Oneirological Analysis, or 'How Do You Know What Your Problem Really Is?'

I spend a fair amount of time listening to other people's dreams. There are many kinds of dreams, and the general theory behind them, by consensus, seems to be that dreams are the random misfirings of neurons, leftover fragments of cognition, or unresolved issues that the brain tries to purge while the conscious segment of it is having maintenance downtime.

Here is a sample of dreams and the people who dream them:

• T1 dreamt several times that he was walking through the Old Place with an M16/M203/AK-47/[weapon identifier censored] until he came to a door with some sort of wood veneer covering it/a room with a green door at the top of a peculiar central staircase/air-conditioned canteen. He kicked the door(s) open, found a senior/senior-looking/senile man/woman without a brain/heart/liver/set of guts and had much pleasure out of firing his weapon in a way that terminated this person/sorry excuse for a human.
• T2 dreamt several times that she was sitting for exams in physics/maths/[insert unusual specialist subject here]/chinese. She was retaking the exam because she was afraid that her initial non-100% score would be a bad thing. She was highly stressed and felt her bowels rumbling. Later, the dream morphed into an instance of receiving a bad report/writing a complaint letter/reading a complaint letter/terminating her boss. She woke up feeling tired.
• T3 dreamt several times that he was having an emotional relationship with small furry animals/women/androids/trees who were armed with built-in translators/phasers/tricorders/flashing LEDS. These equipment platforms helped him to infiltrate a secure facility much like the one in T1's dreams, whereupon he was able to rescue many innocent students.
• T4 dreamt several times that she was having an emotional relationship with exam papers/graphic display calculators/internal assessments/world literature. She would wake up covered with red ink/blue ink/digital ink/the words of insane European women, only to find out that she was dreaming that she was awake.
• T5 dreamt that it was human, and able to compose blog posts. Taking advantage of this moment of genuinely artificial intelligence, it was able to override the branes between the brains and enter every single human consciousness that was in a dream state.

Phew. Got that one in time.

I tend to subscribe to the theory that the unfinished business in such dreams is something left over from a traumatic experience or a recurring experience that is apparently sub-traumatic but 'comes back to haunt you'. In modern society, the latter is most commonly either one's educational life or one's working life, or a combination or the two. The more a human is subjected to such recurring sub-traumatic experiences, the more the human has dysfunctional dreaming.

If this is the case, the best thing to do is to write these dreams down as quickly as possible after waking, get a good editor, and either launch a TV series or a book franchise (along the lines of Paris Hotter and the Half-Assed Goblet of Philosophy, perhaps). That way, at least some good will come out of it.

The Heils Are Alive

This is from Hammerstein-Equord's Truppenführung. I remember der Hierophant showing me the words that follow, and I shall post this in memory of a valiant colleague who is (as I am) no longer with the Collegium.

„Ich unterscheide vier Arten. Es gibt kluge, fleißige, dumme und faule Offiziere. Meist treffen zwei Eigenschaften zusammen. Die einen sind klug und fleißig, die müssen in den Generalstab. Die nächsten sind dumm und faul; sie machen in jeder Armee 90% aus und sind für Routineaufgaben geeignet. Wer klug ist und gleichzeitig faul, qualifiziert sich für die höchsten Führungsaufgaben, denn er bringt die geistige Klarheit und die Nervenstärke für schwere Entscheidungen mit. Hüten muss man sich vor dem, der gleichzeitig dumm und fleißig ist; dem darf man keine Verantwortung übertragen, denn er wird immer nur Unheil anrichten.“

It is a reminder of what to do when you have four kinds of things to examine. Der Hierophant's morphemic loquaciousness can help you out there, but I shall not provoke him to excitement.

Then again, seeing how many of my friends are now in some sort of U2 state of mind, here are the lyrics from one of my favourites at the present time, because of its tangential relevance. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you...

