Recurring Nightmares

I feel like I've looked a lot into dreaming itself, but not as much into nightmares as I would've hoped. Like I reckon I've got a good understanding, but need a tiny bit more to get the ball rolling for more ideas for my experimental animation.

I like the idea of the tidal wave. This is due to the fact that I imagine my animation to be at sea with a lighthouse making loops. The tidal wave can end the animation by 'waking the user up'.


References:
http://sleep.lovetoknow.com/reccurring-nightmare-meanings#kYDliZZiMrOfhQYm.97

Transdisciplinary Framework

I'm trying to further attempt the brief this weekend.
I will be going through each part carefully so I don't repeat myself too much and hopefully make sense. I've made a rushed post of going through the brief, but in this post, I will think more along the lines of a near final version.

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This will be a 2D animated, experimental short film integrating psychological techniques of the functions of how the unconscious dreams or more specifically, has nightmares. 

A dream is a manifestation of images and sometimes sounds which show common and uncommon interrelations. Dreaming occurs when the unconscious mind is at work. When the user is sleeping, dreaming comes into place. These dreams can range from experience in reality, things that the user feel will happen in the near future and also what the user is afraid of or what they are afraid of that may happen in reality. These are just a few examples of what the unconscious mind dreams about. It is different for everybody as everyone is unique and has their own share of experiences and knowledge. 

Nightmares associate with anxiety, fears, what the user stresses about in reality and traumatic experiences. It will be important to know the elements of nightmares and how they work. 

E.g. Dreaming about a car crash would reflect that the user has once experienced a car crash, is worried it will happen, has had small scares while driving, thinks they are a bad driver etc. Nightmares can help the user open their eyes to what the user has been afraid to accept in reality and when the user needs healing. If the user opens up to their nightmares and accepts them, they will vanish. If the user doesn't listen to the dream/nightmare, it may repeat or at least an element of that said dream.

In Sigmund Freud's findings, he found that things we don't accept through out the day can result in 'above' unconscious dreaming where everything is let out within that dream (negative thoughts & worries). The unconscious dreams about these neglected thoughts by helping the user accept these thoughts and ideas, so that the user can move on with their life. 

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I'm not sure if I will need the example written in red. This is already over 300 words as well D:

Short Post

1000 Dreams - David Fontana Symbolism PG 82
"Dream symbols are visual metaphors representing objects, memories, emotions, ideas, anxieties, hopes, aspirations, frustrations - or even, sometimes, ourselves or other people. They can take almost any form that could be recognized by the senses: an inanimate object, a snatch of music, a landscape, an event. Symbols are the starting point of dream work.".

More Dream Research + Nightmares

(This was originally posted 2 weeks ago, but I needed to edit it slightly)
I still need to have a look at Carl Jung, Sir Sigmund Freud & Surrealism!
But first, a bit more research on dreams.

What happens when you fall asleep & dream?
'Your Dreams' - Ana Lora Garrard PG 12 &  13
When you 'fall asleep, 'fall' suggests that you release control & let go of limited of lingering thoughts during your waking hours.
"You stop believing that you are your body, which is perhaps one of the most limited thoughts of all. Tumbling freely through time & space, you open yourself to the truth of what is going on in your human/ spiritual existence".
Your soul speaks more clearly when sleeping → It talks to you about what you have been afraid to look at or have been unable to see while awake. Shows you how to solve problems by expanding your thoughts about who you are & what is possible.

Nightmares PG 36 & 37
Why do have nightmares?
Nightmares appear when we need healing,  when we resist change or stuck in a pattern ➡️ in a pattern of pretending that we are small, weak creatures. People who are confident in themselves & are powerful & strong are less likely to have nightmares & will have a better nights sleep. Nightmares are not exterior, but come from within - as out reflections and behaviors.
"scary dreams are a way that our souls use to grab our attention. They are high volume wake-up calls from our spirits that let us know it's time to listen". Nightmares contain empowering, life-affirming messages. If you open up to your nightmares &  accept them they will vanish. If you don't listen to your dream/nightmare, it may repeat or at least an element of said dream.

