I found this article by Ryan Hurd both interesting and
surprising. Surprising for the lucid demonstration of logic this young man
displays in it regarding a subject that is still pretty taboo in our society—mental
illness.
In an attempt to dispense with the idea of lucid dreaming being
related to schizophrenia, simply because the media might play it up that way
due to Ryan’s getting an email many months ago from Jared Loughner asking about lucid dreaming, Ryan conveys
what takes both a demonstration in logic and courage. He understands that we as
a society can create what the psychologists call a milieu by stigmatizing a
person and ostracizing them. This can have the effect of not only making it
difficult for them to become more “normal” but help create a person we may initially
falsely perceive them as. This is an oversimplification in regard to most
violent offenders I would say, but you understand you don’t heal someone,
whether it be a prison, a mental health institute, or a society, if you address
or regard them as though they can’t be treated or induce a sense of false reputation by innuendo.
An example of how people are treated based on how they are viewed was when Frank Abignale, author of Catch Me if You Can, who I don’t
consider to be mentally aberrant, was kept initially in a French prison in which he
stayed in an non-airconditioned cubicle in which he had no lighting, no ability
to stand up straight, and no bedding most of the time. In addition, he was
given a bare means of sustenance and by his account, many at the prison died
under sentence. He came out of this prison (with double pneumonia) and went straight
to a Swedish prison in which he was treated with respect, allowed to shower,
live in a regular room, and attend school, as well as work at the prison.
Abignale’s take on this was that he still has nightmares of the French prison
but regarded the lower recidivism rate of France with respect. However, he
survived through the use of his imagination. It was all he had. Time had flown
out the window, since he thought he’d been in there for a year, and it had only
been 6 months. The time in the Swedish prison--another 6 months--went by very quickly.
In regards to people not in prison or mental wards, we still often see people who are regarded as different and don’t quite fit into certain
cliques and out of this we see a divided society--a society that seeks a sense
of belonging but on limited terms—often superficially limited.
This fallacy does not stop with the laymen population.
Indeed, I have counterpointed at least one American Psychological Association
paper regarding a celebrated author, who was both wrongfully billed as being mentally ill and given the wrong diagnosis (based on one of his papers) altogether. I received a high commendation for
this paper from the instructor who taught honors classes in English.
The subject of differences among us is interesting from the
perspective of how it fosters a sense of separation among us and how it divides
us as a society. This is not to say that there are not differences among people
regarded as normal and those regarded as ill. It is an issue of rhetoric and
attitude that I’m getting at, as attitudes often get fostered by beliefs and
beliefs often come from hearsay. Out of this, come the accepted practices of
how we address these situations. When these practices get bricked and carved in
stone in a society, they become accepted whether they work or not. From this,
unfortunately, whole institutions get founded—prisons to handle law offenders,
mental hospitals to handle aberrant personalities, financial institutions to
handle our money, educational ones which to some extent keep this cycle going,
and military ones that do that as well. On the subject of education, we don't even have schools teaching us about dreaming--lucid or otherwise--and we
perpetuate the separation of our society by raising generations to not question nor
demonstrate critical thinking and to accept practices that have long
demonstrated their lack of efficacy in a society long in need of rebuilding.
To question, does not take a rocket scientist. It takes a
society willing to enable its own sense of individuation for the benefit of the
whole. The Greeks understood this I think.
When one looks at how some look at others and refer to them
as mentally deranged, we seem also to forget that we live in a social,
political, and economic climate that fosters that route as well. I wrote more
on this under the post entitled Intentional Insanity.
When will we define something else? When the environment has
forced the issue and enough of us can no longer turn away from our true selves.
At that point, (assuming a lack of psychic intrusion) we will be closer to realizing that neither lucid dreaming nor
any other form is what induces mental illness, but more likely, that dreaming
and remembering our dreams is likely to induce the opposite. I give thanks to the dream teachers that help herald this society.