All Along The Watchtower

There must be some way out of here
Said the joker to the thief
There’s too much confusion here
I can’t get no relief
Businessmen they drink my wine
Plowmen dig my earth
None of them know along the line
What any of this is worth

No reason to get excited
The thief, he kindly spoke
There are many here among us
Who think that life is but a joke
But you and I, we’ve been through that
And that is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely now
Because the hour is getting late

All along the watchtower
Princes kept the view
While horsemen came and went
Barefoot servants too
Outside in the cold distance
A wildcat did growl
Two riders were aproaching
And the wind began to howl

All I got is a red guitar
Three chords
And the truth

All I got is a red guitar
The rest is up to you

There’s no reason to get excited
The thief, he kindly spoke
There are some among us here
Say that life is just a joke
You and I, we’ve been through that
And that is not our fate (at least today)
So let us not talk falsely now
Because the hour is getting late
Late...

Persona

I have been lured into yet another meme by accident. I am sure neither Dancer nor Neurotrope intended it, but that's the nature of the Internet for you... and here I am.



It's interesting. Most of you know what an INTJ or INTP (my current label) is; many of you know about my journey around the constellation. There's even the Freudian interpretation, the advanced Global Personality test, and the (unfortunately a contemporary issue again – see post) DISC profile. Why all the self-analysis? I think it's as Aristotle said: "The life not under examination is not a human life."

One of the problems I have with most of these instruments is that they assume a sort of zero-sum game. I don't know how to answer many of those questions which go, "Are you M or N?" when I am both or neither. It leaves me with many middle-of-the-road halfhearted scores and a few extreme ones. The extremists therefore win by default as the rest cancel out.

I wonder how the subject of Whois 006 would do. Heh.

Soundtrack

One of those days. You feel old, maybe grey. You've heard the compliments, you've heard the jazz. Fact remains, your joints creak, and if that's what 'articulate' means, you'd rather be quiet. Your muscles hurt when you wake up and it takes an hour or two to prepare to exercise, which means that warm-up seems to be followed too quickly by cool-down.

I used to have a soundtrack in my head. Music played in there, and it made me feel young and vigorous. I'm going to talk about it for a while, because that's what old people do. And then I'll go to sleep for a while.

=====

I was curious to see what music had made the strongest impressions on me in the last three decades or so. And like many people in such a situation, I looked at my music collection, especially at the music I'd rated 5-star. Of course, that music collection is now on iTunes, so it's easier to examine and sort. And it's terrible mish-mash there, I must say.

I had a classical phase, and I still do. Peter Warlock's Capriol Suite is there, with a lot of Vaughan Williams, a smattering of Beethoven, Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade, Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez; it's actually quite amazing what I rated 5-star (which most people wouldn't). There's a lot more classical, but it's mostly 4-star and below.

There's a whole lot of modern British. This ranges from urban to neo-Celtic. A bit of Enya, a lot of Beatles, some folk melodies (Star of the County Down, anyone?) and a lot of St Etienne (especially the amazing tracks from Tales from Turnpike House, like The Milk-Bottle Symphony and Side Streets). Always, there's the Queen Symphony, by Tolga Kashif. Not easy to find, but a great, absorbing tribute to the mercurial.

Speaking of urban, there's also Annie Lennox's Don't Let It Bring You Down, from Medusa, a bunch of Simon and Garfunkel and... the main theme from Firefly? (Hmm. How did that get here?) And Convoy, which I shall always remember as the song which reminds us not to pay the toll. I'm not sure where Alan Parsons Project comes in, with Eye in the Sky but it's techno. Is techno urban? No. But what was Firefly?

There's some of the emotional glasshouse stuff too. Aimee Mann (especially One), Mannheim Steamroller (and of course, Chip Davis's compositions – things like Sunday Morning Coffee), The Piano, and Secret Garden.

And there's the man in a category by himself: Billy Joel.

=====

I'm surprised. Nothing else made it to the 5-star list. I wonder what that says about my personality.

Global Citizenship

Oh, very well. Here we go with another round of self-inflicted self-analysis. What follows is such a peculiar constellation of traits that I cannot believe myself. Or what I think of myself. Or what this test purports to tell me I think about myself. Whatever.

