Category: Areas of Research

Sleep and Hypnosis 2004, 6(1): 19-28

Introduction.

In earlier writings I have explored the political dimensions of dreams in relation to U.S. Presidential elections[i], the terrorist attack of September 11[ii], and people’s self-reports of political ideology[iii]. The basic argument I have been building in these texts is that dreams have directly meaningful connections to the political environments in which the dreamers live. I am seeking to refute the notion (advocated by Sigmund Freud[iv] and Calvin Hall[v] among others) that dreaming is exclusively concerned with the private world of the individual and does not have anything meaningful to say about the broader social world. On the contrary, I contend that certain dreams do indeed speak directly and meaningfully to the most urgent questions of public and political affairs in the dreamer’s waking life. To be sure, by far the majority of people’s dreams do not include any overt reference to political themes. But the evidence I have been gathering provides empirical support for the claim that a significant number of dreams do contain explicit political references and thus offer new insights into the conflicts, crises, and controversies that pervade the dreamer’s political world.[vi] To this extent, the dreams are consistent with G. William Domhoff’s continuity hypothesis[vii], by which dream content is seen as an accurate gauge of the major emotional concerns of the dreamer’s waking life (although the periodic discontinuities between dream content and waking (political) life are also important). Looking at the phenomenon from a broader theoretical perspective, dreams with explicit political references are worthy of study because they reflect an unusually dynamic interplay of physiological, psychological, cultural, and even religious forces, all swirling together with creative, recombinatory tension in the private visionary arena of the nocturnal imagination.

The present study is an exploration of political-oriented dreaming in the context of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, which began on March 19, 2003 and ended (in terms of major combat operations) approximately a month later, on April 14. When the war initially broke out I posted a research request in several publications and electronic forums, and I contacted dozens of colleagues, teachers, researchers, and students who in turn distributed my request to other people.[viii]

In that month, 26 people shared detailed accounts of their war-related dreams with me.[ix] Seven of these people are male, nineteen female. Three of them are not U.S. citizens, although two are currently living in this country. Only five of the respondents supported the U.S. decision to go to war, or at least were not overly troubled by it; all the other respondents were strongly opposed to the war.

Three initial observations can be made about this response to the research request. First, the number of responses was fairly small, particularly when compared to the much larger number of dream reports that came in the immediate aftermath of September 11.[x] This surely reflects the limited and unsystematic distribution of my research request. It may also reflect the relatively minimal degree of personal fear Americans feel when contemplating the war in Iraq, in contrast to the traumatizing shock and vulnerability that so many people felt in the immediate aftermath of September 11.[xi] Second, the gender imbalance is striking, though perhaps not surprising given that American women tend to take a much greater interest in dreams than do American men.[xii] Third, the respondents were mostly from the “anti-war” side of the political spectrum. This is likely due to the generally liberal/progressive political orientation of the groups I contacted (e.g., dream researchers, religion and psychology scholars, residents of the San Francisco Bay Area). Perhaps it is also due to the rather obvious fact that “pro-war” people are not as emotionally frustrated by the Iraq invasion as those who opposed the war, and thus (following the continuity hypothesis) are not dreaming about it as much.[xiii]

So, before turning to a consideration of the dreams themselves, the following qualifications need to be noted. The dreams I gathered are certainly not representative of what Americans in general are dreaming. To the extent that most Americans have supported the war, these dreams at best reflect the sentiments of a minority of the U.S. population. My approach to the dreams does not, therefore, aim at providing broad, sweeping claims about national trends in oneiric experience. Rather, I am more interested in highlighting the creative details and meaning-rich images, feelings, and sensations that distinguish each individual dream. Along with that, I look to identify significant themes in the dreams that may be fruitfully compared to themes I have found in my previous studies of politically related dreams, with the goal of highlighting both the common characteristics of these dreams and their intriguingly idiosyncratic, bizarrely distinctive qualities. Finally, as someone who is strongly opposed to the war and who has struggled to make sense of the fast-moving political and military developments, I confess to the personal interest of seeking in these dream reports some insight into my own confused thoughts, turbulent feelings, and flashes of spiritual despair during this violent moment in our national history.[xiv]

Personal Symbols.

One of the first things I noticed in my studies of politically related dreams was the phenomenon of “personal symbols,” by which a dream includes an explicit reference to a political figure or event as a symbolic expression of something involving the dreamer’s personal life. Such dreams correspond to Frederick Perls’ notion that every feature of a dream represents a part of the dreamer’s own psyche; they also relate to C.G. Jung’s view that some dreams can be interpreted at a “subjective level” by which all the images reflect internal psychological dynamics.[xv] There is little controversy about this approach to dreams with manifest political content; I suspect even Freud and Hall would have no problem acknowledging the symbolic reference to the latent content of the dreamer’s personal life.

Several of the war in Iraq dreams I have gathered include personal symbols in this sense. Kerri, a 39-year old college counselor from California, had this dream on March 21:

I am waiting at a cross-walk trying to get across the street. The warning light is flashing alternately green and red in rapid succession WALK, DON’T WALK, WALK, DON’T WALK, WALK, etc. At the same time, cars with anonymous drivers are whizzing by. I am active in trying to get across the street, trying to time my sprint between the cars. One car comes along that is occupied by several people whom I recognize as citizens of Iraq, from all walks of life. Walking, I cross the street comfortably and safely after they pass.

Regarding the Iraq conflict, Kerri is not strongly opposed or in favor—“I am for peace but support war when necessary,” and she felt this dream had nothing to do with Iraq, but rather was “purely personal” and related directly to a situation in her current life—“in my dream (and in reality) it’s clear that I’m going to walk, the question is when.” The presence of the Iraqi people driving quickly past her does not refer to anything in particular about the war in Iraq, but rather serves to emphasize this personal life theme of movement, change, and translocation—she’s going to walk.