TV Fuzz Idea

When you forget parts of a dream, you can also see it as the 'TV fuzzing out' when the reception to the TV is temporarily lost, the screen goes into a gray fuzz. This could work well with the animation. By incorporating this idea into my animation, it can suggest when  a dream has ended or when it turns into a nightmare. With recurring nightmares, something about the nightmare changes which causes the dreamer to surprise or scare said dreamer. So even having a gray fuzz like a TV at random could work - at random to surprise the viewer - uncanny timing.

Ok, so of course I had to bring in my favourite game being Square Enix's Kingdom Hearts :D YAAAS!! So at the beginning of the KH2 (Kingdom Hearts 2) a character's memory is being restored bit by bit. Cut scenes from previous games are shown, but every now & then it fuzzes out like a TV losing reception. This process would be backwards for dreaming as you start of with the dream as a whole (so to speak) & parts of it slowly fade away.
Here's a compilation of the game's restoration clips. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOidccTB3W4

References:
http://kingdomhearts.wikia.com/wiki/Kingdom_Hearts_(game)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOidccTB3W4

More on Freud

Short Blog post
1000 Dreams - David Fontana. Freud on Dreams PG 32, 33
Freud drew distinctions between what he calls 'above' & 'below' dreams. Dreams from below come from the unconscious "may be regarded as inroads o the repressed into waking life", while dreams of above result from the day's events -repressed from the ego. Things we don't accept through out the day can result in 'above' unconscious dreaming where everything is let out within that dream (negative thoughts & worries).
The ego continually strives to placate the id (the primary part of the mind, primordial instincts), to persuade it that its drives are not going unheard by consciousness as a whole. If the go fails in this(...) the pent-up instincts & buried traumas of the unconscious can break through and even lead to a full-scale mental breakdown.

Brief Run Through 002

Objectives of the Project:How do you know if you’ve done a good job? How will you measure the quality of whatever the end result will be? 
I feel like even a rough stage of the animation would show it's completion as dreams/ nightmares are rarely vivid. Even when they are vivid, they soon enough become fuzzy & forgotten.

What do you hope to get out of it? Is it purely for enjoyment? Are you trying out new techniques? Is there a particular skill you’d like to improve on? 
I hope that..people will feel uncomfortable ? It's kind of a stink way to put it, but I know if I were to watch my own experimental animation of with aspects of nightmares, I wouldn't think of nightmares. Horror or psychological thriller would most likely come to mind. But that's just what a nightmare is, only on screen, move vivid & ..someone else's nightmare or weird idea to scare people.
I don't think I will be trying out new techniques. I did think of implementing a light of sort, like a light house loop to circle back to the 'camera' with each recurring dream. I think this will be achievable in after effects. But I'm pretty useless in after effects! A skill I'd like to improve on is animation itself as well as planning. I've been doing animation for a while now, but I've never been good at it. Planning would be great to get better - simply to get things done on time without too much stress.

Who are the target audience? As an experimental film, this could very well be highly personal. But it doesn’t matter how weird or esoteric your project might be, there will be an audience out there for it. Try to think of what that group of people might be.
Target Audience would be 18 and over. For children it may scare them, whereas adults have more experience, obviously with dreaming as well as watching horror movies. That could relate to the animation by triggering something that they saw in a horror movie or even in their own nightmares. Nightmares are very personal things, but all have similar traits. So I would try to convey this disciplinary for everyone to be able to relate to.

How can you utilise your existing knowledge of animation, design and narrative principles to enhance the appeal of the project? 
I can definitely play around with the animation principles as nightmares are out of the ordinary. So uncanniness can definitely come into play. This would work well with playing around with timing or trying straight ahead from time to time - to mix it up.

Brief Run Through 001

I've been slowly going through the brief to fill out parts that are required for our own write up. I just hope that I'm on the right track! I've done quite a bit of research (well I think) & I feel like I can incorporate my own thoughts & views on dreams / nightmares to complete this assignment.

Dreams

Your brief must include a short statement (approx. 100-200 words) summarizing the discipline you have chosen to integrate into animation. 

Dreaming occurs when the unconscious mind is at work. When the user is sleeping, dreaming comes into place. These dreams can range from experience in reality, things that the user feel will happen in the near future and also what the user is afraid of or what they are afraid of that may happen in reality. These are just a few examples of what the unconscious mind dreams about. It is different for everybody as everyone is unique and has their own share of experiences and knowledge. 

Creative Process:

What aspect of your chosen discipline are you going to integrate into animation? 

