Uncanny reading
1) Freud begins discussing the uncanny as a feeling of dread, then as that same feeling
being stirred up as a result of an encounter with something unfamiliar. He finally shifts
this notion to his final conclusion that the uncanny proceeds from something familiar
which has been repressed (only literary depictions of uncaniness vary from this
conclusion). In the uncanny really does stem from the repression of the familiar than
what other instances that we tend to include in superstition might be a result of these
same repressions (ex. d?j? vu)?
2) Many fears that are linked to the uncanny have either to do with the unknown
(supernatural and death) or the castration-complex (such as the boy who was afraid of
losing his eyes). Many of these fears seem tied up in absence. For instance, the
supernatural where there is something where there should be an absence. Death where
there is an absence where we would expect life after death (for those who are religious),
and the castration-complex where an organ, such as the eye in the Sandman story, leaves
the person with an absent organ (thus the fear of absence). Do other examples have the
ability to be tied to absence, and if so what do you think this tells us about the uncanny
and its link to superstition?
3) Freud says that literary uncanniness is the only place where his theory that the
uncanny stems from the repression of the familiar. If this is the case, is that perhaps the
effect of the author trying to control these feelings of the uncanny. That is, in literature
one can change universal rules and bend them to their will. If the area of literature then
becomes a way of talking about the uncanny and still having control over it than what
does this say about our desire to control emotions tied to the psyche?
Fausse Reconnaissance reading
1)In the beginning of this short excerpt Freud talks about how a patient will think that
they have told him something before, but that in reality they really had only meant to
relate that experience, but never did (perhaps even touched on it) and that this is a form of
resistance. In Random Harvest Charles had a similar symptoms in that he almost
remembered things of his life as Smithy, but always ended up forgetting in the end. What
might be the cause of these resistances? Are they caused by associations w/ painful
memories, or are there other underlying causes?
2)Later on Freud introduces the idea of a screen memory, or a memory where the
memory that is actually meant to be told is alluded to in a different memory ex. the man
who had the castration complex where he thought his finger was cut off by a knife related
the memory of getting the knife as a gift, but only much later the memory of cutting is
finger, which showed his fear of castration). What are other forms of screening out
memories that we may wish to repress?
3) Freud seems pretty certain that all boys at some point have an moment where they fear
castration. Is this perhaps b/c as one man recollects that the female gentalia would be
what a castrated male would perhaps looks like and thus the child who doesn't understand
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bodies well would misinterpret the female for a castrated male, or are there other sources
of this fear? If there are other sources than where might this initial fear stemmed from?
Fausse Reconnaissance
My dislike for Freud only grew after reading this paper. I have no real discussion
questions for this piece, only very general questions such as, Why is Freud such a
pretentious and pompous haughty? Why don’t we “psycho-analyze” Freud and expose
him as a fraud?
The Uncanny
On page 383 and 384, Freud discusses in great detail the connection the fear of losing
one’s eye and castration anxiety, suggesting that one can experience such dread in
relation to the loss of vision since the eyes are often seen as a substitute for castration.
This argument seems to be suggesting that the anxiety of the loss of one’s eyes is
understood through a castration anxiety. Therefore do women not share the same
emotions as men in regard to their vision? Are women then entirely different from men,
who seem to have a greater appreciation for their visual organs? I feel as if I have read
that women too are said to experience castration anxiety. Thus if true, Freud has his
argument backwards. We might then suggest that castration anxiety stems from the
human anxiety of the loss of the eyes. However, I am a firm believer that all injuries are
detrimental, and if I had to choose one injury over the other, the decision would be
incredibly hard. I think the idea of the lose or injury of any part of the body, as phallic as
the injury site may seem, this has nothing to do with the fear of losing the penis.
Freud seems to gleefully make blanket statements without even the slightest attempt in
backing them up. My person favorite amongst many can be found on page 395 when
introducing the idea of “original emotion” in relation to human notions of sex. He states
that “Biology has not yet been able to decide whether death is the inevitable fate of every
living being or whether it only a regular but perhaps avoidable event in life.” I just loved
this since even in my very introductory studies of biology, a great stress has been placed
on death as being an incredibly central aspect of our lives. Death is coded in our DNA
and on the cellular level is important in the creation of the very organs and orifices
Freud loved to talk about. He continues to make blanket statements by suggesting that
what we find to be uncanny is actually from what our ancestors found to be
unexplainable. How is Freud allowed to make such a claim? He seems to suggest that
our very fears are innate and part of our DNA, almost as seemingly ridicules as
Christianity’s claim that all humans are born into sin, or that alien souls are trapped in our
bodes as written in the scriptures of Scientology. How does Freud suggest that such
thoughts could be passed down from our ancestry, through the “Biologically” unknown
barriers of death? How is this explained away?
