Blog 12

Plato & Freud

Sensory Knowledge:

I completely disagree with Plato when he says that sensory knowledge is unreliable. I believe that our senses are our most important tools when it comes to our instincts about things. For example, when I see a food item in the grocery store, I wanna be able to know that I am getting a good product. So, being able to see any damage made to that product, but also making sure that that individual item that you are planning on buying is not expired, or out of date, is also a plus. You wanna be able to smell and make sure that you don't give yourself food poisoning.

Sense Perception:

I think that we are materialistic when we praise sensory perception. Most of the time, when we relate things back to the real world, or the environment that we live in, it is important to rely on our sensory knowledge to determine whether or not certain environments are meant for us, or could potentially be considered not safe. The alternatives to sense experience could include things, such as, knowledge, or common sense. Plato claims that this must be relevant on experience, or by a feeling. Either way, sense perception could be quite helpful, whether we see it as materialistic, or not.

World Beneath Sense Experience:

Even if our senses benefited us in all the positive ways you could think of, without sensory experience, I believe that we won't be able to understand the information that we sense, especially if our perception is skewed, or altered in anyway.

A Sixth Sense:

If I could choose my own sixth sense, I would choose to see into the future. I think that if you are able to go forward in life, knowing that something that you do can negatively or positively affect your future could be life-saving. For those who are struggling with obesity, maybe seeing into the future could be a life changer for them. It could inspire them to avoid an early death. Another example could include hanging around with certain people and seeing if those people are going to be good people or bad people for you to hang out with years from now. It would be nice to know if you could change for the worse or for the better based on certain situations. All in all, I believe that there are definitely some negatives about having an additional sense, but I think that being able to look into the future would benefit everyone in one way or another.

One of Plato’s theories is known as the World of Forms.This world is where

the ideal form of everything we come to understand exists through our senses.

Dream Significance:

I personally believe that there is a significance to almost every dream that you have. Some dreams are meant to be a recollection of your day, where others are meant to have a deeper meaning. I know that I personally have this one dream which is very repetitive. It involves me and my old best friend shopping and the character, E.T. from the movie. Out of no where, a tiger comes out and eats both E.T. and my childhood best friend and I am left alone in the darkness. I think that this could show that I don't wanna be alone, or that it frightens me to not have someone to lean onto.  It isn't always the clearest thing in the world, and sometimes, I think it just depends on how creative of a person you are. Honestly, some individuals might recognize dreams as nothing at all. They may see them as having no significance. I, however, believe that by some notion that almost every dream is meant to express some importance.

What Dreams Most Mystify You?:

I believe the dreams that mystify me the most are the reoccurring ones. Although I have one reoccurring dream that makes sense to me, not all individuals have many dreams that make sense like that. I think that it is very cool to have people have similar dreams, such as running to no where, or showing up to school in your underwear. But, I always wonder why we have these same fears of embarrassment in our dreams. And when do the people in our dreams become faces that we should pay attention to? I know that some people that show up in our dreams are people that we ran into that day, or people that are on our minds. But, how can we tell those people apart if we don't know them that well? I just wish that dreams could be watched over and over again, so that we could try to understand what their main intentions were.

Frightening Dreams:

I think that the most frightening dreams are dreams that surround the subject of death. The movie, "The Nightmare on Elm Street," always freaks me out because although the story of Freddy Krueger is false, I've read that those who die in their dreams will not wake up. One of the dreams that I had once was when I was asleep in my bed and I woke up and ended up in the city of Chicago. I remember walking off to the top of the John Hancock building with my old best friend. And while we were up on the rooftop, he pushes me over the edge and I begin to fall. I remember the feeling of falling and then instant darkness as I looked up at the night sky. The only thing visible was the hand of my friend trying to reach out for me. And then, I woke up. I don't remember the entirety of it, but it scared the life out of me when it happened.

Forgetting Dreams:

I think that most people forget their dreams because those dreams weren't as significant. If they were important, I believe that it would've been easier for the dreamer to remember that dream. Overall, I think that when we are dreaming we only remember the stuff that is important to us. For example, the two dreams that I talked about had deeper meanings to them. But, if I had to tell you what my dream was about last night, I wouldn't be able to even come close to explaining what it was actually about when attempting to discuss it.

Mental Activity:

In my opinion, I believe that dreaming is a mental activity. After researching, I discovered that the process of sleep thinking is also called sleep mentation. This process consists of vague, bland, thought-like ruminations about real life events. So, since the facts state that sleep has to do with our daily events, this shows that our mental state exists when we sleep because it has to remember our journey throughout the day in order to come up with some of our dreams. In conclusion, mental activity has to have some relation to dreams because our brain activity helps determine it.

Sigmund Freud is best known for his understanding of relationships and love. His ideas compare with Carl Jung, who talks about the relationship of dreams and our own realities.