Two of the men who reported dreams to me also drew upon the war imagery to express emotions relating to personal life situations. Gary, a 44-year old teacher from Massachusetts, described several dreams involving war and conflict, all of which he felt related to his difficulties in organizing a new educational program at his school. “I was in [the nearby town of] Ashville and there was a war or battle that was going to happen soon. I knew that the front line battle was going to be very dangerous and most everyone was going to die. I had no idea who the enemy was or why I was even involved.” Phil, a 40-year old accountant from Washington, had this dream on March 20: “A huge space ship is invading the earth….I’m afraid my family will be killed, and civilization as we know it will end….My heart is pounding, I’m surrounded by total chaos…” Phil has been struggling recently to deal with various “chaotic” situations at home and at work, and his dream picks up on and dramatically exaggerates the invasion imagery of the Iraq war (which started with an initial barrage of high-technology missiles and bombs) as a way of expressing his troubled feelings about his personal life.

Op-Ed Commentaries.

Personal symbol dreams may of course be regarded as evidence in support of the view of Freud, Hall, and others that even dreams with explicit political imagery are not in fact “about” politics, but rather are like all other dreams in focusing exclusively on the private concerns of the dreamer. However, other war-related dreams reflect an unmistakably broader concern with public events that cannot be interpreted (away) as merely personal symbols. I think of these dreams as oneiric “op-ed commentaries” in the sense that they articulate feelings, ideas, and attitudes about political realities in terms that challenge conventional waking perspectives. Just as op-ed articles in newspapers provide a thought-provoking alternative to the official pronouncements of the editorial page, certain unusual dreams offer awareness-expanding visions of community situations that are causing difficulty, stress, and uncertainty in waking consciousness.

Leah, a 41-year old physical therapist from Israel and now living in the U.S., had this dream on April 5 while staying at her mother and grandmother’s house in Philadelphia:

in order recall; last part of dream written first etc. i’m in a mess tent – huge, heated tall, super/duper tent – in line, the trays are gleaming made from technologically evolved material, hot meals thousands of them- efficient, the army runs on its stomach. As i stand there i’m aware of this tent where magically all is clean, gleaming, efficient, orderly those metallic/silver poles on which one glides their tray from the other side piping hot. i see the steam rising from the food (there are no servers on the other side) thousands of piping hot meals awaiting, “nothing is spared“ there are other soldiers (i think i’m one too but i’m not dressed as one, actually i’m more like a silent ghost like figure- the soldiers look more like astronauts in those special fiber suits and with helmets on, the tent is cavernous.

(next image)- packages – a big net (like the kind they airdrop). i see the net on the ground and i’m aware of orange – (orange package/orange object) it’s the kind of orange that road workers wear, bright neon orange vests. Within this net on a ground that is very bleak – sand colored (like the landscape of iraq on t.v. – not clear if i’m receiving a package or sending one as i stand gathered with others at this place. – the dream figure (me) has a quality of being amidst others but “not of them“ abberation? ghostlike, not in form, but in quality of presence – the term that comes to me as i write it down is “silent witness“?

next image- (this is actually the first of these three) i’m interacting with people (here i’m actually interacting – engaged with them but on an opposing stand but there is communicative exchange). i stand alone – against this “iraqui landscape background“ they want me – they’re inviting. i have a faint sense of the form of temptation having sexual sonnotations as though there is a man among them taht if i were to join them i could also be with him, he wants me (sexual attraction)but if i don’t join them he will not “be“ with me. there is me physically standing across from them , apart in a inner conflict with myself. i stand there. ?

Another image – hospital – people in bunks high up (tent is big in height) something blue – a blue light – like a light from an opened refrigeration door but in a bluish tint – eerie – silent – injured little girl ( i don’t see her i just know she’s there somewhere) she gets a package the dreamer has an awareness that outside is hell- desert/stark chaotic conditions but within these 2 cavernous tents it’s “safe “, “clean“

technologically advanced, special fibers material, orderly. as though:“ you see once you come over to us (even injured) life is better“ –

Leah said afterwards that the dream’s imagery is true to her fervent anti-war feelings (“I tried [to share the dream] with my mother but she is a hawk in the way I’m a dove”). All the gleaming technology in the military mess tent and the hospital, combined with the threat-tinged sexual invitation from the unknown man and her felt sense of being “ghostlike” and a “silent witness,” gave a vivid imagistic expression to Leah’s waking view that the U.S. invasion of Iraq represents an aggressive “declaration that THIS is the only way to live…sort of colonial imperialism…(without necessarily physically occupying) america can take what she needs and the return to other countries are these technological benefits…which also create an addiction to the U.S.” ?

Marti, a 45-year old unemployed journalist from Turkey, had this dream on March 22. It was, she said “the first time I was ever raped in a dream.”

“I was in a very big and luxury house, like a labyrinth. There are another woman and some men in the house. The men are wanting to rape us. The other woman was rather willing against them. I was trying to escape from the man in the labyrinth-like house. But when I lock a door, I see a new door which men can enter. So I go on from rooms to rooms, floors up to floors down. All this time the other woman was in a good relation with the man. I came aware of I am dreaming (but not like lucidity). Though I know I was dreaming and try to direct the dream preventing to be raped by the man in the house. All my efforts were useless. They catch and raped me a few times. I even hurt, broke heads of some of them in my try to escape from rape. The other woman was a dark brunette, very sexy and seems like having satisfaction with their rapes (it was not like rape but rather willingly intercourse to her). In a way, I realized, she was acting like that to get the attention of the men to herself in order to protect me. Everything went on like this for a long time in the house. Than I someway I realized that the house is in fact a web page about dreams of video games. And I was one of the characters in the video game who has to win and get out of the labyrinth.