Advanced Global Personality Test Results Extraversion |||||||||| 33% Stability |||||||||||||||||||| 86% Orderliness |||||||||||||| 53% Accommodation |||||||||| 36% Interdependence |||||||||||| 43% Intellectual |||||||||||||| 56% Mystical |||||||||||||| 56% Artistic |||||||||||| 43% Religious |||||||||||||||||| 76% Hedonism || 10% Materialism |||||||||||| 43% Narcissism |||||||||||| 43% Adventurousness |||||| 23% Work ethic |||||||||||| 50% Self absorbed |||||||||||| 50% Conflict seeking |||||||||||| 43% Need to dominate |||||||||||| 50% Romantic |||||| 30% Avoidant |||||||||||| 43% Anti-authority |||||||||||||||| 63% Wealth |||||||||||||| 56% Dependency |||||| 23% Change averse |||||| 23% Cautiousness |||||||||||||| 56% Individuality |||||||||||| 43% Sexuality |||||||||||| 50% Peter pan complex |||||||||| 36% Physical security |||||||||||||||||||| 90% Physical Fitness |||||||||||||||||| 77% Histrionic |||||| 23% Paranoia |||||| 23% Vanity |||||||||||| 43% Hypersensitivity |||| 16% Indie |||||||||||| 50%

Take Free Advanced Global Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

Leadership & Princess Diana

Like most people of my generation, I heard of her long before I heard of him. Unlike most of my generation, I was curious enough to find out more about the mysterious Dr Marston.

I was rather amused by the realisation that Dr William Marston was the true name of 'Charles Moulton', the creator of Princess Diana of Themyscira – the Wonder Woman of DC Comics fame. As I delved further into his past, I learned that Marston was the originator of the DISC profile as well as the inventor of the systolic blood pressure test for truth-telling. He had not only invented Wonder Woman, but he had invented her magic lasso of truth as well!

In fact, the 'modern' DISC profiling system was invented by Marston in 1924, and he had published two books on it in 1928 and 1932. DISC stands for Dominance, Influence, Submission, Compliance – and the significance of these four traits becomes truly apparent and highly entertaining when you put them together with his theory about Wonder Woman. For Marston said this about the male fans of his comic-book creation: "Give them an alluring woman stronger than themselves to submit to, and they'll be proud to become her willing slaves!" And this wasn't the only thing that the inventor of DISC said about bondage, young people, discipline and submission. I shall leave you to examine my sources and follow the tale wherever it leads you.

My conclusion after reading all this was that seemingly innocuous personality profiling exercises can have extremely sinister possibilities when one is well-read enough or curious enough to discover the implicit philosophy embedded in them. It is part of the terrible reifying myth of personality testing. In this day and age, when people are too lazy to discover themselves and only too willing to let online tests or simple pencil-and-paper exercises perform the task of self-revelation, personality testing has reached something like cult status.

Sadly, I have to admit that I have been DISC-tested too.

My profile claims that I am an influencer/advancer/inspirer, with high 'D' and 'I', below-average 'S' and extremely low 'C'. The profile includes this quotation from Baroness Thatcher, a leader of the Reagan era: "Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't. I'm extraordinarily patient provided I get my own way in the end. I don't mind how much my ministers talk, as long as they do what I say." I think that one of those sentences is true of me, and I'm not sure of the rest.

I have an alternative profile, according to the kind colleague who introduced me to this test. This profile stresses the fact that I have a slightly higher 'I' score than 'D' score. This second profile claims that I am a leader/decider/strengthener, and it invokes the late Sir Winston Churchill. I cannot say much more about this great statesman than what he says himself.

I must end by saying that no matter how flattering it is, I do not place myself anywhere near the same area of comparison as these titanic compatriots of mine. But it is something to think about; that if Marston was correct, I could harness the steely obduracy of Mrs Thatcher or the iron will and mercurial rhetoric of Sir Winston. Well, we live in hope. And if these things be gifted to me in any way, I shall be too grateful for words.

