assighnment #1

Revised Summary

I felt i understood the text 80%, I understood the basic points Freud was making even further than the main ideas. I didn't understand it 100%. When we are young we are taught to lose ourselves, and become normal. What we call normal, what we are taught to believe is normal is a form of destruction. We are taught not to be ourselves, but to experience the world the way people tell us to experience things. We are stripped of our deeds, we're alienated from our everyday lives.

Personal Reaction of text

I know what Freud is saying, but i don't think i understand him 100% I don't know how i am completely lost when i feel fairly aware of my self and my body.
Children are free, happy, and in touch with themselves more than anyone else and that is the easiest time to manipulate a person. When their young and naive, Kids don't have manners, they run around naked, and they are always laughing and having a good time. That is the way life should be, but its not that way. Everyone is taught to grow up and act their age.

Summary of Laing's excerpt

I agree with a lot of the ideas Freud was making. In the second paragraph Freud says "We hardly know the existence of our inner world; we barely remember our dreams, and make little sense of them when we do." Our dreams out our inner most thoughts, they make up of our self conscience and they express how we feel and I hardly ever remember my dreams when i wake up, but i always remember having a dream which is weird. Freud says most people are alienated from ourselves. but he never says who is not alienated from their bodies. Is Freud alienated from his body, does he feel in touch with who he is. who is in touch with themselves? As humans we should be more in touch with our bodies and our minds, which Freud says we are not. But if we are taught as children to lose ourselves it is hard to impossible to find ourselves again. Since children can be easily taught or brainwashed, most of us are "lost" all together.
On the second page, the fith small paragraph states "Our behavior is a function of our experience. We act according to the way we see things." This reminded me of the activities we did in class. Such as being completely aware of our bodies, from our big toe to our center point and how our stomach moves when we run. We act according to the way we see things, not the way we feel things. It was hard for me to pay attention to one part of my body. When I'm walking down the street i feel my feet, because i am walking on them. But i don't feel my stomach, surprisingly when i feel pain, i feel in touch with my body more than ever. When i was 4 years old i broke my left arm, thinking back on this day i never felt my arm as much as when i broke my arm. It was he worst pain i have ever felt.

Initial Personal Reaction

This connects to my life because i should be more aware of everything. Starting from my body and my movements. To my breathing, to my thoughts and my dreams and the people around me and to my memories. After reading this article i think i am a lost child, (if we are all lost) Maybe by paying being more aware of everything listed above i can change.

Sensual Awareness and embodiment

Today in class when we had to stand to 6 minutes straight. It was surprisingly hard for me to stand still, i was fidgeting and i was watching other people around me more than focusing on my body. This shows us that humans have to constantly be entertained 24/7, we get bored easily and distracted easily and we like distractions. This is a bad thing because we are alienated from our own experience making it hard for most of us to focus. According to Freud "Our behavior is a function of our experience. We act according to the way we see things." We don't act according to the way we feel things. Maybe that is why it was hard for me to stand for 6 minutes doing nothing. Because like myself and more than half the class we must all be in some way alienated from our lives in some ways. I always listen to my ipod, i listen to my ipod on the train. It distracts me from my surroundings and speeds things up, my train rides are faster when i read, or listen to music, or talk to a friend.

Most teenagers do live lives where they are not in touch with themselves. A few examples of the digital self is video games and computer games which mostly boys play. I used to play video games when i was younger (Nintendo 64, duck hunt, Sega!) but they really got to me in a bad way and i used to really play video games with the idea for however long i was playing that i was the character and i needed to get to the next level and i would get really upset if i lost. Myspace and facebook is another form of digital self but more about you. Myspace you have a web page where you can add pictures of yourself and talk to your friends online, Facebook has the same concept. Its a digital page of yourself, and another way of communication with out talking in person. Talking on AIM allows people to talk online without having to see the other person. Cell phones and text messages allow people to communicate without talking in person. Majority of teenagers spend a lot of time on either video games, myspace/facebook, AIM, text messaging/cell phone. But we don't get the same feeling as we do when we do something we love. A few things i love are being in the sun, at the beach during the summer time and tanning. I love the sun, i love the warmth of the sun on my skin and the refreshing cool ocean. The beach is amazing and I'm always happy at the ocean. I'd rather go to the beach talk to my friends on AIM any day. When you think about it, you never really talk about anything important. Its just a wast of time, and a good distraction. Teenagers love distractions, it is often very hard for me to focus and get work done. I really don't like doing work or studying, i would much rather hang out with friends or just relax by myself.

My experience and laing's argument about dreams

I do think my dreams have a reflection on my experience and my life. I also think that my dreams are very important and they tell us a lot about yourself and other people. I have noticed from my own experience that my dreams most of the time show the root of what i really want, and my dreams also tell me something about myself. I have really weird dreams most of the time, and i often dream. I think dreams are important and i really wish i dreamt more.
Most of my dreams, as Formm states are a distortion of my personal experience. Because my dreams consist of the people in my life, it’s just everything about my dreams in surreal. My dreams would never happen in real life. This article made me wonder how my dreams would differ without contact with the outside world. If I was secluded from society and people, how different would my dreams be?
Even though Fromm doesn’t value what Freud has to say as much as his own opinion, I agree with Freud more than Formm. Freud believes dreams represent our unconscious desires. From money, to a sexual desire and I agree with that, I’ve had many dreams of something I want.
“The negative elements of society’s influence do not explain the paradoxical fact that in our dreams we are certainly less rational and less fair than when awake but at the same time we are more intelligent, wiser, more able to judge than when we are awake. The fact is that our culture does not have only positive effects on our intellectual and moral functions but also negative effects” I choose this quote because I agree with it; our society has a negative effect on our dreams. Why do people have nightmares? When I was younger I watched a scary movie, and it affected my dreams. I had a night mare, this is a negative affect. But I have also studied before bed, and I wake up with a better understanding of the work then the night before, this is a positive affect. Our society has both a positive and negative affect on our dreams.