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Sleep and Dream
Why do we sleep and why do we dream? Do dreams have a
meaning? What is the relationship of sleep and dream to waking life?
Who are we during this absent third of our lives? Despite the
twentieth-century discoveries of REM sleep and circadian rhythms, sleep
still mystifies and intrigues, as it has for centuries, providing
fertile subject material for writers, artists and philosophers.
In this course we will investigate various understandings of sleep and
dream, treating them in turn as biological, cultural and personal
phenomena. The study of sleep and dream will raise questions
about reality, illusion, identity, time and space. We will
explore the roles that sleep and dream play in our stories, our
religions, our art, and our understanding of the world and
ourselves. How can we integrate sleep and dream into an
understanding of what it means to be human?
Preceptor: We are fortunate to have
Kacie Coughlin as the Preceptor for MSS141. Kacie will participate in
class and help organize small group discussions. In addition she will
be available outside of class to provide guidance on papers and
projects, to discuss the readings, to show films, and to be a
sounding-board for your ideas and questions.
Required Material (available at the Student Bookstore):
Bulkeley, Kelly. An Introduction to
the Psychology of Dreaming
Calderon, Pedro. Life is a Dream.
Dement, William. The Promise of
Sleep.
Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretation
of Dreams.
Jung, Carl Gustav. The
Undiscovered Self.
Kessler, Joan, ed. Demons of the
Night: Tales of the Fantastic, Madness and the Supernatural from
Nineteenth-Century France.
Palahniuk, Chuck. Fight Club.
Shakespeare, William. Macbeth.
Additional Readings in Course Packet (available for
purchase at the Dept. of Modern Languages, Keiper 109)
UNIT I
Gautier, Theophile. "The Coffee Pot" in The Oxford Book of French Short Stories.
Ed. Elizabeth Fallaize.
UNIT II
Artemidorus. The
Interpretation of Dreams. Ed. Robert J. White. Book
1 (selections)
Lambert, Johanna, ed. Wise Women of
the Dreamtime: Aboriginal Tales of the Ancestral Powers.
"Introduction" and select tales.
Lawlor, Robert. Voices of the First
Day: Awakening in the Aboriginal Dreamtime. Ch. 2 & 14
Miller, Patricia Cox "Dreams and Therapy" in Dreams in Late Antiquity.
Tonkinson, Robert. The Mardudjara
Aborigines: Living the Dream in Australia's Desert. Ch. 1.
Young, Serenity. Dreaming in the
Lotus. Ch. 1, 4 (selections)
UNIT III
Epel, Naomi, ed. Writers Dreaming
(selections)
On Reserve (at ATS)
"Spellbound" (Alfred Hitchcock, 1945)
"Brazil" (Terry Gilliam, 1985)
"The Matrix" (Wachowski Brothers, 1999)
Course Program:
January:
20: Introduction. Ways
of Talking about Sleep
UNIT I: Sleep and
Dream as Physiological and Psychological Phenomena
22: History of Sleep Science & the Physiology of
Sleep: Dement, ch. 1-3. [Questions]
27: Physiology and Purpose of Sleep; Chronobiology: Dement ch. 4-5, 10.
[Questions]
29: Dreams: Dement ch. 13; Freud, ch. 1 (A-D);[Questions: ch. 1-2] Quiz (not on Freud)
February:
3: Freudian Dream Theory: Freud ch.
2-3-4. [Questions: ch. 3-4]
5: Freudian Dream Theory: In-class viewing "Young Doctor Freud" (PBS
film, 2002); Bulkeley ch. 2; [Questions] Quiz
10: Jungian Dream Theory: "Symbols and the
Interpretations of Dreams" (pp. 65-95); Bulkeley ch. 3; [Questions]
12: Jungian Dream Theory: "Symbols" (pp. 96-132); Quiz
17: Contemporary Theories of Dream: Bulkeley ch. 4-5; [Questions]
Dream Journal due
19: Dream Analysis: Gautier "The Coffee
Pot;" [Questions]
1pg
summary or outline of paper due [Paper Topics]
UNIT II: Sleep and
Dream as Cultural Phenomena
24: Dreams of Antiquity-- Aristotle & Artemidorous :
Bulkeley ch. 1; Artemidorus (selections) [Questions]
26: The Cult of Asclepius: Miller "Dreams and Therapy;" 1st Draft of
Paper due
March
2: Australian Aboriginal Dreamtime: Lambert, Intro
& select tales; Tonkinson, "The Spiritual Imperative"; Lawlor,
"Time and Space in the Dreaming"; "The Ontology of the Dreamtime (pp.
264- 275) [Questions]
4: Buddhist Dream Yoga: Young, selections from Dreaming in the
Lotus; Life is a Dream,
Act I; [Calderon Questions: Act
I][Questions for Dreaming in the
Lotus] Quiz
9: Reality & Illusion: Calderon: Life
is a Dream: Act II--III [Questions] [Questions]
11: Reality & Illusion: "The Matrix;" [Questions] Paper (final
version) due
16:
Spring break
18:
Spring break
UNIT III: Sleep and
Dream as Personal Phenomena
23: The Double Life: Gautier, "The Dead in Love" (in
Kessler) [Questions]
25: Dreams and Hallucinations: "Brazil;" Dement, ch. 8 (pp.