My second disciplinary comes under Psychology. I have chosen 'dreams' or more specifically 'nightmares'. 

How will it integrate into the animation process? 

I will take the elements of nightmares functions and apply them to the animation process. These elements include recurring nightmares, so loops in other words. Symbols or objects changing within each loop. The animation would start off quite vivid & will slowly go fuzzy & eventually will fade out with a few clear (ish) images. The reason for this is that we remember our dreams rather clearly when we wake up, but over time they become fuzzier. 

Nightmares are caused by anxiety & stress, so if I were to turn my experimental animation into a narrative based animation, I would better incorporate these traits. 

How will you generate ideas and content? 

I will thoroughly think of the cause of nightmares as well as the elements within nightmares to brain storm ideas. I say I have a good understanding of nightmares as well as dreams to pick out the main functions of dreaming. 

At what point will you know the project is “finished”? What will mark the end of your process? 

As dreaming is a never ending cycle for the unconscious mind, I feel that ending an animation would be best to simply fade out or stop after a few cycles/ loops. For a narrative based animation, would be when the character has accepted the recurring nightmare which would be when the nightmare fades away or becomes a 'positive dream'. 

Will you need to do anything extra to the animation to “package” it in an appealing way? 

At this stage....I am not sure yet. 

The next area to cover is the Scope of the Project which I haven't really thought about.

How long will the animation be?Right now, I'm looking at a minute? I want to keep it short & to the point. If I have narrative
 to it, perhaps 1 minute 30 seconds.

What software or other animation tools will you be using? 
I will be using flash & maybe photoshop & after effects.

What format will it be in? Will it just be a digital video, or will it need to be played in a specific environment (physical or digital)?
It will definitely be a digital video.

Will you need to source any extra equipment or resources to complete the project? If so, have you considered how you will source them?
Nope & nope :)

What other restrictions or parameters need to be considered? 
Uggh, good question..I'll come back to that.

Carl Jung & Sigmund Freud

1000 Dreams - David Fontana.  Jung on Dreams PG 20, 21 & 22.

-Worked closely to Freud from 1909 to 1913.
Jung departed from Freud in his realization that the common themes running through the delusions & hallucinations of his patients could not all emerge from their personal unconscious conflicts, but must stem from some common source. He found among various dreams of different patients that they echoed the themes of myths from all over the world.
"His extensive knowledge of comparative religion, mythology & symbol systems such as alchemy convinced him that similar common themes run across cultures & across the centuries, & thus was born his belief in the collective unconscious, a genetic myth-producing level of the mind common to all men & woman, & serving as the well-spring of psychological life". For Jung, he believed that 'grand/ great' dreams were gateways to a mythic world "the vast historical storehouse of the human race".

Jung criticized Freuds method as it allowed the mind to freewheel which leads away from the original image. Jungians concentrate on the dream & constantly return to the original image - preventing the mind from wandering. For Jung psychotherapy is a process of discovery & self-realization. "Jungians believe that by being in touch with the mythic themes of our collective unconsciousness, we gradually integrate the disparate & sometimes conflicting aspects of our selves, developing our full potential as we pass in turn through life's successive stages. 

1000 Dreams - David Fontana. Freud on Dreams PG 26, 27 & 28
Freud's famous technique is known as Free Association. You wake up & unpack the dream by writing down the meanings of the dream. You take each object, person & situation within that dream. The idea is to write down things about these objects & so on - With your mind running freely (What Jung was against). You write everything down, anything that comes to mind. You then chain it together to make better sense of the dream.
"The basic idea behind free association is to trick yourself into unconscious revelations. You have deliberately lowered your guard, & it is in these circumstances that you are most likely to hit upon unexpected truths".
Results of free association are associated with emotional damage caused in early childhood. He recognized that this revealed the crucial importance of the unconscious.
Freud described dreams as "the royal road to the unconscious". Freud believed that the primary process takes unconscious impulses, desires & fears, & turns them into symbols; these are linked by associations that have no regard for categories such as time & space, or right 7 wrong, as the unconscious is unaware of the logic, values & social adaptations of conscious life.