Marti said she rarely remembers dreams with overt sexual content, so this one definitely stood out for her. The men in the dream felt to her like direct symbols of the forces invading and bombing Iraq, with “being raped representing the attack to my beliefs and peace wanting soul. The other woman is maybe the ‘other me’ (the fighter me) trying to protect the ‘more vulnarable me’ from the rape.” The labyrinthine house suggested to Marti the uncertainty she and everyone felt about what would come of the American invasion—where would it all lead? The semi-lucidity enhanced her sense that she had to make urgent desicions to protect herself, even though she realizes the futility of all her efforts. The video games reminded Marti of her sons, who occasionally play them; a complex concluding image, both a wishful escape (“it’s all just a game”) and a foreboding of peril to come (her children playing at war, readying themselves for the adult world of real war). ?
Sandra, a 41-year old California woman, dreamed on March 20, right after the war started, that:

“We were in an area of land–this bad guy (dictator like–no clear features but dark hair medium height and build) had a key to break up one part of the land. Someone else had another key which was a disc (small like a coin, silver-grey colored–sometimes plastic looking other times more metallic in appearance). The bad guy got a hold of that key too. I think he used the keys. We were running (who was not clear–may not have been me–there was a female with brown straight hair). The land started to crack beneath the group and oceans of water lay underneath. I awoke feeling terrified or an adrenaline rush–like fight or flight reaction. At the same time it felt like I was watching a Star Trek adventure or like I was in outer space or on another planet.

Sandra said the dream “nagged at me throughout the day,” and she knew it related directly to the war, even though she had not been paying much attention to the media coverage of the conflict. “I’m sure the earth cracking is metaphoric of how I feel about this whole world situation and that the ocean lies underneath reminds me of just how powerful the ocean can be (reminds me of cycle of birth, death, and rebirth).” The bad guy is certainly reminiscent of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, although the fact that the dream character remains a more generalized antagonist points to a deeper level of emotional distress—Sandra is not simply afraid of Saddam Hussein, she is afraid of how the war in Iraq is setting loose destructive powers that threaten the very foundations of the world. The ocean underneath hints at a dimension of spiritual hope amid the fear and panic, although the science fiction framing at the end may (like Marti’s dream of the video game) reflect a wish that none of this was really happening.?

Gerhard, a 42-year old college teacher and author in California, did as much as he could to stop the war—he marched for peace, wrote and phoned the government, gave money, spoke in class, engaged in lengthy email discussions, etc. Once the war started, however, he found himself surprisingly unsure of his anti-war stance, and he struggled with “vague and malformed ideas” about what should happen next. He had this dream on March 27:

“I was on a tropical island (I recall the fringing coral beyond the beaches). I was not a resident; no doubt I was there for the diving. The island was occupied by white people and, on the beach, I met a young and affable Asian man who was going to try to reclaim it. We talked and, though I don’t remember the conversation, I made a joke about him staying away from the war. I felt ashamed when he then told me he was going to attempt a landing on the beach, right then. He then got into a canoe, with many other men, looking like a Hawaiian war party. I followed on the beach as they headed up to the end of the bay we were on. As they neared the shore again they were joined by another canoe but then the hills erupted in automatic weapons fire. As thousands of rounds tore the water around them, I marveled at how they were not being hit. But soon they were. Somehow by this time I had gotten far too close to the firefight. The men were hitting land and their enemies in the hills were coming down to engage them. I retraced my steps, but as I was walking I realized the enemy were all around. I further realized I looked exactly like the invaders: there was no way to tell I was not a combatant, and I was no more than 100 yards from the thick of the battle. My memory of the dream ends with me in the sand where I had thrown myself, looking up at a passing patrol of soldiers, desperately hoping they would not see or shoot me. But I believe that here the soldiers were inimical and Asian, neither the invaders, nor whites.

The tropical/Asian setting reminded Gerhard of wonderful vacations he had taken to Hawaii and Australia, and also of his awareness of the colonialist violence that the native people of those islands had suffered through history at the hands of white Euro-Americans like himself. His vigorous opposition to the war in Iraq certainly grew out of his general feelings about that historical legacy of racial/religious colonialism, and thus the dream accurately reflects his waking life political opposition to the Bush administration’s policies on Iraq. However, the dream does something more than that—it highlights the profound uncertainties he is now feeling as he tries to adapt those political views to the actual unfolding of the war. “In fact, I am the strangest thing in the dream. Where most of my dreams are highly unlikely or clearly impossible, this one was almost naturalistic but for one thing: the bizarre behavior and physical transformation of its main character, me. I don’t see an easy explanation for this one, but am irresistibly reminded of a dream I had during the war on Afghanistan. In that dream I was an Afghani, watching the bombs drop like poisonous leaves on my country. But here, who am I? Am I an occupier in the beginning? Am I an invader at the end? Or have we all somehow switched races?” ?
Judy is a 48-year old health care professional in California who agreed with the need to use military force against Iraq even though she worried about all the deaths that would result. She had this dream on March 18, just before the first missile strikes on Baghdad:

“The dream was my husband and I were going to Hawaii for a vacation. Somehow we were separated and I had to pass through this hall and the hall was made up of many faces of all races. I passed through the hall as the faces were speaking or making faces at me and then I’m in the open. There were people around like sight seeing and all of a sudden the mountains they were looking at started crumbing and big pieces of cement, etc, fell and hit people, killing them. I ran up a hill of sand and finally got to level ground. I’m looking around for my husband and can’t find him but then the mountains on that side start to crumble and I run again, through the hall of faces and races. I come out on the other side but have not been able to connect with my husband.
Also, the mountains had the faces of Mount Rushmore in them too and that was the cement part of the falling pieces.”

Even though Judy is, in waking life, a supporter of the American war effort, she still feels deep misgivings about where the invasion will lead, and those concerns surface in her dream. The hall of faces from all races gave her a clear sense of tension between her American cultural beliefs and those of other people around the world. “They are not mean, but they are not exactly in ‘sync’ with my beliefs.” The striking image of Mount Rushmore crumbling to pieces made a strong impression on her—“I think it was showing a crumbling of the U.S. as we know it and a devastation that we did not expect.” In those deadly pieces of rock and cement raining down from the ultimate monument to American presidential power, Judy saw an omen boding that, for good or for ill, “we are entering into a new era.”

Political Transformations.

