Dream Work News in the Global Village: Part 1
Print Media -or- Dream Vision Mosaic of Human Interest Stories
A number of years back, a friend asked me; "how does collecting dreams differ from stories found in a newspaper?" While the answer is somewhat complex, I will attempt to simplify. Newspapers offer a journalistic slice of life, of local, national and international news on the planet that is edited on a daily basis. The dream as a "living theatre" is also presented as a literary slice of life, however it is shown in its complete sensory-motor graphic and visceral form, at least to the person dreaming. As a slice of life, the dreams images and words are fluid, and may reference not only past memories, they may also reference future plans. Said differently, in part dreams neuropsychologically organize spatial, temporal and language dimensions of a person's autobiographic memory.
Modern print media and newspapers are usually lower visual definition slices of life. Most if not all dreams are "human interest stories", often it is this "depth psychological" aspect that gets lost in the translation of press reporting. Said differently, press stories often barely scratch the surface.
Marshall McLuhan "Understanding Media", tells his readers; "The massive theme of the press can be managed only by direct contact with the formal patterns of the medium in question. It is thus necessary to state at once that 'human interest' is a technical term meaning that which happens when multiple book pages or multiple information items are arranged in a mosaic on one sheet. The book is a private confessional form that provides a 'point of view.' The press is a group confessional form that provides communal participation. It can 'color' events by using them or by not using them at all. But it is the daily communal exposure of multiple items in juxtaposition that gives the press its complex dimension of human interest." The press as photojournalists and color commentators try to capture a living moment of the "human condition" in images and words. Here is a dream that combines both the media of the picture (photo) and the newspaper;
Lilly, 24
My dad got killed in a logging accident in 2010. His girlfriend had a vision about him the other night. She was laying in bed and had her eyes closed and dad appeared to her. He was walking in a plowed field. What does this mean? He had on the same shirt that he was wearing in the last picture she had put in the newspaper.
The Visual Field of the Community -or- The Communal Field of Dream Vision
Sorry for your loss.
While your dad's death is tragic, he still can live on in your memory and in your dreams. In your father's girlfriend's hypnogogic dream, your father is walking in a field, which can be viewed as movement in her "visual field" of memory.
Perhaps her last thoughts before her vision were about him? A plowed field might signify a place of cultivation and growth, instead of his memory fading, his girlfriend does not want to let the visual memory of him go. Remember that for your father's girlfriend, there is not only the loss of a friend, there also is an intimate loss. I'm assuming that the picture in the newspaper was placed in the obituary column. Grieving and letting go due to traumatic loss often takes time.