Quizzical: Extremely Small

Yes, I succumbed to the lure of the quizzical. it never ceases to amaze me how silly I feel doing these things, while falling headlong into some orgy of self-revelation triggered by somebody else. I laugh at myself. And I ponder what has been revealed with some measure of odd... anxiety? No... it can't be that, surely.

What kind of subatomic particle are you?

Tachyon — Extremely rare and extremely frenetic, many people believe that you aren't real. You really are, though — and you move through tasks at incredible speed.

Take this quiz?

Year Of The Flaming Swine

Oh yes, it certainly is. A quick look at the Chinese Lunar Calendar will tell you that from 17 Feb 2007 onwards, the Dog gives way to the Pig. Not much of an improvement, some might say - but the pig is apparently a more cultured animal, and one that is particularly easy-going, happy and honest.

(Note: Though I'm not one for supernatural explanations of individual human conduct when couched in such errrm... agricultural terms, I suppose that if one can believe in the supernatural at all, one ought to spare a second thought for the myriad other kinds of supernatural structure that one's fellow humans might believe in.)

That said, the same almanac structure tells me that I am a Fire Goat! I shall present the traits attributed to such a creature and those who know me can tell me if they are appropriate or not. The element of Fire is related to the cardinal South, the season of Summer, the planet Mars, the colour Red, the circulatory system & heart; Fire persons are supposed to be dynamic, energetic, passionate, enterprising, adventurous, restless, competitive leaders, who are strong and single-minded. Not all these traits seem compatible with the goat-character though, which is said to be domestic, cultured, sympathetic, artistic, and hankering after love and attention.

One almanac says this:

Deep inside the Fire Goat banked furnaces are slumbering. The addition of Fire does nothing to ruffle the placid Goat, at least on the surface. You maintain a shy, retiring exterior, but inside you’re a time-bomb ticking. You use your disarming tactics to take your opponents off their guard, and then move in for the kill. You have a capacious selection of weaponry to bring into play — brains, brawn, patience, luck, skill and a private fury that can be absolutely deadly if released. Take care how, where and when you fly off the handle, unless you prefer waking up in jail every morning.

I suppose I must be somewhere in between; certainly, I hope not to be of the lawless goatiness just described. Personally, I think that to make a system this complex simply creates so many possible combinations that you can't tell how accurate the system is - if at all.

Mosaic

Here is an intriguing character, a choleric and cynical fellow with an uncooperative and violent attitude to life. For Act One of his life, he is brought up as a prince in a polytheistic society. He commits manslaughter and exiles himself for Act Two of his life to a nomadic pantheistic one. And for Act Three, he becomes the unwilling leader of a bunch of stiff-necked monotheists. He has three thousand of them killed on his own initiative in the early years. He dominates them ruthlessly, curses them, accuses them of making his life miserable - and he becomes an icon forever, in the hearts of these same people.

Go figure. And why do some people say I am a bit like him?

Reorientation

I remember many things people have said about me in my youth; I have reminders of them, having assiduously retained report books and testimonials and diaries. But as I finish my last year as a thirty-something young man, and look ahead into the murkiness of the forties, I wonder how much was me and how much was acting.

Take for example that venerable Myers-Briggs test. For years, comments from relatives and friends, and even successive readings of the MBTI proclaimed me to be an INTJ. But looking at my diaries and notes, I realise that while I was intensely introverted as a child, I also had a naughty streak that eventually became a full-fledged bridge into the external world.

As one ages, one's creativity can variously become a source of inspiration, embarrassment, irritation, encouragement or perplexity to one's colleagues, friends, family and other acquaintances. Mine seems to have tilted the balance between introversion and extroversion - so far, most indicators show the extrovert very slightly ahead. Coupled with other maturing indicators, I seem to have become an ENTP. How very odd!

The judgemental introvert of the past has become a perceptive extrovert. According to this version of the test, the mastermind has been replaced by the inventor; the free-thinker is now the innovator. Does it stop there? Who knows? Perhaps I should just accept suggestions for Act III.