The “op-ed commentary” dreams just presented are all fairly continuous with the dreamer’s waking life political views. Other dreams, however, involve images and feelings that run counter to the person’s ordinary outlook. The political discontinuities have the effect of prompting new conscious reflection on particular issues or conflicts, in some cases actually altering the individual’s waking life attitude. These dreams correspond closely with what Jung called the compensatory function of dreaming.[xvi] Although researchers like Domhoff argue that compensation is inadequate as a comprehensive theory of dream function,.[xvii] the evidence that Jung and others have provided is sufficient to demonstrate that at least some dreams have a compensatory effect on people’s waking consciousness

Stella, a 60-year old teacher and counselor in Georgia, dreamed this on April 3:

“I am standing on a hill with a finely dressed woman. She has some white and some colors in her dress. The wind is blowing. She says something like Saddam is going to blow the world up, something like that. That is her worry thought. I think of how she is a worrier, yet I feel a bit of concern myself”. The previous day Stella had read in the paper a threatening quote from one of Saddam Hussein’s son’s, and she was surprised at how much it upset her since had not been very concerned about the war so far, even though she knew many people around her were quite agitated and fearful. (One of her favorite teachers had always encouraged her not to focus any attention on negative media stories.) Looking at her dream in this context, Stella regarded the woman as an exemplar of a “fine personality,” the hill as a “higher perspective,” and the wind as “the Holy Spirit, the sacred.” Seeing that in this lofty, serene setting the finely dressed woman gives voice to a terrible feeling of danger and vulnerability, Stella is able to recognize a similar emotion in herself, although in a less intense form. “In my dream I admit to feeling some concern, which is more than I wanted to admit prior to my dream. I am grateful for this realization; if I do not acknowledge feeling fear, I will be unable to deal with it.”

David, a 55-year old health care technician in North Carolina, had this dream on February 28, about three weeks before the start of the war, which he bitterly opposed (“Quite frankly I think the invasion of Iraq is a cynical ploy to inflate Mr. Bush’s approval ratings, discredit the United Nations and protect the interests of an avaricious economic minority”).

HOUSE BEARING ELEPHANTS AND BIRDS CAGED IN THE ATTIC

I notice a movement in the corner of my eye and turn to see something large and dark coming toward me. After a moment it resolves into an elephant with a white, one story house on its back. The elephant proceeds to a far corner of the parking lot on which I am standing. I study the house as I walk across the lot. It is sided with rough textured, pressed board and looks like the kind of temporary building one often sees serving as offices on used car lots. I look down to find there are now four elephants. Looking back up I see the little building is now buried in one corner of a much larger, multi-storied version of itself on the backs of the four elephants. From within the original building I hear a man’s voice say, “Look! I got a campaign to run here!“ I see a digital clock face which reads, “6:15“ and realize it is time for me to go home. As I am about to leave I remember several cockatiels are caged in the attic of the white building and I must see they are fed before I can go. I climb a ladder made of 2x4s to the attic. The bird cages are made of wire mesh and have been build between the rafters and struts of the roof. It is difficult to see into one cage which contains a normal grey, male cockatiel. I cannot see any seed dish at all in this cage and become very anxious, wondering how long the bird has gone unfed. I stand on tip-toe to look into the bottom of the cage hoping to see a dish there but, instead, I find a goldfinch in summer plumage, lying on its side, dead. I worry that if I move it I will create a bad smell and a big mess which may be unhealthy for the cockatiel, then I wonder, with horror, if the cockatiel has been feeding on the dead bird in lieu of seed. I am torn between the need to deal with the dead bird and my desire to get home.

The first thing to note is that this dream does not contain any explicit reference to the imminent war. It would be extremely difficult to devise a keyword search that could reliably identify this as a war-related dream. And yet for David, the dream is absolutely an explicit expression of his thoughts and feelings about the current political situation. This was his initial reaction to the dream: “The elephant, of course, is a symbol of the Republican Party the which is further emphasized by the White House on its back.” The elephant moves to a position opposite (ideologically) to where David is standing, and then the house swells in size and there are four elephants instead of one—“much as the Republicans and Bush have increased in power lately.” The man’s voice shouting “I have a campaign to run!” is for David a transparent political reference to his scornful waking life attitude toward the President and his administration. ?

The final section of the dream, with the cockatiels and the dead goldfinch, carries the political reference to a new allegorical height, moving beyond his strongly held personal views to a surprisingly new point of view on the whole situation and his role within it. The ladder of 2x4s is a peculiar symbol David has noticed in his dreams for years, and he has come to see the rough-hewn, hand-made nature of the ladders as a reflection of his underlying belief that he has to “make my own way up” in life. The “normal grey, male cockatiel” David could not help but associate with himself, while the “goldfinch with summer plumage” struck him as symbolizing “the Sweet Bird of Youth.” In that context, his intense reaction (“I wonder, with horror”) to the possibility that the cockatiel has been eating the goldfinch led him to this humbling personal and political realization: “To paraphrase the adage, young people fight wars that old people start. It is also true that ‘normal grey’ people live in and benefit from economies bolstered by wars, so my ambivalent feelings about dealing with the dead goldfinch could be a reflection of a desire not to acknowledge the ways in which I, myself, feed on the young sacrificed in war and the responsibility I bear because I have tolerated the actions of Bush’s government.”

Empathetic Identifications and Fearful Anticipations.

The psychological and spiritual impact of the war can be seen in those dreams in which the dreamer identifies with people who are directly involved in the combat. Gerhard’s dream of being caught in the fighting on the tropical island and trying desperately to hide is one example of this. Several other reports I received included this vivid personal experience of being in the war. William, a 54-year old college professor from Massachusetts, dreamed on March 14 that “I am watching four young American fighter pilots be strapped into one man fighter planes with oxygen masks being fastened on their faces, almost as if they are being bound down for execution or torture. I awake in terror with feelings of being suffocated.” Jenny, a 51-year old librarian from Ohio, also dreamed on March 14 that “Somehow I am with a large group of people who are being chased by an army—there is one person in charge (Saddam?) who wants us all killed. We find a large building like a castle to hide in.” From the other side of the ideological divide, James, a 36-year old student and former Air Force weapons specialist, has had several dreams in which “I am teaching classes to new airmen on Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Warfare. I was in civilian clothes and we were in a classroom.” James is a strong supporter of President Bush’s approach to Iraq, and while he was in the Air Force his training focused on weapons of mass destruction, “so I think the dreams have to do with wanting to help in an area that I know.”?