My Thoughts.
I can understand both Jung & Freuds methods for unraveling dreams. To stick with the original dream as much as possible to get a better understanding without warping the dream & turning it into something completely different. As well as brain storming & even going off on a slight tangent to understand a dream. I know that I unconsciously do both of these methods when I wake up. If it was a vivid dream, I try my hardest to replay it in my head, but by the end of the day it is completely different. The same goes for when people tell others about what they got up to last week or even what they dreamt about: They sugar coat it. They twist what happened to make it more interesting & sometimes the original content is lost. Over exaggerating, twisting, distorting, improvising. When humans tell stories, there is a beginning, middle & end. But not all dreams have this. So it is natural for us to want to find an ending to our dreams, to make sense of it, so we can't help but change the original content just a bit.
On another note, an artist would say that their work is finished, but others would say it looks incomplete or not final. Dreams can be the same, if they are not complete, it can reflect something that is happening in the users life that is incomplete. But as humans, we want a completed story, for some it is more difficult to comprehend.

Something unrelated to my findings on Jung & Freud.
I came across something very interesting which is that humans don't dream until they are around the age of 3. Before my sister turned 3 this year, she had a 'nightmare' about frogs. She is not afraid of frogs, in fact she loves them. It's the fact that she had seen images in her unconscious sleeping state for the first time that frightened her. With his, I understand why children are more affected by 'nightmares'.
One, they are still new to many things & don't experience stress the way adults do (as stress is what can trigger nightmares). Saying this, I feel like adults turn a blind eye to nightmares as they don't see them as nightmares. They accept them & simply see them as signs of stress.
My theory is that when children have nightmares, they unrealistic. e.g. the classic monster hiding under the bed or in the closet. If an adult had this same dream, they would wake up and brush it off, seeing the logic in it - like their dog being under the bed. Adults nightmares probably include things like not paying the bills on time, getting fired or being unsuccessful. I can't fully say for adults as I am just entering adulthood now. For teenagers, nightmares can be things such as not knowing what to do when they leave school, failing exams, missing the bus, messing things up etc. These are things that can trigger nightmares, or at least unpleasant dreams. I can definitely relate to the stresses of a teenager, as I am closer to that age range.

In other words, everyone has nightmares, but interpret them & accept them differently.

Whoa, my brain was on a roll.  

Origins of Dreams and breaking them down.

I need to understand more about dreams before I dive into more ideas. This blog post contains research and text from Strephon Kaplan William's 'The DreamWork Manual' A step by step introduction to working with dreams.
So I now know a few things about nightmares, but I've missed the obvious questions.
What is a dream? Where do they originate? How do we understand them?

What is a dream?
-A dream is a manifestation of images & sometimes sounds which show common & uncommon interrelations.
-A dream is a mirror reflecting some aspect of life or the unconscious.
-A dream is a call to living more fully than can be lived just at the conscious level.
-A dream is the creation of night.
To start of with a dream, we have the remembered dream which is filtered by some ego process- 'Remembering Ego' which brings the dream into the waking state, but already begins to change → As dreams are unclear - the consciousness tries to piece it together to make sense of it, even in a way that wasn't dreamt. →→→→→Distorting the dream to the conscious ego's will. Partially when a dream is worked with, it will reveal things the ego does not particularly want to face.

"The outer world is no less perceived through assumptions than the inner world is perceived through assumptions". Objectifying unconscious assumptions through the process of consciousness.
It can be important to know what stimulates dreams. Whether it's through past experiences or what the dreamer hopes for the future.

For objectifying a dream (Breaking the dream down in it's concrete form).
-What are the major symbols & what are the relations between symbols?
-What issues, conflicts & unresolved situations are in the dream?
-What are the positive symbols etc in the dream?
-Does it relate to other dreams?
→ Objectifying a dream would also benefit to breaking down a nightmare.


Types of Dreams
-Nightmares/ Anxiety Dreams
-Great Dreams →Reflect on major experiences
-Ordinary Dreams →The every day kind of dream loaded with inner & outer life issues
-Skunk Dreams → Dream in which we do something bizarre that we do not do in public outer life.
-Confirming Dreams → Mirrors something significantly, a new step we have taken in our lives
-Predictive Dreams → Either future events or help cause them to happen
-Psychic Dreams → Involve spontaneous perceptions across time & space which could not be based on outer knowledge.
-Lucid Dreams → Describe the dream state in which the dream ego experiences itself as exerting will power & free choice
-Waking Dreams → Are outer life experiences which are viewed & worked with also as symbolic, or non-literal, experiences.