State, Institutions and Social Order-or-Politics of Dream Vision

Nations and Imagined Communities -or- The Political Apparatus of Bureaucracy 

As a university student at the University of Zurich, I had the great fortune to have the opportunity to listen to a great number of experts who spoke about their own academic fields. One of those experts was the political scientist Karl Deutsch. This interpretation is about dream vision as it relates to nations, leadership, authority, institutions, social structure and social order. While the imaginary political boundaries on the planet that we call sovereign nation states are a created by the political consensus reality we call international law, in truth the planet is an unbroken whole with no boundaries except perhaps the natural ones. In fact, Benedict Anderson has called the political identification with nation states, "imagined communities". 

These imagined communities find a modern political home in the national oral traditions of dream vision. The political foundation for all nation states, are found in the institutional  practices of everyday life that creates the social order of the social rituals of behaviour and communication. The dreams of leaders and nation builders such as the Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King can be found in his diaries, providing insight into the psychodynamics of nations, power, influence and bureaucracy. 

At this moment the reported political count of sovereign nation states on the planet are 190, with 16 in dispute. Israel is one of the nations that reportedly is not recognized (by 33 nations). The institutional analysis of collective dream patterns, reveals that the anthropological social structure of leadership, authority and everyday social order is created by the political and bureaucratic apparatus of institutions. 

Using dream vision can provide insight into the civic behavioural-economic base, infrastructure and superstructure of communication in the global village. The article "Dreams, Dreaming and Civics 101" provides further background for understanding the institutional role of civil codes, the State, dreams and dreaming. 

United Nations in the Global Village -or- The Nerves of the Body Politic 

Karl Deutsch "The Nerves of Government: Models of Political Communication and Control" tells his readers that; "This book concerns itself less with the bones and muscle of the body politic than with its nerves-its channels of communication and decision." The institutional channels of everyday communication and decision of the body politic can be made transparent using dreams. John O'Neal "Sociology as a Skin Trade" states; "The body politic represents the fundamental structure of political life which may be appealed to in times of deep institutional crisis where it is necessary to reconstitute the grounds of political authority and social consensus." Nowhere can the political structures and conflicts of the body politic be made visible than by looking at our dreams. 

Dream vision can also provide a geopolitical map of the world's political stage, nations and political communication conflicts (ie. past, present wars, predict future ones?) on the planet. Let us not forget that Homer's "Iliad" in many ways is a literary document that speaks about political communication, causes of war, military rituals, strategies, and the political interpreting of dreams. Alexander, Hannibal and Bismarck were all military leaders whose dreams we are told changed the political course of written history. From a civilian perspective Socrates whose teachings and protest against the ruling authority, were seen as a politically subversive influence to the "status quo". As so many before and after him, Socrates willingly paid the price for the accusation of not knowing his political place, with his life. 

The trials of Socrates and Christ are the two great legal trials of antiquity to have an influence right down to the present day. Franz Kafka, "The Trial" lays bare one man's modern political struggle with the frustrating inhuman bureaucratic embodiments of the law. The Trial, provides an authoritarian vision of the law and the legal system, where there is no escape. In a few words; there is no freedom. It has been suggested that The Trial is really a dream. This makes sense, when you the reader start reviewing and seeing how the whole institutional system is found internalized in our dreams. The law for Kafka, much life Bentham's body political panopticon, is an omnipresent "total institution", invading our dreams. 

In the dreams of the citizens of modern nation states, we can find institutional dreams which maintain the "status quo". The modern status quo is placed in the context of the interpersonal web of communication we have learned to see in the "Small World Experiment". The dream makes the institutional and industrial forms of power and influence in the global village visible. Many of these institutions listed below are failing, many individuals see themselves "disenfranchised".

Here are some of the institutions found in our dreams; 

All material Copyright 2006 International Institute for Dream Research. All rights reserved.