Following September 11 I heard numerous reports of dreams in which people’s homes and neighborhoods were attacked by bombs, missiles, terrorists, and/or military forces. Although I have gathered fewer of these dreams during the war in Iraq, a few vivid examples have been reported. Jackie, a 40-year old writer from California, dreamed on March 20 that “I am in the hills, there are trees around me, very healthy trees. I am anxious, there are explosions in the distance, coming closer and closer to where I am. I do not know where the next one will be and am confused about which way to go.” For Jackie the dream was a very direct expression of her fearful attitude toward the war—“I feel helpless and fear the unknown future. I am conflicted about what to do but I feel like I have to do something.” Tommy, a 12-year old boy from California, dreamed in early March that the Golden Gate Bridge (which in waking life he sees every day from his home) was a “mangled wreck” following a terrible battle; he also dreamed that he was dead and had come back in the form of a grown man to visit his mother, who was now an elderly woman. Gracie, a 19-year old college student in North Carolina, dreamed in late February that “I was watching the news and suddenly discovered we were bombing Iraq. I was so upset that we were bombing the poor Iraqis and I saw so many people dying. It was a very distressing dream, and it seemed very life-like. When I woke up I was sure that we had started bombing, when we had not yet begun.”?

One of the most moving stories I have heard so far involves Melody, a 41-year old technical writer in Alabama who strongly opposed the war (even though most of the people in her community were equally strong supporters of it). The first night following the invasion she had unclear, disturbing dreams of bombs dropping.

“The second night is much clearer and more elaborate. It started with bombs dropping and soon evolved into a sort of science fiction scenario with underground bunkers and force fields and so forth. These force fields could automatically recognise friend from foe — that baffled me and, frankly, worried me that I would maybe not be able to get in. Above ground was like a sprawling housing project and I remember wondering how the drainage and so forth for those buildings didn’t interfere with the underground, which wasn’t very far underground at all. But once you got into the underground you were safe: the force fields made you safe from the bombing that was going on overhead. They were trying out new kinds of bombs that were just flashes in the sky, like neutron bombs, I suppose, designed to kill but not to destroy the buildings. I’m not sure.

Melody admitted that “I’m having difficulties in my personal and professional life because of my anti-war stance.” A few days after the dream, she became involved in a contentious email exchange with her co-workers (they were soliciting charitable donations for U.S. troops in Iraq, and she replied by suggesting her colleagues visit an Oxfam web site), with the result that she became a pariah in the office and an object of scorn and derision from her colleagues. “I am still involved with discussions between me, my manager, and human resources. Basically, it’s an extremely uncomfortable position to be in right now, and you can rest assured that absolutely no one has stopped by my desk to support my input.” Much as her dream anticipated, Melody found herself in a high-tech war environment where she is in danger of being split off from her erstwhile friends and cast into the militarily targeted category of “foe”; the only hope of survival is to move herself (and her minority political opinions) “underground,” where she can’t be seen or heard.

Closing Reflections: Religion and War.

Whether one is for or against the war in Iraq, the religious dimensions of the conflict are an important and undeniable reality. The rise of radical Islam as a threat to American national security, the disproportionate influence of ultraorthodox Jews on Israeli policies toward the Palestinians, the friction between Sunni and Shi’ite branches of Islam, the proudly assertive Christian faith of President Bush, the opposition to war by the official leadership of nearly all American religious denominations, the theological context of Europeans and Americans launching colonial/missionary/crusading efforts in the Middle East—all of these factors make religion a major issue in the war in Iraq. I want to end this preliminary report with a dream that highlights some of the religious complexities involved in the present conflict. Kate, a 42-year old health care worker in Ohio from the anti-war camp, had this dream on March 18:

“War in our country: bombed buildings and roads, and I was in a car driving to escape. Our church had collapsed before the war began and dozens of national guardsmen had come to fix it. They surrounded the stone structure and piles of rubble shoulder to shoulder wearing uniforms and helmets, even carrying guns. I discussed with my pastor how much it appeared like a war scene. “Isn’t it ironic that our church would fall at the same time as the war, and that soldiers would come to help us?”

Kate said her church is currently in the process of remodeling its 130-year old stone building, so her dream certainly has that direct connection to her life. When I asked her about her church’s attitude toward the war, she told me of the congregation’s long history of anti-war activism and her own enthusiastic participation in the protests leading up to the current conflict in Iraq. The opening of her dream seems to reflect, consistent with the political views of herself and her church, a frightened sense that warfare and bloodshed are on the rise everywhere and are even threatening her home community. However, at this point something a little odd happens. The church is in ruins, as if it has been struck by a bomb, but Kate knows that in fact the church fell down before the war started. Her capacity to recognize the irony of the situation—soldiers during wartime helping rebuild an anti-war church that collapsed prior to the war—is, I suspect, a healthy sign of psychological and spiritual reintegration amid the confusing chaos of the historical moment. Despite the destructive forces of war consuming her country, despite the presence of armed troops right before her, she feels no personal threat in what’s happening. On the contrary, she appreciates the help of the national guardsmen in rebuilding her church. “The soldiers seemed to be working to shore up the remaining structure and to protect people from further collapse. At the time I had the dream, the war was just beginning and I was certain that it was an enormous mistake. I feel much more conflicted now than I did before it started, as I see the Iraqi response to the US presence… I still feel we made a terrible mistake, but maybe the consequences won’t be as dire as I had imagined.”

A violent war, a crumbled church, a military trying to make things better—in dreaming as in waking, Kate and many people like her are struggling with sharp fragments of image, emotion, and history, trying to reorient themselves to a world they no longer recognize.

