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Thinking and the thought process:

Our teacher gave us riddles to solve in class and the instructions were not to just figure out the answer, but to realize HOW we go about figuring out the answer. Or in other words: our mental process. We quickly learned that everyone attacks problems using different strategies and this can teach us a lot about ourselves as human beings. With out going into the riddle in great detail, we basically brainstormed the many ways of solving it. My class and I came up with many strategies that our teacher then put into philosophical wording. “Mine sweeping”, contextualizing, awareness of genre, and then simply enough, asking others for help. I happened to be frustrated that day and gave up rather quickly on a certain riddle. This may be because a certain member of the class made a rude comment about my way of going about solving the problem and I felt no obligation to work with this particular individual to solve the riddle. So I stormed out of the computer lab. Looking at this in a phenomenological way this says a lot about my thought process and personality; such as I require a supportive team to help me work through problems.
Another way of thinking I find myself using quite a bit with riddles is trying to find the most obvious answers, getting them out of the way, and then thinking of more abstract ideas which generally turn out to be the correct answer. This way of thinking is like “Mine sweeping” but I would just call it logic.

Dreaming and YOUR experience:

RD Lang thinks that we are alienated from our experience when we are awake as well as when we are asleep. Lang’s argument is that we are even more disconnected from our experience when sleeping than when we are awake. We decided to keep a dream journal next to our beds and as soon as we woke up in the morning, write anything down that we could remember about a dream we had that night. I have never had a very deep connection with my dreams and keeping a dream journal definitely helped me to realize that. Throughout the dream unit we discussed many ideas and theories about dreams to help us gain a better understanding. Even though I am not particularly in touch with dreams I think it is still my experience. A disconnect from your dreams as I have is probably not a good thing, a lack of connection to your dreams is a lack of connection to you unconscious mind or self.

An Archetype is a sort of "generic" model of a person or concept (Wikipedia). Archetypes are ideas that one has been conditioned to have as they grow up. These are subconscious thoughts and images that most people have no control over being that all humans (and maybe all living things with brains) use archetypes to identify and make sense of the other people and things around them, these are pure dream like thoughts that people use multiple times a day. This shows yet another example of how deeply connected dreams are with everyday life.

We also discussed the differences between imaginations and dreams. I said that you are generally in control over your imagination and you always know when you are imagining something, but dreams are tools of your subconscious and people normally don’t have much control over them. I also think you imagine things for the most part to amuse yourself and dreams are an effort by your subconscious to make sense of things while you sleep. I think the two are similar in the sense that they can both offer insight into your life, and anything can happen in both imaginations and in dreams.

We discussed lucid dreams, which we defined as being aware that you are dreaming. In reviewing my notes on dreams and experience I came to the conclusion that dreams are something that is happening to your unconscious mind. I attempted to have a Lucid dream by performing the Wave Induced Lucid Dreaming method or WILD. I set my alarm for 2:45am and kept an article about WILD induced lucid dreams next to my bed. The idea was to wake up in the middle of the night (or morning) and read about Lucid dreams with the hope of returning to sleep and having a Lucid dream. The first night I slept through the alarm and the second night I woke up, read the article, and went back to sleep, only to wake up at 7:00am with out having had a Lucid dream or any memory of even having a dream for that matter.

The dream unit of insight into daily life was enjoyable, and I am pretty sure if I continued with a dream journal and trying to become more in touch with my dreams I would be able to. As for Lucid dreams I think having one requires a great connection with your subconscious. Lucid dreams are probably a little above me at this point in my subconscious exploration.

Childhood:

"As an adult we have forgotten our childhood, the contents and the flavor" R.D. Lang
When reviewing old letters from summer camp, back when I was young and didn’t realize the magical place that it is, I began to feel embarrassed. I did not want to feel the flavor of my childhood because the things I wrote sparked my bad memories from that time. However I believe it is important to remember and analyze your childhood because that is the key to figuring out how to de-alienate our selves from people, our experience, etc.
In class we exchanged stories childhood and took the time to analyze how telling them made us feel. My childhood story was about my friend since elementary school: Dylan McDonald.
I am not sure how young I was exactly but I know that it was before we entered SOF (Dylan went here for middle school). He lived right across the street from me and whenever it would snow a lot we would meet in my backyard. I live right next to the Trump Palace and their backyard and a seven-foot wall separates mine. We would run "secret missions" into the Trump courtyard all day and it seems as though we never got cold. When it got dark are fun was magnified. Our missions consisted of jumping the once enormous wall into the other playground and sliding down their slide, or swinging on their swing before the Trump security came out to get us. Or so we thought.

Another story that will stick with me forever was when my Father and I spent the night in the central park zoo and got to walk around the rain forest at night with flashlights. We had to sleep on a carpeted floor, and I was fine with that being such a young child. My Dad however said it was the worst night sleep he had ever gotten. I can now understand why. I was very young and don’t really remember the flavor of the experience, but the event that I will remember forever is that while we were sleeping the famous blizzard of 1996 was in full affect around us. We awoke that morning inside the zoo with five-feet of unplowed snow layering the entire park. This beat seeing animals at night by a lot. My father and I went home to get my sled and proper clothing and spent the rest of the day having the time of our lives.
In giving this story some thought I realize that I can still feel all the emotions almost as clearly as I did that day six or seven years ago. This story also got me thinking about how I met most of my best friends before sixth grade and they are still my best friends. I have learned that I am more in touch with my childhood than I previously thought, I realize that I remember more flavor of my childhood than I previously gave my self credit for.
I do feel however that we have mostly forgotten the flavor content of our childhood because I can only remember it on specific memories that I bring up a lot in my head.
Remembering your childhood experience is important because we are a lot less alienated as children, if we can gain insight into how we used to be/feel it will make it easier to de-alienate ourselves from our experience.