194-207); [Brazil Questions]
[Dement
Questions] Quiz
30: Madness & Somnambulism: Shakespeare, Macbeth: Acts I,II,III
(pp. 6-115) [Questions]
Sleep in Macbeth
April
1: Madness & Somnambulism: Shakespeare, Macbeth:
Acts IV, V (pp. 118-191); Dement, ch. 8 (pp. 208-216); [Questions] Quiz
6: Nightmare & the Midnight Strangler: Maupassant,
"The Horla" (in Kessler); Dement, ch. 7 [Questions]
8: Insomnia: Palahniuk, Fight Club:
ch.1-14 (pp.11-111);[Questions] Quiz
13: Insomnia: Palahniuk, Fight Club:
ch.15-30 (pp. 112-208); [Questions]
Dream Journal: 1 pg reflective statement due
15: Creativity & Problem Solving: Dement, ch. 14; Epel, selections
from Writers Dreaming; Project Progress Report due
20: Final Project Presentations
22: Final Project Presentations
27: Final Project Presentations
29: Final Project Presentations; Final
project (written) due;
distribution of final exam
Final Exam due: May 6 by
5pm
Important Dates:
Final day to add a course or withdrawal without record: Feb. 3
Final day to select P/NP option: Feb. 17
Final day to withdrawal from a course with record: April 19
Grade Breakdown:
Analytical Paper: 25%
Final Project (presentation + product): 25%
Participation & Preparation (including dream journal, informal
writing assignments): 25%
Weekly Quiz: 10%
Final Exam: 15%
Requirements and Guidelines
1. Readings:
All readings must be completed for the date assigned on the syllabus. I
will provide you with exact page numbers, or in some cases a list of
scenes or sections. Readings will vary in length, but will generally
not exceed 60 pages per class meeting. This means that you must start
reading early and pace yourselves as you go, reading a little bit every
day.
I will also post reading discussion questions on the course Web Site
before each class meeting.
2. Participation:
Regular contributions to class discussion are vital to your learning
experience. Please do not hesitate to speak up in class, ask questions,
try out an idea, agree or disagree with the class discussion. We are
all here to learn and all ideas and opinions are worthy of attention.
MSS141 is not a lecture class and although there are a lot of us,
everyone will be expected to contribute to discussion as best as he or
she can.
You are permitted two (2) no-questions-asked unexcused absences during
the semester. After the second unexcused absence, your grade will be
lowered accordingly. Any student with excessive absences may earn an F
for the course.
If you must miss class due to illness, family emergency, participation
in a varsity sport (letter from your coach required), or religious
holiday, please notify me as soon as possible.
3. Weekly Quiz:
Nearly every week there will be a short quiz on the reading material.
Usually these will be administered on Wednesdays and they will always
be announced in class the Monday before. The purpose of the quiz is to
ensure that everyone keeps up with the readings and to verify basic
comprehension of the texts. At the end of the semester I will drop your
lowest quiz score.
4. Dream Journal:
This is your opportunity to engage with the ideas and questions of this
course in a very personal way. I ask each student to keep a
semi-regular dream journal throughout the semester: write down any
dreams you can remember, as often as you can. It is usually a good idea
to keep a notebook by your bed so that you can jot them down as soon as
you wake while they are still vivid in your memory.
Questions I will ask you periodically throughout the semester: what
does it feel like to write down your dreams? What do you notice about
them? Is it easy or difficult to remember the dream? to put it into
words? How does your own experience of dreaming correlate to the
theories and stories of dreams we read in this course?
**N.B.: Dreams are very personal. I will not read or grade the dream
journals. I will not collect them. I will simply ask you to bring your
journal in from time to time to show me that you are doing it. There is
no required number of entries. Some people remember their dreams
readily; for others it is rare that they remember any at all. If you
dream-journal regularly, you may find that you remember more and more
of your dreams. In short, this is an assignment where you get to decide
how much you put into it and how much you get out of it. Think of it as
an experiment. You never know what you may discover.
5. Papers and Projects:
Each student will write one analytical paper of 5-6 pages and will
complete one creative project by the end of the semester. I will
provide you with a list of possible topics for the paper as well as
guidelines for the paper's format.
All drafts should be typed and double-spaced. The paper grades will
reflect your work throughout each stage of the writing process, as well
as the attention and care you give to your colleagues' work. Please
note the due dates on the syllabus for all drafts. Grades will be
lowered for papers submitted after the deadlines.
6. Final Project:
The creative project will be much more open than the paper. The idea is
this: all semester we will encounter stories, plays, films, art and
perhaps even music that seek to tell us something about the elusive
states of sleep and dream. For the final project, it will be your turn.
You may write a short story, make a short film, direct a scene of a
play, compose a piece of music or a song, paint a picture, write a
collection of poems, design a Web Site, write a computer
program--create anything that simultaneously makes the viewer,
audience, etc. engage with the questions of sleep and dream.
During the final two weeks of the semester, each student will make a
brief presentation of his or her project to the class and hand in to me
a short written "preface" which will explain the goal of the piece, how
it relates to the themes and questions we have discussed, etc.
We will brainstorm ideas for the projects during the semester and after
spring break I will provide you with more specific guidelines. But you
can start to think about this now and I encourage you to talk to me
about your ideas. Sleep and dream have long been associated with
creativity and imagination. This project should indeed allow you to put
theory to practice.
7. Final Exam:
The final exam will be a take-home exam, distributed on the last day of
class. Final due date to be announced.
8. Academic Integrity:
The boon of readily available information on the Internet requires all
members of the academic community to be clear and precise about citing
sources used for written and oral assignments. Please be advised that
you must credit all sources, whether print or digital, that you use in
your work. I will provide you with the suitable format for citations
during the semester.
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