[quote]nephorm wrote:
jnd: I think you should read some contempory psychological literature regarding the subconscious… your skepticism is appreciated, but overzealous.[/quote]
I have read it and it is ALL speculation, at best. The idea that the SUBconscious exists is a controversial notion. Now, the UNconscious that is a different story all together. The SUBconscious requires all sorts of Freudian/psychoanalytic assumptions (all of which are unsubstantiated), whereas the UNconscious has a long experimental literature (Erdelyi, Jacoby, etc.).
[quote]jnd wrote:
I have read it and it is ALL speculation, at best. [/quote]
Interesting. So you have no problem with the “unconscious” terminology: definition…the greater part of the psychic apparatus accumulated through life experience that is not ordinarily integrated or available to consciousness yet is manifested as a powerful motive force in overt behavior especially in neurosis and is often revealed (as through dreams, slips of the tongue, or dissociated acts)
Yet you have a problem with the broader (and also less problematic) definition of “subconscious”: the mental activities just below the threshold of consciousness; also : the aspect of the mind concerned with such activities.
Hmm, I was under the impression that Freud wrote mainly about the unconscious. But you are right, people are confusing unconscious and subconscious a bit.
[quote]OllyB wrote:
Hmm, I was under the impression that Freud wrote mainly about the unconscious. But you are right, people are confusing unconscious and subconscious a bit.[/quote]
Really, the terms are used interchangably. When people try to nuance the differences between the terms, it is usually arbitrary and done for the purposes of winning an argument.
[quote]nicolebadkat wrote:
What do you think a dream that your husband is cheating on you mean? And what do you guys think the signs of a cheating spouse are?[/quote]
While these types of dreams are disconcerting (everyone who’s been married for a while has had it, I’m sure) I don’t think you should read anything into it. It could just be that you are feeling a little indadequate as a wife and think that he is looking to cheat on you, or it could mean that you have some level of distrust of him, or it could mean you had some bad feta on your salad (is there any good feta?). My advice would be to not let your dreams get to you too much because they don’t all have meaning IMO.
[quote]nicolebadkat wrote:
What do you think a dream that your husband is cheating on you mean? And what do you guys think the signs of a cheating spouse are?[/quote]
wow…that could be an entire different thread. There’s tons and tons of different signs but I would say commen sense should tell you…You know your spouse better than anyone else so you would know the signs better than anyone else…How much time does he spend at home, how much times does he spend where you don’t know where he is? Unexplained voice mails, text messages, emails…phone calls in the night…man, there are TONS of signs…Hope that helps…Are there kids involved?
As for the dream itself, if that’s all it is and there are no other signs…I’d say the dream doesn’t really mean anything…unless it starts reocurring over and over.
Dreams are nothing but random neuron firings. During REM sleep, some of the day’s experiences are “downloaded” from short-term memory to the long-term memory store. Dreams are thought of as a by-product of this process.
I suppose you could argue that dreams are meaningful because meaningful memories would most likely be converted to long-term memory. This is true. However, dreams can contain experiences that do not make it past short-term memory and are discarded.
It would be nice if dreams had meanings, but, unfortunately, they do not.
The only other sign is text messages from a girl that he’s “friends” with. I am not normally a jealous person, but he has been hiding these and doesn’t realize that I know about them. How normal is it for a married man to secretly text message a girl he’s never told his wife about? He waits until he is out of the house or I am not home to do it. Or, he says it is someone else when it is really her.
[quote]engerland66 wrote:
Dreams are nothing but random neuron firings.
[/quote]
You could make the same argument about thought in general.
Nice use of the passive voice. Dreams are thought of in this way by who, exactly? Neuroscientists? All of them? Psychoanalysts? All of them, as well? Not to mention the fact that “thinking of” something a certain way does not make it so. I can “think of” a door as being a portal to another world. It is not.
You could also argue that part of the storage process involves integrating new information into the whole of your collective experiences. As such, dreams are necessarily meaningful, in a non-trivial way, as indicators of psychological interest.
[quote]
It would be nice if dreams had meanings, but, unfortunately, they do not.[/quote]
Nicole, when he says it’s someone else…how do you know he’s not telling you the truth?
Men are different kinds of animals…To us, things like that are no big deal, so we don’t end up telling our wives. It can be totally harmless and completely on the level…so we see no sense in mentioning it. Men just don’t talk about every aspect of their lives.
It would be nice if dreams had meanings, but, unfortunately, they do not.[/quote]
I’ve got to take issue with this blanket statement. I think a lot of dreams are meaningless, however I think from time to time certain dreams do have meaning, whether they represent some insecurities or unresolved issues that are causing undue stress on the dreamer, thus carrying over into the unconscious. I had a dream one time where I actually solved a complex financial model problem in my dream.
This problem had given me fits the entire day before. It was the last dream before I awoke and when I got to work, I put the solution to use and it worked! With this anecdotal evidence, you cannot convince me that dreams are meaningless neuron activity.