Sensory Awareness:

I have gathered a lot of insight from the various sensory awareness exercises we have done in class. Some have meant more than others and some were more difficult than others. The first eye-opening experience was the "Roof" experiment, where we attempted to use all our senses at one time. This was one of the hardest to do because I think we are trained to use one or at the most two senses at one time. My favorite SAE was the "Blindfold" experiment where we blindfolded ourselves and walked up the stairs seven flights to class. It was the most fun but also one of the most insightful; for instance when I put the blindfold on I had an immediate sense of anxiety, this is what I expected, but when I just trusted my memory of where things were I found myself walking around rather comfortably and at my normal pace.
The most boring exercise but probably the most meaningful was "Standing". We were asked to stand for only six minutes, not to talk, close our eyes, and just 'notice'. This was nearly impossible for almost everyone in the room. It made us realize the extent of our inpatients, and that we need something to distract ourselves because we aren’t even comfortable enough in our own skin to stand still. I personally didn’t have to talk to anyone during those six minutes but did continuously shift my weight from side to side.

I think it is extremely true that people are not in touch with their senses. I know for me personally it is too strenuous to attempt to 'experience' with out using the basic 5 senses. You would think it would be very hard to learn this new way to experience but Lang says that it is unlearning that must be done because society has conditioned us to sense things in the most basic and primitive ways, not to be in depth with our senses. When I attempt to experience things on a deeper level I find my self at best thinking phenomenological about the senses I am familiar with; Sight, Taste, Touch, Smell, and Taste.
Trying to use other senses to experience is like attempting to use a higher percentage of brainpower, you know you have the capability to do so but don't even know where to begin.
The little fragments that I remember from when I was very young do seem extremely vivid. As a young child you have reactions to almost everything and everybody, this relates to what Lang said; people are supposed to have a very real affect on each other. When you are a young child you are not yet completely conditioned to thinking alienation is 'normal'. I must admit that sometimes it just seems boring to try to have a deep ‘sensual experience’ with things you do and see everyday, although this impatience most likely springs from being taught to experience the minimal and not pay attention to deeper feelings that may arise.
Lang's Article is about the lack of depth people have as far as understanding our experiences and sensations. People have been normalized by society to notice and experience the minimal as necessary for survival. Another important idea in this writing is that people by nature are 'interdependent' on each other, and that humans are supposed to have affects on one another, but now we are alienated from each other (as well as ourselves). Lang says that it is necessary to 'un-learn' the idea that alienation is normal "...before one can begin to experience the world afresh..."(1).
Lang mentions at the end of the piece that when a child is born they are a fresh start, free from the "...veils of mystification..."(2) that shroud our senses.

Dreaming and YOUR experience

RD Laing thinks that we are alienated from our experience when we are awake as well as when we are asleep. Lang’s argument is that we are even more disconnected from our experience when sleeping than when we are awake. We decided to keep a dream journal next to our beds and as soon as we woke up in the morning, write anything down that we could remember about a dream we had that night. I have never had a very deep connection with my dreams and keeping a dream journal definitely helped me to realize that. Throughout the dream unit we discussed many ideas and theories about dreams to help us gain a better understanding. Even though I am not particularly in touch with dreams I think it is still my experience. A disconnect from your dreams as I have is probably not a good thing, a lack of connection to your dreams is a lack of connection to you unconscious mind or self.

An Archetype is a sort of "generic" model of a person or concept (Wikipedia). Archetypes are ideas that one has been conditioned to have as they grow up. These are subconscious thoughts and images that most people have no control over being that all humans (and maybe all living things with brains) use archetypes to identify and make sense of the other people and things around them, these are pure dream like thoughts that people use multiple times a day. This shows yet another example of how deeply connected dreams are with everyday life.

We also discussed the differences between imaginations and dreams. I said that you are generally in control over your imagination and you always know when you are imagining something, but dreams are tools of your subconscious and people normally don’t have much control over them. I also think you imagine things for the most part to amuse yourself and dreams are an effort by your subconscious to make sense of things while you sleep. I think the two are similar in the sense that they can both offer insight into your life, and anything can happen in both imaginations and in dreams.

We discussed lucid dreams, which we defined as being aware that you are dreaming. In reviewing my notes on dreams and experience I came to the conclusion that dreams are something that is happening to your unconscious mind. I attempted to have a Lucid dream by performing the Wave Induced Lucid Dreaming method or WILD. I set my alarm for 2:45am and kept an article about WILD induced lucid dreams next to my bed. The idea was to wake up in the middle of the night (or morning) and read about Lucid dreams with the hope of returning to sleep and having a Lucid dream. The first night I slept through the alarm and the second night I woke up, read the article, and went back to sleep, only to wake up at 7:00am with out having had a Lucid dream or any memory of even having a dream for that matter.

The dream unit of insight into daily life was enjoyable, and I am pretty sure if I continued with a dream journal and trying to become more in touch with my dreams I would be able to. As for Lucid dreams I think having one requires a great connection with your subconscious. Lucid dreams are probably a little above me at this point in my subconscious exploration.