Friday, March 26th - from noon to 12:50
Room C1016
Abstract:
Daydreaming has had a bad reputation throughout much of modern human history. It’s been viewed as a sign of laziness (at best) and a sign of mental illness (at worst). This presentation will address the scientific evidence on daydreaming, identifying several benefits of this very common activity and some circumstances under which it may predict disordered thought processes.
Biographical Statement:
Chuck Nikles majored in psychology and philosophy at the University of Minnesota, Morris before continuing on to earn his Ph.D. in personality psychology at the U of M, Twin Cities. He started at Normandale in spring of 2005 and primarily teaches General Psychology, Personality, and Human Sexuality. His main area of interest is human consciousness (focusing particularly on daydreaming & night dreaming), and he plans to offer a topics course on the subject in Fall 2010.Resources from Chuck's talk on daydreaming:
For general audiences:
-Klinger, E (1990). Daydreaming: Using waking fantasy and imagery for self-knowledge and creativity.
-Singer, J.L. (1975). The inner world of daydreaming
For those willing to risk brain explosion (e.g. Honors students):
-Klinger, E. (1971). Structure and functions of fantasy
For those allergic to books:
http://www.philoctetes.org/Past_Programs/Daydreaming_Night_Dreaming_and_Stimulus_Independent_Thought
Roundtable (October 6, 2007): Daydreaming, Night-Dreaming, and Stimulus-Independent Thought (featuring Klinger and Singer)
Questions? Comments? Contact Chuck Nikles at:
Charles.Nikles@Normandale.edu
Thanks for an entertaining and thought provoking talk! As you used the term "real," however, I thought it rather question-begging; use of that term seems to imply that there is an agreement, among whoever gets to decide these things, about what counts as "real." As fate would have it, a blogger I read posted about this almost a year ago, and referred to the old post just today (otherwise I would never have been able to find it!):
ReplyDeletehttp://blog.beliefnet.com/crunchycon/2009/05/culture-and-the-knowability-of.html
He writes that even what can be perceived with the physical senses seems to be a cultural variable. A quote:
"Last night I read a fascinating book, "Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes," an account of living in the Amazon jungle written by a linguist, Dan Everett...Everett begins his book with a startling anecdote. One morning, he and his family were awakened in their riverbank hut by the sound of the tribe rushing down to the river to see something amazing: a theophany. The excited Piraha were pointing to a beach on the opposite side of the river, where they saw "Xigagai, the spirit" appearing, and threatening the men with death if they went into the jungle. Everett writes:
Even I could tell that there was nothing on that white, sandy beach no more than one hundred yards away. And yet as certain as I was about this, the Pirahas were equally certain that there was something there. Maybe there had been something there that I missed seeing, but they insisted that what they were seeing, Xigagai, was still there.
His young daughter came out to have a look, and like her father, saw nothing. Everett continues:
What had I just witnessed? Over the more than two decades since that summer morning, I have tried to come to grips with the significance of how two cultures, my European-based culture and the Pirahas culture, could see reality so differently. I could never have proved to the Pirahas that the beach was empty. Nor could they have convinced me that there was anything, much less a spirit, on it.
As a scientist, objectivity is one of my most deeply held values. If we could just try harder, I once thought, surely we could each see the world as others see it and learn to respect one another's views more readily. But as I learned from the Pirahas, our expectations, our culture, and our experiences can render even perceptions of the environment nearly incommensurable cross-culturally."
So, were the Piraha having a universally shared vivid daydream? What would a psychologist make of this? How can we enlightened Westerners say that what they saw isn't real, and still claim to be culturally sensitive moderners?
My own view is that there was something there that the Western mind is literally incapable of seeing due to our rationalist/materialist indoctrination, but that's just me. Others?