On the Unconscious and Creating Deep Meaning

 I remember a story from my 11th grade Literature class. I and some other classmates were put into a small group. I had told a classmate a fun fact I remembered about the Robert Frost, concerning his poem "The Road Not Taken". The fun fact was as follows--that Frost, when asked about his poem, shared that he had not intended his poem to be ascribed the deep meaning that was given to it.

"Over-analyzing" seemed ridiculous to me. I mean, what meaning could a work of literature or art truly carry, other than by coincidence, that wasn't what the creator or author originally consciously intended? I was therefore rather surprised to hear Dr. Peterson, in his recent interview of his illustrator Juliette Fogra, claim that certain works of art carry deeper but powerful meanings that cannot themselves be expressed by the originator.

Then I thought about the nature of dreams. Dreams are typically not controlled at the conscious level. But they are certainly not irrelevant to one's life. It certainly is the case that they are tied to one's experiences, emotional state, and deeper meanings and apprehensions. There is a Hindu superstition, that if one sees money in their dream, it is a sign of bad luck; if one sees poop, it is a sign of good luck. While it is, after all, a mere superstition, its existence seems to reflect a cultural belief in the connection of dreams to one's fate.

I have observed in my own life that when I feel guilty and apprehensive, I tend to have foreboding dreams (or at least the dreams that are meaningful and stand out to me are foreboding). When, I feel happy about myself, the dreams that stand out to me are rewarding and encouraging. Even my unconscious mind generates false experiences in my mind that are typical of past emotions I have commonly felt--guilt and appprehension, such as when unprepared for a test; chaotic excitement, when looking forward to an event in my life; helplessly self-indulgent, when the more impulsive side of my mind craves a certain experience or sensation; calm and self-sufficient, when I have made it through a difficult goal.

If dreams are the manifestation of the unconscious mind and if the conscious mind is a passive and sometimes unknowing onlooker on the influence of unconscious, it seems that unconscious motives seep into one's conscious actions. The concept of a Freudian slip is an interesting example of such an idea. When one has a Freudian slip, they sometimes are responsible for utterances or mistakes in communication that they themselves are unable to comprehend. They affect the world in a way not consciously intended, in a way they cannot explain, but in a way that the unconscious mind is responsible for, and knows well about. One may try to mask out or block their consciousness, but there it lies, latent and alive; and it will make its presence known.

In yesterday's post, I discussed the idea of how I have seen myself change over time, and how I even sometimes fail to associate with my past self and actions. A related question is: is taking full ownership over one's past creations sometimes not possible? If so, then the implication is that one has created something that has grown beyond oneself.

When one becomes a parent and raises a child, the life of the child, especially the early years, are influenced to a high degree by the parent. The baby's first words, socialization, emotional health, and experiences are in the hands of the parents. But the child has a life. Child-creation is not an artistic process, as one often has little control over the outcome (i.e. what the child looks like), except (hopefully) who the child's parent is. But child-rearing is. And the child that one creates and rears evolves into something beyond, and (hopefully, usually) beyond, the parent him or herself.