[quote]nicolebadkat wrote:
What do you think a dream that your husband is cheating on you mean? And what do you guys think the signs of a cheating spouse are?[/quote]
Signs? When there’s lipstick on his chonies… and it’s not yours. (J/K)
[quote]dollarbill44 wrote:
And what’s up with the dreams where you’re running for some reason (sports, cops chasing you, etc) but you are slow as hell and can’t really make any ground. What’s up with that?
[/quote]
db 44,
The 'moving-through-jello/ paralyzed dream is said to be a commonly occuring one; I either haven’t ever had this dream, or haven’t had in long enough that I don’t remember it.
One of my high school professors - a sharp guy, but maybe a little faithful to modern natural science - told me that there was an extremely high correlation between incidence of this dream and the application of anaesthesia during the birth of the dreamer. I would find this physiological account persuasive if anaesthesia was not so common, and if we could be sure that people born before anaesthetics were used during birth. Somehow I doubt this…
The other account was given by Freud in ‘The Interpretation of Dreams.’ It was one of the dream phenomena for which Freud claimed that he had found an interpretation consistent from dreamer to dreamer, along with ‘flying,’ ‘being in a crowd,’ and so on.
HAHA! No lip stick anywhere as of yet. I don’t think he’s stupid enough to actually cheat. But I do think he likes the attention that this other girl is probably giving him. What I want to know is why isn’t my attention good enough for him? He gets action when he wants it. I never say no. And how would he like it if he found out I had been talking to another man and never mentioned it? Do men really just not care about that?
[quote]dollarbill44 wrote:
With this anecdotal evidence, you cannot convince me that dreams are meaningless neuron activity.
DB
[/quote]
What you are witnessing is the modern positivist “skeptic”… a man who dismisses all human concerns as trivial, who derives joy from irrationally discounting anything unempirical as nonexistant.
Notice that while you at least have anecdotal evidence, he presented NO evidence. He simply made an assertion that we are expected to swallow. If you wish to play the part of the positivist, then you must at least provide some evidence for your assertions, or provide an experimental framework that we can all agree upon.
Please note that you can be a genuine (and slightly less annoying) skeptic by simply saying that meaning in dreams is not provable by any sort of scientific experiment (whether or not that may be true is a separate issue). As soon as you make a positive claim (dreams are only the result of the random firing of neurons), you must provide support for that claim, especially if you wish to have an air of scientific authority surrounding your statement.
[quote]nicolebadkat wrote:
And how would he like it if he found out I had been talking to another man and never mentioned it? Do men really just not care about that?[/quote]
I honestly would say that as long as the marriage was strong and healthy, he shouldn’t mind. That’s happened to me and it was no biggie. I think when a marriage is strong, things like that shouldn’t be sweated…
[quote]nicolebadkat wrote:
HAHA! No lip stick anywhere as of yet. I don’t think he’s stupid enough to actually cheat. But I do think he likes the attention that this other girl is probably giving him. What I want to know is why isn’t my attention good enough for him? He gets action when he wants it. I never say no. And how would he like it if he found out I had been talking to another man and never mentioned it? Do men really just not care about that?[/quote]
I would reccomend spicing it up a little, just to let him know, you’re still the game in town. Go get a very very sexy outfit, maybe some hot pink fishnets with a little pink skirt or something. And then get something to tie him up with.
Ok, so he gets home from work and you are already there in your outfit, you grab him, and throw a rope or belt around him and drag him to the bedroom. Tie his ass down and get naughty. If this doesn’t put his attention back where it needs to be, let me know I have other solutions.
I would reccomend spicing it up a little, just to let him know, you’re still the game in town. Go get a very very sexy outfit, maybe some hot pink fishnets with a little pink skirt or something. And then get something to tie him up with.
Ok, so he gets home from work and you are already there in your outfit, you grab him, and throw a rope or belt around him and drag him to the bedroom. Tie his ass down and get naughty. If this doesn’t put his attention back where it needs to be, let me know I have other solutions.
V[/quote]
I am proud to say that I do not think I need to spice it up in any way. We already do it about 3-4 times a week. Sometimes he initiates, sometimes I do. As far as a sex life, we have a very healthy one and always have.
My one and only issue with our marraige is his secret keeping. I would never keep a friendship with another male secret from him. Why does he feel the need to keep it from me? And the only reason I know he is - is because when I get our phone bill is shows all their text messages. I’m talking about at least 2-3 per day between them. I really do not care that he has a female friend - I care about the reason he is trying to keep it a secret.
[quote]nicolebadkat wrote:
My one and only issue with our marraige is his secret keeping.[/quote]
Nicole,
Get the outfit like Vegita suggested, and tie him up. Look deep into his eyes without saying anything for 30 or 45 seconds. Then say “So, who is she?” If he doesn’t answer, or pretends not to know what you’re talking about, leave the room and don’t come back for a half hour or so. Repeat.