NOAH MOSTKOFF
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1. In the examples provided by Freud about feelings of fingers being cut off, how does
this relate to the phenomenon of paramnesia? Both memories are from youth and are
associated with a ?naughty? action, and both memories account for a female in the
vicinity, either a nurse or the Mother. That Freud also associates this with fear of
castration links this and the idea of d?j? vu in what context? D?j? vu and the early stages
of sexual development are shown as causal connections but in terms of the ?egg versus
chicken? debate, can it be said that d?j? vu is a product of these early traumas of the
child, fearing that the pinky, a link to the penis, has been castrated, or instead could d?j?
vu act as a tool to uncover these embedded memories?
2.2. This article conjures a fabulous scene from Silence of the Lambs, where Buffalo Bill
reveals himself to a mirror and he has tucked his genitalia away to appear as a female. In
this capacity, he is not doing this to understand the discrepancy of his genitalia to that of
females, but is instead doing in to investigate the discrepancies within his own mind, or
as Freud put it in the article, an absence of simultaneity in the cerebral hemispheres. Is
the action of denying one?s genitalia to create one?s self as the other sex a natural part of
development, per Freud? If this is so, can d?j? vu be a natural following phenomenon,
then? How does the example in the article of the man?s repressed memory of pressing his
thighs together to appear female correspond to the subject of d?j? vu, and how does the
memory function within the article? Freud?s strong ties to d?j? vu and sexually repressed
memories makes what argument about the phenomenon of d?j? vu in general?
-Ashley Donnell
Fausse Reconnaissance
1. The subject of the past and the recognizance of this suppressed mental allusions sees to
be directly connected to the instances that Freud uses to exemplify the false recognition
of exploring a repressed state of the past. Many time I myself have found a moment to
collapse upon itself as if it had been just a moment ago I had been hearing and seeing that
same experience of time. The moments that Freud gives seem to be derived from long
term explorations of the past, but the short term existence still exist. Though he states that
this may be derived from deprivation of sleep and other forms of fatigue, how does this
interpretation limi and broaden its ground f understanding? The mind seems to always be
simplified and easily explained by Freud, but where does the dynamic of dream fall into
place as vivid dreams become reality of a moment of deja vu?
2. The tie for Freud falls back to the connection between childhood repression and a lapse
of recognition of the events and the time that they took place. The examples fall towards
the understanding of the male castration anxiety and the repression of these moments
through the break of reality and fall sense of reality that the patient created for
themselves. As these moments of exploration between patient and doctor have been
manifested by the patient why wouldn't these events as well be manifestations of the past
where a cycle starts of a pattern of false recognition? Could the memory of a memory of
a false memory of a time that may as well be a manifestation of the patient.
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The uncanny
1. As the essay explains, there are various experiences within the realm of uncanny, all of
which Freud finds a reasoning behind. The unknown, the repressed, the involuntary
chance that leads to superstitious. All these ideas are placed as the meaning behind the
means in which one finds them-self lost in a notion of uncanny. The tales of the uncanny
arise form the fantasy genre of literature as with Hoffman's tales. Though these can be
discerned as uncanny where then does uncanny lie. Is it only exist in the mind as a
manifestation of a fantasy? Does the subconscious exploration of the unknown create the
known in our own perspective, leading to this false sense of understanding? Or is Freud
failing to explore further the true nature of the uncanny by not giving closer real world
examples?
2. The idea of the doubling as the uncanny rises in the essay as an extension of the self in
the mind. Freud focalizes the notion of the doubling to hold a self critiquing position for
one that believes in et uncanniness of the double. As he writes it off as a self-preservation
fling that the ego as with itself to deny its own inevitable end, but he also believes it as
well to be sentiments of a past regression to a lower state where the denial of the self and
the outside existed. But is it worth striving to look deeper to understand the true effects of
the doubling? isn;t it more the uncanny cognation from the unknown then from a self
preservation regression?
-WATKINS,DYLAN V
The Uncanny
1.
The Uncanny, the fear of not knowing, or possibilities of the extraordinary or
uncertain are very much related to the telephone book and our discussions of the
telephone. How exactly are they related? In what ways do we let the uncanny effect our
decisions, or moods, etc? How Do we let the uncanny relate to the phone?
2. The passage dealt with some stories speaking of removing eyes. There are things we
cannot see, which we allow to gain possession over how we think and what we do. As a
sufferer of anxiety, I have had to work hard not to let the anxiety of the uncanny overrule
my actions and mindset with certain things in life. In what ways does the uncanny hinder
us from making good choices? Does it effect us often? In what ways then is the
uncanny good for our decisions?
Fausse Reconnassiance
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1. How do we connect the castration anxiety to deja vu? What correlation do anecdotes
of the missing fingers of children connect to deja vu?
