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In his very introduction, the psychologist Mark Blechner sets forth his challenge to the traditional distinction between the class of “the brain” and the function of “the mind,” and of “linguistic” from “non-linguistic” thought. His task, pursued in some 19 chapters, is to apply his clinical experiences, as he has for some decades, to the enrichment of Freud’s conceptions of the dream through the application of his own concept of “the mindbrain” as a functional unity.
Early chapters are devoted to the elaboration of such theoretical concepts as condensation and transformation as they appear in dream imagery. Of particular note is the extensive Chapter 5, dedicated to the phenomenon of Metaphor, which he defines as “one way the mindbrain connects and transforms different ideas, casting one into the shape of the other” (p.
45). “Dreams,” he says “pictorialize metaphors” (p. 59). A section on “Nonlinguistic metaphor” covers “music, visual arts and advertising” (p. 67) and is enriched with illustrations (especially the work of Magritte). “In dreams,” he concludes, “we see the mindbrain representing its activities more in pictures and emotions than in words” (p. 92). Further, Blechner develops extensively the role of “Symbols” in Chapter 9 (pp. 120-133), elaborating at length Freud’s views on the subject.
In the second half of the text, the author devotes his attention to clinical practice, delineating “New ways of conceptualizing and working with dreams” (p. 185). Questioning Freud’s view that dreams are characteristically disguised and censored, he maintains that they are mental events that occur regularly throughout the night. “There may,” he contends, “be more than one process in the instigation and construction of dreams” (p. 185). He takes explicit contest with the view of the Kris Study Group in its conviction that “you cannot get anything from the dream that cannot be gotten from free association” (p. 193). He concludes with the suggestion that “the truth may