Fantasy, dream, vision, and hallucination: Approaches from a parallactic neuro-psychoanalytic perspective

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we present a model of a specific category of complex thought and memory processes – figurative representations – which are viewed from a parallactic, psychoanalytic and neurobiological perspective. We postulate that figurative representations can be understood as the products of a complex memory process. Modern memory research distinguishes between a “dispositional space” containing the blueprints for producing representations, and the “image space” in which these representations are fabricated; in other words, between the “archive” and the “workshop” of memory. The selective retrieval of specific memories and the transformation of the Remembered permit the creative formation of different types of figurative representations such as fantasies, dreams, visions and hallucinations. Both cognitive and affective processes can contribute to the differences between these types of representations. Depending on the intensity with which reality is perceived, figurative representations may appear as dreams or fantasies, visions or hallucinations. These transformations can be traced on the basis of known dreams and hallucinations which Freud described in his work, From the History of an Infantile Neurosis. We suggest that parallactic points of view, although nearly identical to one another, are nevertheless wholly incompatible: this gap is inherent in every parallactic model, and possibly has a determining influence on postmodern subjectivity.

KEYWORDS:

• fantasy
• dream
• vision
• hallucination
• figurative representations
• neuropsychoanalysis
• parallactic view

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Freud’s (1900, p. 377; 1918, p. 58) concept of Wirklichkeitsgefühl is translated in the Standard Edition (SE) both as “feeling of reality” (Freud, 1900, p. 371) and, in the context of the dream about the wolf, as “sense of reality” (Freud, 1918, p. 32).

2. In contrast to the “feeling of reality”, Freud (1911, p. 221) defined the “reality testing” as a “passing of judgment, which had to decide whether a given idea was true or false – that is, whether it was in agreement with reality or not.” (Freud, 1911, p. 221). Ferenczi (2002a, p. 227) then speaks of a “sense of reality” that fulfils the duties of the reality testing: The less possible it is to distinguish between internal and external following a reduction in the sense of reality, the stronger the feeling of reality grows. On the other hand, a strong feeling of reality can also invalidate the sense of reality that judges. In this respect, on the path from neurosis to psychosis, it is not a “loss of reality” that takes place, but rather a “gaining of reality” (Federn, 1953, p. 162).

3. In neurobiological memory research, memory is subdivided on the basis of the chronological dispersion of the memorized contents, as well as on the basis of the procedural processes involved. In accordance with the multi-store theory (Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968), we distinguish between an ultra-short-term memory, a short-term memory and a long-term memory. Acting as an interactive, functional link between the short-term memory and the long-term memory is the working memory. The ultra-short-term memory, also referred to as the sensory memory, stores information from the sensory organs for a timespan of milliseconds, without conscious attention on our part. By contrast, the short-term memory stores up to around five information units for around 20–40 s, or for up to a maximum of several minutes. Length of storage in the long-term memory is – at least in theory – unlimited.

4. In the course of information intake, sensory signals hit the receptors of the sense organs, are encoded into the languages of the appropriate neural networks, and are relayed to subcortical brain centers (in particular to the thalamus, the hippocampus and its cortical neural network). In subcortical centers, an emotional assessment of the information takes place, i.e. the information undergoes recoding. If the psychophysiological balance of the organism is disturbed, a negative coding takes place. If the balance is maintained or restored, the emotional coding is positive. This information, whose valence is positively or negatively coded, is routed to modality-specific regions of the cerebral cortex and recoded (visually, acoustically, olfactorily, etc.). The information is stored, i.e. filed in the form of conscious or unconscious “maps”: maps represent the features of objects. There are interoceptive maps – ones which represent the inner milieu – proprioceptive maps, which represent parts of one’s own body, and exteroceptive maps, which illustrate external objects or object relationship experiences (Damasio, 2010, p. 64). Proteins produced as a result of activity serve as growth factors for the appropriate neurons, and reinforce interneuronal synaptic connectivity, i.e. a map is laid down in a stabilized network and is available for recall in the form of a memory (Bauer, 2013, p. 44). At the same time, the information triggers a response involving a multiplicity of the organism’s systems and functions, e.g. thoughts, fantasies, plans, decisions, emotions and actions. We are dealing here with a “multidimensional psychobiological response” to the information which is continuously transmitted via receptors and evaluated in the various brain centers (Koukkou & Lehmann, 1998, p. 305 et seq.).

5. In the so-called “lost in the shopping mall” experiment (Loftus & Pickrell, 1995), test subjects were presented with a series of childhood experiences reported by relatives (Markowitsch & Welzer, 2005, p. 26). One of these episodes, to the effect that the test subject had once gone missing in a supermarket, was freely invented. Nevertheless, 29% of the test subjects recalled the episode, and with each subsequent test run, the number of individuals wrongly recalling the episode increased. This invented episode can be understood as an “import harbour for one’s own biography”, i.e. an experience of separation is unconsciously connected with the narratively imparted but invented situation – in other words, the invented situation furnishes the images which visually transform the (unconscious) separation experience.

6. The following papers by Ferenczi (2002b [1913b]) and Jones (1948 [1915]) underscore the individual nature of symbols, and see their distinguishing feature as being precisely that the symbolized is repressed, and it is only the symbol that is available to consciousness (Jones, 1915, p. 116). On the other hand, Alfred Lorenzer (1970, p. 89 et seq.) dealt critically with the psychoanalytic theory of symbolization, referring inter alia to Susanne Langer (1942), according to whom all representations available to experience are symbols. By also accepting non-figurative representations as symbols and dispensing with the distinction between the conscious symbol and the unconscious symbolized, Lorenzer thus severed the genuinely psychoanalytical from the concept of symbol (Speidel, 1977).

7. Bazan (2012) suggests that generally mental imagery (for example the hallucination of the maternal breast) arises in cases in which a movement is not leading to an intended goal, for example the breast. Similarly, Jeannerod (1994) described the proceses, when the baby’s movement is unable to reach the desired goal:

These neurons encode final configurations (of the environment, of the body of the moving segments, (ect) as they should arise if the end of the action, and (…) they remain active until the requested configuration has been obtained. If the goal [of an action plan] were not reached, the sustained discharge would be interpreted centraly a a pure representation activity and give rise to mental imagery. (Jeannerod, 1994)

However, in our concept of the figurative representations we are going one step further: The final configuration would be composed as a very new and figurative mental image.

8. Also considering the neuroscientific “Predictive Coding Theory” it could be hypothesized that figurative representations - e.g. in dreams or fatanasies - make predictions about certain social stimuli. If this prediction is correct, the neural activity may decrease and the brain will be able to save energy. From a psychoanalytical point of view, the figurative representations would be particularly suited to predict certain social situations that cannot be represented in a direct, non-figurative way. This prediction may minimize the conflictual or traumatic element of surprise, when the individual meets a comparable situation (see Llewellyn, 2015).