2. Is Freud making the claim that deja vu is related to repression? By remembering :I
feel like this has happeend before" is this dealing with an unconscious desire or repressed
memories which ultimately make a 'deja vu'?
-ALBANO,AUDREY A
Fausse Reconnaissance
Freud describes deja vu as a recollection of a previous situation as a means to deal with a
present similar situation. Deja raconte seems to be defined as a false memory due to the
recollection of a really stressful memory, such as a memory or feeling of castration.
Freud's examples of the fear of castration, however, seems to be farfetched. How real
exactly are his stories of castration? Wouldn't someone be able to actually feel a finger
falling off? How can we know that his patient's memories are actually real and if they
actually describe their current 'fausse reconnaissance?
Uncanny
Freud states at one point that going blind is a fear of equal dread as castration. The self
induced blindness of Oedipus was a substitute for castration. In being blind we cannot see
anything including our own genitals, so in a sense everything is lost. Is blindness, then,
the ultimate form of castration?
the uncanny is 'something which ought to have been concealed but which has
nevertheless come to light.' Ghosts, for example would be classified as uncanny or
repressions of fear of death. How can the uncanny be interpreted through fausse
reconnaissance in the example of the boy believing his finger to have fallen off? Is this
example actually uncanny?
-GUTIERREZ,CHRISTIAN J
FAUSE RECONNAISSANCE
1. How is mistaking the fact that you've told someone something "completely analogous"
to "fause reconnaissance" or deja vu? Characteristic of Deja Vu is the uncanny feeling of
"being in this place before", or "feeling this way before". While understanding the logic
behind Freud's interactions with his mistaken clients, I do not see how these mistakes can
be linked to fause reconnaissance. Freud explains that his clients were mixed up and
remembered the intention to tell him such-and-such story, and mistook that memory for
actually revealing the story. I believe Freud bundles too many phenomena into this
category of fause reconnaissance.
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2. Freud tells how he noticed a young girl his own age when he was a boy that had male
genitalia. Was this a true account? We've previously established that Freud tends to
stretch the statistical truth of his diagnostic articles so as to observe the results in the
readers. Are we meant to take this anecdote as a literal account of Freud spotting a young
hermaphrodite? Or to assume that our minds are vulnerable to misinterpretations when
young, and those misinterp.s can cause us to believe untruths if never corrected?
THE UNCANNY
1. Freud opens with the statement that the uncanny "belongs to all that is terrible...
arouses dread and creeping horror." Why must the uncanny only be classified as
something terrible or frightening? Concepts that we do not understand are not necessarily
frightening. So why exclude the uncanny to a category so restrictive right off the bat of
the article?
2. Is the uncanny less understood by so-called educated people? With the example of
death, Freud contends that educated people, presumably void of religious beliefs, cannot
submit to the idea of spiritual presence of a human soul after death. Their positions on the
matter of death "toned down to a simple feeling of reverence." Does the religious man,
presumably believing in that post-mortal spirit, then have a better grasp of the uncanny?
Or is the uncanny, as Freud explains it, an elusive spot somewhere between the death and
the spirit, so that neither man can know it? Or do both men know it the same by means
of the "unfamiliar" feeling upon encountering death, or a dead body?
-HOHREITER,GABRIEL J
1. On page 13, Freud quotes Jentsch's explanation of the uncanny, which includes
"'doubts whether an apparently animate being is really alive; or, conversely, whether a
lifeless object might not be in fact animate." We see many such uses of objects as
"uncanny" in films like "House of Wax," "Child's Play," "Mannequin," "Bladerunner,"
etc. Freud later explains Jentsch's quote with the theory of repression. However, this
quote can also be explained by a person's adverse reactions to betrayed expectations. A
person expects an inanimate/animate object ot remain that way, and a breach of these
expectations throttles sensory perceptions. This also leads to the suggestion of
conformity of the object, that it should remain in its prescribed role. How do these
avenues of possibility on the subject of the "uncanny" relate to Freud's approach
involving repression?
2. In the article, the subject of epilepsy and insanity are viewed as examples of the
"uncanny" due to the fact that they unearth the mechanics of the human mind and body,
which are usually unnoticed and taken for granted. This relates to Schelling's quote about
what ought to be concealed coming to light, and to Freud's theory of repression.
According to Freud, the uncanny proceeds from something familiar that is repressed, and
therefore becomes unfamiliar. In many cases, people of such afflictions as listed above
are ostracized as "other" and hidden away from "normal" people. Is this in itself a
repression? Why do you think people fear the revelation of their own most basic physical
and mental natures? Are people afraid of acknowledging the threat of one's own mind
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and body turning against them? Why are mental disorders used so much as the
"uncanny" in horror films?