References

Bosnak, Robert. 1996. Tracks in the Wilderness of Dreaming: Exploring Interior Landscape through Practical Dreamwork. New York: Delacorte Press.
Bulkeley, Kelly. 1996b. Political Dreaming: Dreams of the 1992 Presidential Election. In Among All These Dreamers: Essays on Dreaming and Modern Society, edited by K. Bulkeley. Albany: State University of New York Press.
———. 1997. An Introduction to the Psychology of Dreaming. Westport: Praeger.
———. 1999a. Visions of the Night: Dreams, Religion, and Psychology. Albany: State University of New York Press.
———. 2002. Dream Content and Political Ideology. Dreaming 12 (2):61-78.
———. 2003. Dreams of Healing: Transforming Nightmares into Visions of Hope. Mahwah: Paulist Press.
Domhoff, G. William. 1996. Finding Meaning in Dreams: A Quantitative Approach. New York: Plenum.
———. 2003. The Scientific Study of Dreams: Neural Networks, Cognitive Development, and Content Analysis. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.
Freud, Sigmund. 1965. The Interpretation of Dreams. Translated by J. Strachey. New York: Avon Books.
Hall, Calvin. 1966. The Meaning of Dreams. New York: McGraw Hill.
Jung, C.G. 1974. The Practical Use of Dream Analysis. In Dreams. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Original edition, 1934.
King, Johanna. 1996. Let’s Stand Up, Regain Our Balance, and Look Around at the World. In Among All These Dreamers: Essays on Dreaming and Modern Society, edited by K. Bulkeley. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Rupprecht, Carol Schreier. 1996. Sex, Gender, and Dreams: From Polarity to Plurality. In Among All These Dreamers: Essays on Dreaming and Modern Society, edited by K. Bulkeley. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Samuels, Andrew. 1993. The Political Psyche. London: Routledge.
Shafton, Anthony. 2002. Dream-Singers: The African American Way with Dreams. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Sobel, Mechal. 2000. Teach Me Dreams: The Search for Self in the Revolutionary Era. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Taylor, Jeremy. 1983. Dream Work. Mahwah: Paulist Press.
———. 1992. Where People Fly and Water Runs Uphill. New York: Warner Books.
Ullman, Montague, and Nan Zimmerman. 1979. Working with Dreams. Los Angeles: Jeremy Tarcher.

[i](Bulkeley 1996b).

[ii](Bulkeley 2003), and a forthcoming study (co-authored with Tracey Kahan) on explicit incorporations of 9/11-related themes in a set of 21 college student dream journals from the fall of 2001.

[iii] (Bulkeley 2002).

[iv] (Freud 1965) (358): “Dreams are completely egoistical. Whenever my own ego does not appear in the content of the dream, but only some extraneous person, I may safely assume that my own ego lies concealed, by identification, behind this other person.”

[v] (Hall 1966) (11): “Dreams contain few ideas of a political or economic nature. They have little or nothing to say about currentevents in the world of affairs….Presidential elections, declarations of war, the diplomatic struggles of great powers, major athletic contests, all of the happenings that appear in newspapers and become the major topics of conversation among people are pretty largely ignored in dreams.”

[vi] Others who have written about this include Montague Ullman (Ullman and Zimmerman 1979), Jeremy Taylor (Taylor 1983, 1992), Robert Bosnak (Bosnak 1996), Andrew Samuels (Samuels 1993), Anthony Shafton (Shafton 2002), Johanna King (King 1996), and especially the recent fascinating work by Mechal Sobel on dreams as windows into racial and gender relations in early American history (Sobel 2000).

[vii] (Domhoff 1996).

[viii] Here is the text: “Dreams Relating to the War in Iraq: A Research Request. If you have had any dreams relating to the current war in Iraq, please send them to researcher Kelly Bulkeley, Ph.D. (The Graduate Theological Union), who is collecting such dreams for a study on personal dreams and public events. All dream reports will be kept anonymous, and the researcher will respond to any questions you might have about your dreams. In your report please include 1) the date you had the dream, 2) your age, 3) gender, 4) state or country of residence, and 5) occupation. Please describe the dream in as much detail as you can, and if possible include your feelings about the war and how your dream relates to it. Thank you. Email: kellybulkeley@earthlink.net”

[ix] I have received several other dream reports since that time, and those will be included in an expanded study in the future.

[x] (Bulkeley 2003).

[xi] Although we can be sure that many of the U.S. military personnel who are serving in Iraq are dreaming about it right now, and are likely suffering the first symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. The same is likely true of their family members, and of course of countless people in Iraq. Future clinical studies on the veterans of this war will add considerable detail to the ideas presented in this report, as will anthropological investigations of post-war Iraq.

[xii] (Bulkeley 1999a)(Rupprecht 1996).

[xiii] Although as Margaret, one of my respondents, noted, it seems surprising that she (and perhaps other anti-war people as well) have not been dreaming more about the Iraq situation. “[T]he violence of war has been in my conscious mind consistently and vividly for months and months. Last night [April 6] was the first time I dreamed about the war in all that time!”

[xiv] Gerhard, one of whose dreams is discussed below, commented on the effect of receiving my research request: “I wonder if I would have had the dream at all, had you not called it forth.” This points to the ultimate methodological indeterminacy of dream research, our field’s version of the uncertainty principle in quantum physics: the observer inevitably influences (and even creates) that which he or she observes.

[xv] For more on the dream theories of Perls and Jung, see (Bulkeley 1997).

[xvi] (Jung 1974) (101).

[xvii](Domhoff 2003) (144-147).

“The former C.I.A. officer, who is knowledgeable about the interrogation program, explained that, ‘Sleep deprivation works.  Your electrolyte balance changes.  You lose all balance and ability to think rationally.  Stuff comes out.’  Sleep deprivation has been recognized as an effective form of coercion since the Middle Ages, when it was called tormentum insomniae.  It was also recognized for decades in the United States as an illegal form of torture.  An American Bar Association report, published in 1930, which was cited in a later U.S. Supreme Court decision, said, ‘It has been known since 1500 at least that deprivation of sleep is the most effective torture and certain to produce any confession desired.’ Under President Bush’s new executive order [of July 20, 2007], C.I.A. detainees must receive the ‘basic necessities of life, including adequate food and water, shelter from the elements, necessary clothing, protection from extremes of heat and cold, and essential medical care.’  Sleep, according to the order, is not among the basic necessities.”

