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David Clark -> RE: (M)WiF Dream - Calling Freud (3/8/2015 1:14:57 AM)
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Freud suggested that we all have extremely powerful, built-in desires. These desires might have been ok before we formed into mass societies, but in modern cities they would lead to anarchy and disaster - our deepest needs are incompatible with civilized life. Supposedly, we have all domesticated ourselves the same way we domesticated animals - we've learned to repress these desires, as the price we've paid to live so closely with others. In fact, we've suppressed these needs so powerfully that we've even hidden them from ourselves - after all, the most convincing lie is the one you yourself believe.
Freud suggested that these desires were so powerful, unfortunately, that our process of self-domestication could never succeed completely. Our unconscious needs would re-emerge, often coded into the symbolic content of our dreams. Freud claimed that by conducting symbolic analysis of dream content, the underlying repressed desires could be identified, and new, less damaging ways to repress them could be formed.
Anyway, if I wanted to psychoanalyze your dream Freud-style, I'd say that the game you were playing represents the desire to return to or preserve the joy in pure play you enjoyed as a child. No-one looks down on a child who plays, but as we grow older, society pressures us to stop playing and get to work - fun is discouraged, except when it appears in carefully constructed, socially acceptable forms. You feel that wargames aren't acceptable to the society you inhabit - in your dream, you are able to pursue your hobby outdoors, in public, when you can't in real life. Nonetheless, even in your dream, your play is threatened by the expectations of others, who prevent you from playing there too. The play is with miniatures, which are solid and durable in a way that paper and cardboard aren't; you feel that your enjoyment of the games you play is under threat not just from others but from time and random chance. You communicate with your opponent over a radio, not face-to-face - even your ability to speak while playing is furtive and perilous.
Gaming makes you feel threatened and ashamed, since it is held in such contempt by society, who want you to work harder, make more money, and pursue your 'fun' in more socially-acceptable, popular ways.
(I don't believe any of this, btw - Freud's account of human psychology in the face of modern society is very compelling, but his dream analysis stuff strikes me as very weak, and was supported by deeply flawed and often fraudulent data.)
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