-core" feature in "Daydream" and make it more acceptable; the second is He presents us with his fantasies with aesthetic pleasure, and we find satisfaction in them. This increase in pleasure, in turn, can further stimulate more pleasure deep within us, which we call "extra stimulation" or "pre-pleasure." Relaxing and letting go of our inner tension is the essence of literary appreciation, and writers are responsible for this effect through methods that allow us to appreciate our daydreams without making us feel embarrassed and ashamed. We are about to enter even more magical, interesting and complex territory, but now we need to stop and stop this research for now.

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