There is this place at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia called El Jardín de Freud (Freud’s Garden).  It is close to Humanities and Sociology buildings, so the majority of students that spend their time there are from Human Sciences. It is a green and wide zone where there are some trees and a grey and rusty bust of Freud. When I was studying there, I always found a lot of students hanging out, reading books, chatting, having lunch, playing football, baseball, smoking cigarettes, or some weed, or getting drunk there.  Sometimes, there are some students that talk about Freud. Sometimes they speak well about him; sometimes not. Sometimes, after weed takes effect and some hallucinogenic mushrooms lead the train of thought, they defend him even more, and better.

While I was reading his Interpretation of dreams (1900) I can not deny that I felt a little like in Freud’s Garden at Universidad Nacional: some things sounds logical, some others very “high”; some sounds like drunk thoughts, others like poetry. Actually,  if  I think about the incredible and magic project or “interpretation of dreams” some things have to sound very wear, unusual, “mushrooming”, I suppose. Well, and if we think that maybe some cocaine should affect the precise method of analysis of Freud, we should probably thank to God (I am not sure if I can say something about God when I talk about Freud because I probably will be interpreted as a narcissist, egocentric, uncanny… student) that maybe this great man sniffed one line or two of cocaine only for “medical and research purposes”.

Beyond the drug experience, the idea of create the possibility of read what is in the mind of other people is very interesting, but reading what is hide behind the dreams is really amazing. I mean, if we read him closer, I think his idea is closer to fiction to psychology.  And if we read him very close we can see some characteristics on his style that reminds a lot of fiction. For instance, I like how he recompiles the train of thoughts that let him to question the botanical dream and the concept of “dream-thoughts” it is like a fiction piece. Actually, that reminds me Virginia’s Woolf beginning of Mrs. Dalloway (1925). Also, I can see a connection between his job and Luis Buñuel film Un chien andalou (1929) that Molly Lewis presented last Saturday on the frame of “Metamorphoses” Conference (thanks Gaby and Anne Claire!). However, I think Bruno explained better this idea in his post (check “Psychoanalysis and narrative” in this blog).

Just to add something to Mr. Bruno, I really think that Freud style shows the process of writing, re-writing, drafts, notes… he created a work and you can see how his thought was developed thanks to this writing process. In my profound ignorance I see a writer more than a psychoanalyst, actually. Even, we can read how literature is important in his job. A lot of his examples (Oedipus, Electra, The Sandman…) are linked with Literature because, perhaps, he found an echo in Literature that was impossible to find in other Humanities or sciences.

Ironically, from the diverse theorists that we have read for this Theory Class, this is one where you can actually see that Literature is an important presence of his work. I do not know how to express it, but I really think that maybe if you do not know Euripides or Shakespeare, maybe if you read Freud you can get interested on Literature. I do not if you felt the same with Bourdieu, Saussure, Fish. Or Derrida (ayayay, Derrida…). For me, as a reader, this is what I am looking for in Literature: a door to make connections with other Literatures, a possibility to discover characters, story, situations that make me think about how life is always elusive but we can never stop trying to catch her and interpret her (I say her because I relate the term “life” with word in Spanish vida that is a word that belongs to the feminine gender in Spanish, but maybe I am taking the risk of being interpreted as a chauvinist, “baguette-centric”, repressed… student (if you want to get in deep about the over interpretation on Freud and “baguette-centric culture” check in this blog “Is it sex…? Is it dream…? No, it’s Freud!” post by the mysterious trinity974)), even if we try, as the very Freud tried.  Actually, I am not quite sure if the purpose of sociological or philosophical or literary theories that we have read in this class are so close to Literature than Freud’s. Anyway, is really helpful to find that Freud as a reader found in Literature some devices that help him out to develop his ideas. Is not what are we looking for as students, readers, writers? Maybe I am wrong. Maybe this walk through Freud’s Garden is affecting me.

To finish this walk for Freud’s Garden, there is something that is bugging me. It is the power disguised of writing. Yes, Freud is amazing, creative and developed his theories based on his own method, but, what could ever happened if Freud would have not written these experiences? As human beings, would we be able to create a similar theory? And, what about all these indigenous, african, aboriginal, asian… cultures that developed their own interpretation of dreams but did not wrote it.  Is not valid their knowledge because it was not written on paper but transmitted orally? What made Freud so important during the last century? Is not related with the idea that he is an European and we, as a “westerners” are completely cloud for our narcissism, delusions of grander, paranoid androidism? Is not the idea that a society sold us the perfect delusion that a dream has to be interpreted for not criticizing the establishment but discovering that is you and your sexuality the problem, that you as an individual have to solve the problem of yourself, is not Governments fault, but yours and only yours? Wow… this Freud mushroom is getting better!