Carmilla Continued.....

Hey guys…Sorry if I skip around a lot in this blog, I just got very excited about incorporating psychology into this week’s reading, so bear with me!

(<-----Freud)

When I saw the name Freud pop up in this reading, I knew there would be a whole lot of nonsense going on and I would be rolling my eyes. I have taken many psychology classes in high school and now one in college and I find myself not being a big fan of Freud and his ‘philosophies.’ Though I don’t like Freud, I was open to the argument posed in this reading and I read it with an open mind. After reading it, I could draw connections between Freud’s theories, thoughts, and views on subliminal ‘messages’ the human brain unconsciously thinks and the story of Carmilla. Freud wrote a book (as you read in the reading) called The Interpretation of Dreams, which became very well known for its interesting and unconventional take on what dreams really mean and what the human mind is really unconsciously thinking. I had to read this part of this book and reviews of this book for my high school psychology course and quickly figured out that Freud was extremely, EXTREMELY strange. But, for the sake of writing an unbiased blog, like I said before I kept an open mind about the connections between his theories and Carmilla.

So, back to the reading…From the beginning I liked how Michael Davis stated, “Dreams are often enigmatic and enigma, as we know, also lies at the heart of the Gothic.” I like how this was said, because I think it is very true. I haven’t done much Gothic reading myself, but I have read some Edgar Allan Poe (The Fall of the House of Usher, The Tell-Tale Heart) and have found his stories to be extremely mysterious but in the most fascinating way—very enigmatic. So connecting dreams with the Gothic through enigma is very perfect, I’ll say, because both are so full of wonder, perhaps muddled darkness, and, as certain psychologists deem, full of meaning. In Carmilla, the story starts out with a dream which is just the beginning of all the puzzling mystery yet to come but the coolest thing, to me at least, is that it’s a dream in a gothic story—sort of like a double dose of enigma, which is what I think the quote I mentioned up above is stating.

Back to Freud…in the reading they mention “latent content” of dreams and “manifest content” of dreams. Latent content is basically the “disguised” meaning of dreams hidden by more obvious subjects, and manifest content is basically the story line of dreams. In the reading, Michael Davis writes, “…the manifest content ‘is given as it were in the form of hieroglyphics whose signs are to be translated one by one into the language of the dream thoughts’.4 Only by deciphering the picture puzzle that is the manifest content can the psychoanalyst reach the latent dream thoughts or those forbidden and thus repressed wishes and desires disguised by the dream

work.” Then he says, “Like a rebus, Gothic encodes its meanings; its signifiers form a puzzle that demands to be translated.”

So you can see, there is an obvious relation between dreams and the Gothic. See, with Sigmund Freud, I’m not much of a believer when it comes to his thoughts on certain things. I was apprehensive about what Michael Davis was saying in this piece because I know that Freud had some really messed up theories about dreams (at least they were messed up in my mind) like dreaming of flying translating into wanting to have sexual intercourse and dreaming of a baseball bat translating into dreaming about the male reproductive system. However, though I don't agree with Freud on those things (I’m no psychologist but hey, everyone has their own thoughts & opinions) I do think that the connection made using Freud’s latent content and manifest content in relation to the Gothic was done very well. Does that make sense?

Have a great week everyone!