Jane Mayer, “The Black Sites: A Rare Look Inside the C.I.A.’s Secret Interrogation Program,” The New Yorker Magazine, August 13, 2007

In January of 2008 I had an email exchange with John Jost, political psychologist at NYU and lead author of the 2003 article, “Political Conservativism as Motivated Social Cognition.” (Psychological Bulletin 129: 339-375). He had seen an advance copy of the book, and while favorably disposed toward most of it he took exception to the following passages in the conclusion:

“The data presented in this book for the most part agree with the findings from my earlier studies. Political conservatives in America tend to sleep well with a diminished range of dreaming, while American liberals are more likely to sleep poorly with an expanded range of dreaming. The differences are not absolute, but the trends seem consistent with their respective political ideals.

These findings correspond fairly well with other research on political psychology. For example, John T. Jost and his colleagues argued in an influential 2003 article that “the core ideology of conservatism stresses resistance to change and justification of inequality and is motivated by needs that vary situationally and dispositionally to manage uncertainty and threat.”[i] Reviewing the results of eighty-eight studies involving more than twenty thousand people, Jost et al. found that political conservatism was psychologically correlated with high degrees of death anxiety and dogmatism and low degrees of openness to experience, tolerance of uncertainty, and integrative complexity. Without corresponding data on political liberals it’s hard to know exactly what to make of these findings, but they seem consistent in many ways with the patterns identified in my dream research, and thus supportive of a classic social scientific view of conservatives going back to Adorno and his 1950 study of “the authoritarian personality.” Conservatives seem to have thicker psychological boundaries than do liberals, with less interest in anything that deviates from their traditional ways of living and more concern about possible threats to those traditions.[ii]

My hesitation to fully endorse this line of research stems from 1) its pathologizing approach to conservative beliefs and ideals and 2) its premise that there’s a clear, stable distinction between a conservative and a liberal personality. I believe it’s better to start political psychology research with the recognition that no one is purely conservative or liberal. Everybody’s personality includes aspects of both tendencies… Samuels, like Lakoff, is an avowed political liberal, and Jost et al., leave little doubt as to their greater sympathy for liberal qualities. The leftward-leaning tendencies of most social scientists gives us good reason to question the motivations of researchers who argue that conservatives are somehow less mentally healthy or psychologically mature than liberals. Personal bias plays a role in political psychology just like it does in every academic field, and the best we researchers can do is try to be honest with ourselves and continually test our ideas against new sources of evidence.”

Jost replied that “you seem to be perpetuating some common misunderstandings (or misrepresentations) of our work. For example, you state that our meta-analysis did not include “corresponding data on political liberals” and that our work assumes a “clear, stable distinction between a conservative and a liberal personality.” Both of these statements are false. In fact, participants’ political orientation scores were treated as continuous variables (ranging from extremely liberal to extremely conservative) in nearly all of the 88 studies in the meta-analysis. Thus, our research contains extensive data on liberals and does not assume a rigid categorical distinction at all; rather, all conclusions are comparative. You also claim that our research takes a “pathologizing approach to conservative beliefs and ideals” (p. 154) and imply that our (assumed) “liberal bias” led us to conclude that “conservatives are somehow less mentally healthy or psychologically mature than liberals” (p. 157). These claims are also false, and we clearly said so in an August 2003 Washington Post Op-Ed piece. All of the 9 cognitive and motivational style variables that we investigated are part of normal psychological functioning, and there was nothing in our articles that “pathologized” conservatives. What you are doing here is perpetuating false claims that circulated on right-wing websites by people who never actually read our research.”

Jost also offered links to several articles in which he makes his case against his conservative attackers:

http://www.sulloway.org/PoliticalOpinionNotPathology.htm

My response to Jost starts with an acknowledgment of my imprecision in summarizing his research. In the conclusion I briefly discuss my findings in light of four different perspectives on political psychology—cognitive scientist George Lakoff, Jungian analyst Andrew Samuels, Neo-orthodox theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, and Jost and his colleagues. In the paragraph on Jost I discuss his work in connection to the long lineage of social scientific research on political “authoritarianism” starting with Adorno, and clearly from Jost’s perspective I failed to adequately credit his methodological advances over the early Adorno work. The primary target of my critical comments is indeed Adorno, and I could have done more to distinguish Jost’s research from his. That said, I stand by the general methodological concerns raised in that passage. Research like Adorno’s and Jost’s is predicated on psychological categories that may correspond to actual features of cognitive structure but also have the tendency to obscure the fluid dynamism of actual lived experience (of the liberal and conservative varieties). My approach in the book tries to integrate both dimensions, the cognitive-structural and the dynamic-experiential, and even though my efforts are very limited and preliminary, the initial results have been sufficiently promising to encourage the pursuit of more and better research. Indeed, my primary point in bringing up Jost’s work was to highlight the convergence in our findings. The sleep and dream data I present in the main portion of the book strike me as remarkably consistent with the basic results of the meta-analysis of Jost and his colleagues in their 2003 article. I’m curious to know how much further these correspondences extend.

Bush, Clinton, and the politics of sleep deprivation

Falling asleep involves a very real return to nature, a surrender of conscious control to the innate needs of the biological organism that is our body.  Sleeping is a time when our animal heritage is most apparent, when the basic instincts of self-maintenance and preservation take over.  A good night’s sleep helps replenish our physical, emotional, and intellectual energies in preparation for the challenges of each coming day.   

My research suggests that conservatives tend to sleep better than liberals.  More evidence is needed to substantiate this idea, but I think it makes good sense. Conservatives are more likely to value the qualities of control, personal power, and safety from outside forces.  A sound, steady, restful sleep is consistent with that kind of outlook on life.  Liberals, on the other hand, are more oriented towards openness and empathy for others, and as a result they’re more vulnerable to external disruptions and loss of personal control.  Those ideals appear to be correlated with the variable quality of their sleep. 

