Main description:

In The Mindbrain and Dreams: An Exploration of Dreaming, Thinking, and Artistic Creation, Mark J. Blechner argues that the mind and brain should be understood as a single unit - the "mindbrain" - which manipulates our raw perceptions of the world and reshapes that world through dreams, thoughts, and artistic creation.

This book explores how dreams are key to understanding mental processes, and how working with dreams clinically with individuals and groups provides an essential route towards achieving transformation within the psychoanalytic process. Covering such key topics as knowledge, emotion, metaphor, and memory, this book sets out a radical new agenda for understanding the importance of dreams in human thought and their clinical importance in psychoanalysis. Blechner builds on his previous work and takes it much further, drawing on the latest neuroscientific findings to set out a new way of how the mindbrain constructs reality, while providing guidance on how best to help people understand their dreams.

The Mindbrain and Dreams: An Exploration of Dreaming, Thinking, and Artistic Creation will appeal to psychologists, psychoanalysts, philosophers, and cognitive neuroscientists who want new ways to explore how people think and understand the world.

Contents:

INTRODUCTION
PART 1: HOW THE MINDBRAIN TRANSFORMS THE WORLD

THE MINDBRAIN CREATES ITS OWN VERSION OF THE WORLD

CONDENSATION, INTEROBJECTS, AND CATEGORIES

DISPLACEMENT

METAPHOR

PUNS - LINGUISTIC AND NONLINGUISTIC

HOMOFORMS AND HOMOMELODIES

METONYMY

SYMBOLS

DREAMS AND THE MINDBRAIN'S STRUCTURING OF EXPERIENCE

PSYCHOLOGICAL DEFENSES AND DREAMS
PART 2: WORKING WITH DREAMS CLINICALLY

NEW WAYS OF WORKING WITH DREAMS

THE DREAM GUIDES ITS OWN ANALYSIS: HOW TO WORK WITH DREAMS OVER TIME

GROUP DREAM INTERPRETATION
PART 3: DREAMS, KNOWLEDGE, MEMORY, EMOTION, AND THE MINDBRAIN

HOW NEUROPSYCHOANALYSIS AND CLINICAL PSYCHOANALYSIS CAN LEARN FROM EACH OTHER

ELUSIVE ILLUSIONS: REALITY JUDGMENT AND REALITY ASSIGNMENT IN DREAMS AND WAKING LIFE

WHEN YOUR MINDBRAIN KNOWS THINGS THAT YOU DON'T

MEMORY, KNOWLEDGE, AND DREAMS

LANGUAGE OF THOUGHT AND THE WAKINGWORK

LIST OF DREAMS