I had heard of Freud before but had never read his work so this weeks reading was quite interesting to me. Freud is definitely very knowledgeable (as Lacan admits) and is also quite clear about what he believes. Something that stayed with me was the meaning of uncanny (heimlich) which can be both familiar and something kept out of sight or concealed. His example of Hoffman’s story The Sand-Man brought back memories of the Sand-man when I was a little girl. But, I can honestly say that this version of the Sand-man was very different than what I experienced as a child. My Sand-man actually helped us go to sleep by sprinkling magic sand on us, he didn’t come by, throw sand in our eyes, and take them out. Even when thinking about the Sand-man the song Mister Sandman by The Chordettes comes into mind:

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcW0FNS1L8g)

In the song, Mr. Sand-man is asked to bring about a lovely dream about a boy. This “new” version is definitely uncanny to me and its interpretation by Freud is as well. I would hate to think what kind of eyes The Chordettes boy would bring….I suppose what struck me most about Freud is that he believes that most things refer back to a sexual nature which I am not so sure about. In the Sand-man, I understand but in the other examples sometimes I think he is stretching it a bit.

As I continued my readings, Deleuze and Guattari then led me to the wonderland (or maze…) of lines and plateaus. I understood where they were coming from in saying that a book was an assemblage but then as they went into lines, rhizomes, and plateaus, my mind went into Math mode where I was basically visualizing a plane with lines going everywhere and then this plateau. The lines are said to be concepts. Ok, I get that. But I feel like I need more examples to truly understand the whole thing because they believe that the rhizome has no beginning or end but something had to have started everything….so what about that? 

I had heard of Freud before but had never read his work so this weeks reading was quite interesting to me. Freud is definitely very knowledgeable (as Lacan admits) and is also quite clear about what he believes. Something that stayed with me was the meaning of uncanny (heimlich) which can be both familiar and something kept out of sight or concealed. His example of Hoffman’s story The Sand-Man brought back memories of the Sand-man when I was a little girl. But, I can honestly say that this version of the Sand-man was very different than what I experienced as a child. My Sand-man actually helped us go to sleep by sprinkling magic sand on us, he didn’t come by, throw sand in our eyes, and take them out. Even when thinking about the Sand-man the song Mister Sandman by The Chordettes comes into mind:

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcW0FNS1L8g)

In the song, Mr. Sand-man is asked to bring about a lovely dream about a boy. This “new” version is definitely uncanny to me and its interpretation by Freud is as well. I would hate to think what kind of eyes The Chordettes boy would bring….I suppose what struck me most about Freud is that he believes that most things refer back to a sexual nature which I am not so sure about. In the Sand-man, I understand but in the other examples sometimes I think he is stretching it a bit.

As I continued my readings, Deleuze and Guattari then led me to the wonderland (or maze…) of lines and plateaus. I understood where they were coming from in saying that a book was an assemblage but then as they went into lines, rhizomes, and plateaus, my mind went into Math mode where I was basically visualizing a plane with lines going everywhere and then this plateau. The lines are said to be concepts. Ok, I get that. But I feel like I need more examples to truly understand the whole thing because they believe that the rhizome has no beginning or end but something had to have started everything….so what about that?