Our last two Presidents play out this pattern in almost comic-book form.  Throughout his two terms in office, Bill Clinton was well-known for his restless intelligence, late-night conversational manias, and blatant disregard for other people’s normal patterns of waking and sleeping.  He was, by his own admission, a functional insomniac. George W. Bush, meanwhile, has always let it be known that he’s an early-to-bed kind of guy.  Right after his 2000 election he said this would be his first historical goal: “I’m trying to set the record as the President who got to bed earliest on Inauguration Day.”  In a 2006 interview with People magazine he said that despite the stressful responsibilities of his job, he actually sleeps quite soundly: “I must tell you, I’m sleeping much better than people would assume.”  He let on that he occasionally takes sleep aids when traveling and drinks a couple of cups of coffee each morning, but other than that he’s a clean living person in both waking and sleeping: “I don’t drink alcohol.  I can remember when I used to drink, I had trouble sleeping at night.”[i] 

Pundits on both sides of the ideological divide have interpreted these sleep differences as meaningful signs of each President’s deeper nature.  Many liberals were excited by Clinton’s boundless energy, and they’re horrified by the oblivious tranquility of Bush’s sleep (fumed one internet commentator: “So he has no trouble sleeping, huh? Well, that’s just freaking wonderful.  Because of him, nearly 3000 American service members are sleeping soundly, too.  But they won’t get to wake up the next day.”[ii]).  In contrast, conservatives regarded the nocturnal hyperactivity of Clinton as a symptom of his broader lack of personal discipline, and they praise Bush for his healthy-minded good sense (Steve Chapman wrote in the National Review, “conservatives can take his devotion to sleep as a good omen.  Respecting his body’s own basic requirements suggests an appreciation of human limits that is the beginning of wisdom about governance.”[iii]).  Both interpretations are correct in identifying the connection between sleep patterns and political sensibilities.  Where they differ is in the valuation of a sound sleep.  Liberals see Bush’s excessive fondness for sleep as a sign of being morally obtuse, and conservatives regard Clinton’s erratic sleep as indicating an unstable character.   

Actually, Clinton himself has admitted to the governmental problems caused by poor sleep habits.  In a remarkable aside during a question-and-answer session that followed a 2002 speech at the University of California, Berkeley, the former President said the following:

“But one of the reasons Washington is so…you’re going to all laugh when I say this, and you’re going to think, ‘He’s like everybody else.  You know, when they get out of office they get a little dotty and a little crazy.’  But I’m telling you, one of the reasons that there is often such an acrimonious atmosphere in Washington, is that too many members of the Congress in both parties are sleep deprived.  And you just think about it….  I’m telling you that the main reason you ought to be for some kind of meaningful campaign reform is that half the people in Congress are physically exhausted all the time from trying to make their votes, learn about the issues, come home on the weekend, and spend all their time raising money.  And it clouds your judgment, and it undermines your ability to be relaxed and respectful in dealing with your adversaries.  Now, every one of you, if you’ve ever been really tired a long time—you know, I spent 30 years sleep-deprived and I got used to it—but I’m serious, you have no idea how much more physically difficult it is to be a member of Congress now than it was before you had to raise this kind of money.  And you ought to take a burden off their back and keep working until we get real campaign finance reform, so you can have people who are thinking, who have time to think about these issues and study them, and who believe they will have the opportunity to argue their position to their constituents, so they don’t have to take the most extreme possible position because that’s what it takes to get the money, and they’re not so exhausted from chasing around after the money, that they never get a decent night’s sleep.  Now, you can laugh about that, but I’m telling you, if you had all the members of Congress here and they were being honest with you, they’d tell you that I just told you one of the most important reasons that you could ever be for this.”[iv]

Whatever you think of his pitch for campaign finance reform, Clinton is offering an intriguing signal of liberal willingness to value sleep as a necessity for healthy political functioning.  He speaks of sleep deprivation as an open secret in Washington life, a problem that everyone recognizes and suffers yet feels helpless to change. Why shouldn’t conservatives agree with him?  After all, their hero Ronald Reagan was famously (though perhaps not accurately; link to conversation with Martin Anderson) insistent on having the opportunity to enjoy an afternoon nap each day. 

Looking beyond Washington to the nation as a whole, much more attention should be paid to the fact that millions of Americans suffer problems with the length and quality of their sleep.  In terms of the basic requirements for human health, this is equivalent to saying that millions of Americans don’t have adequate food, water, or air.   Sleep is just as essential to our survival, yet it’s rarely recognized as such.  If we take seriously the strong scientific evidence that sleep is crucial to our mental and physical well-being, then we have to ask some difficult questions.  What is the collective damage caused by the sleep-depriving pressures of contemporary American life?  How many accidents, injuries, fights, mistakes, misunderstandings, and screw-ups are caused by people who are stumbling through the day in an exhausted, semi-conscious fog?  Of all our basic physical needs, why is sleep the one we seem most willing to sacrifice, the one we regularly disrupt and deny in favor of other interests?  Do we really want a future where we’ll have to take a pill to stay awake and another one to go to sleep?  We’re in danger of becoming a society of sleep anorexics, fooling ourselves into thinking it’s perfectly normal to starve our body of what it needs, pretending that no one else notices the harmful, emaciating effects.

I see no reason why conservatives and liberals shouldn’t agree that improving sleep hygiene should be a public health priority.  Any number of easy, low-cost measures (e.g., early education about sleep and health, more flexible employment and school schedules, stronger noise ordinances, work-place nap rooms, etc.) could produce rapid and tangible benefits in people’s well-being. The problems caused by sleeplessness involve more than just higher frequencies of accidents, injuries, and illnesses.  I’d go further and say that inadequate sleep represents a subtle but genuine threat to our psychological ability to function as responsible citizens in a democracy.  Our form of government depends on—was created in the name of—free-thinking individuals capable of making their own decisions about their lives.  A political system like ours presupposes a high degree of maturity, self-awareness, and wisdom on the part of the citizens, and we risk weakening those vital qualities when we deny our biological need for long, steady, restful sleep.