-MANGAN,LAUREN A
In Freud?s ?A Note Upon the Mystic Writing Pad,? we discussed how the writing pad
resembles the transfer of memory from the conscious to the unconscious. In this article,
Freud examines Grasset?s explanation of d?ja vu, which is that deja vu is the sensation of
experiencing something that occurred previously in a dream or another ?unconscious
perception,? and is then forgotten. Grasset essentially describes deja vu as the transfer of
memory from the unconscious to the conscious. Can this be related back to the mystic
writing pad?
Freud calls the phenomena that his patients experience deja vu, or fausse reconnaissance,
but it differs in the common use of deja vu which is centered more around the feeling of
experiencing an action for a second time. In Freud?s scenario, deja vu is brought on by a
conscious recount of a story or event. Why is it that the majority of memories his
patients claim to have previously described to him are all ?repressed? memories?
Freud initially describes the uncanny as a fear of the unfamiliar. He then investigates
other languages with words similar in meaning or connotation to uncanny, but claims that
they are not of much importance because they are in an unfamiliar language. Do
languages that are not our own elevate uncanny situations? Is an unknown language
itself uncanny?
Natalie Nix
The Uncanny
1) Freud talks about the "Sand Man" and tells a story about a young boy Nathaniel and
his memories of the Sand Man as a child. The story was told to inflict fear in children,
taunting if the child did not go to sleep immediately, the Sand Man would get them by
saying, "He is a wicked man who comes when children won't go to bed, and throws
handfuls of sand in their eyes so that they jump out of their heads all bleeding. Then he
puts the eyes in a sack and carries them off to the moon to feed his children." (p.279)
Growing up, I thought of the Sand Man as friendly and compassionate, sprinkling glittery
sand on my eyes when I couldn't fall asleep, spreading happy dreams and wishing away
my nightmares. Why do you think Hoffmann would create a the inverse of the happy
western forklore?
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2)On page 407 Freud writes, "Concerning the factors of silence, solitude, and darkness,
we can only say that they are actually elements in the production of that infantile morbid
anxiety from which the majority of human beings has never become quite free." What do
you think Freud means by this statement? Is he condoning or complimenting the human
race?
-SCHWARTZ,SAMANTHA L
1. This article focuses on confusing a recollection of intention with a recollection of
performance. This means that someone begins to tell a story but then they get a feeling
that they have already told the story but infact they are just confusing themselves because
they made a connection to this story in another story they have told once before. What is
the explanation if you were to flip this around? What if you are telling a story and then
the person hearing the story stops you saying that you have already told the story but you
don?t remember telling it?
2. In the story about the five-year-old boy with the pocketknife, he is telling the story
even though he feels he has already told the analyst the story. More importantly in the
story he mentions how he cut is finger but then he looks down and he is completely
uninjured. Is it important to look into the fact that the child was hallucinating about his
finger being cut? What is more important to be analyzing, telling the story even though
he thinks he has told it, or analyzing the fact the he was hallucinating as a child?
BRIAN LOVE
1. Freud discusses a doctor and a mental patient both experience deja vu in his article.
Often times we dismiss claims made by people who have mental disorders. The very fact
that they have a mental disorder automatically invalidates and makes us question
whatever they say. Yet, as soon as it is experience by someone else creedence is held in
those claims that were previously made by those with mental disabilities. Why is this?
Does the fact that a person with any kind of mental difficiency mean that they cannot
experince deja vu or any kind of normal experince?
2. Although deja vu is a validated trick of the mind some dismiss it as just a hoax.
However it is a phenomenom that is studied by many scientists, why are we so quick to
write it off? What if we are experiencing something that we have experienced before?
There is not evidence to contrary.
-GOLDEN,J. CASEY
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In the article the author wrote of how the patient really had the intention of giving up
information, was then prevented by resistance from carrying out his purpose. What is
this resistance that the author is speaking of? Is this resistance something that we are able
to recall in the future?
The author wrote of recalling memories. How memories that we might seem to believe
that we are recalling are nothing more then an illusory memory. Are we not able to trust
our memory simply because we are told that it?s false or is our memory not able to be
trusted because we alter the truth?
Which of the two popular theories of 'fausse reconnaissance' or 'deja vu' seems to be
more accurate? Do you feel as if the action or event of the subject has really happened or
is does it follow the theory of the illusory memory? What would be an example of each?
How does the example of the young man who thinks his little finger is cut off mirror the
fear of castration?
What is 'intellctual uncertainty' and how does it explain the case of Nathaniel, the young
boy afraid to lose his eyes to his fathers optician? How is the loss of the eye comparible
to the loss of the penis or castration? How does Freud use the loss of the eye to portray
castration coomplex? How is the story used to portray the several different types of
'uncanny' figures?
-RENE,WEETSEL
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