Sexuality

As I read the Sexuality part of Freud's theory I found it really interesting. I do not agree when he says, "..the sex drive is the most powerful drive in humans." I do, however, agree when he says "people varied in sexual drives." In some people their sexual drives are the strongest and only thing keeping them going. Other people, may have other drives that push them harder than their sexual drive; some people have no drive at all. With sexuality, people need to learn how to control their urges. Freud says " For some, the drive is so strong that they cannot sublimate all of its impulses in socially useful action...some of there people...act out in unsocial behavior." I agree with this statement; there are those who cannot control the sexual urges they feel. These people never learned delayed gratification and they act out on the people around them. These people are rapists, nymphomaniacs, promiscuous people, etc.
Another thing I found interesting about this part of the chapter are the different stages he describes that children go through. I remember studying the different stages in psychology. Reading this I remember that the oral stage is a critical part of child development. It is during this stage that the baby does connect with its mother (both physically and emotionally). Weening a baby early does scar it and results in an unstable adult. So, maybe I was right in a previous post I made; nurture does play a bigger part than nature. If a child is in the oral stage and is weened too early and too late , that helps lay the foundation as to what type of person it is going to be. Another thing I found interesting is the reason he gives as to why women become gay. They try to surface their masculinity in another way since they aren't able to grow a penis. As girls, as does every girl according to Freud, suffers from penis envy, it just seems that these women don't get over the envy and never reach the third and final stage. Freud was a brilliant philosopher; he had many interesting points in his theories.

Sweet Dreams

I began reading chapter 11 and I found what was said about dreams to be really interesting..."he argued that dreams are a form of wish suitably interpreted, reveal deep desires and secrets locked in the unconscious." I believe that this statement is true, things we feel and want to do in real life are acted out in our dreams sometimes. I also believe that dreams are not to be taken literally. Sometimes, like stories, there is symbolism in dreams. With my Caribbean background when someone dreams a particular thing it symbolizes something that is going to happen in real life (not all the time.) For example, we say that if you see clear water or a funeral in your dream, it means that its good fortune that is coming. If we see a wedding or dirty water in our dreams bad fortune is ahead. If we see fishes in our dream that mean someone is pregnant, if we see someone eating fish in our dream the person eating it is pregnant. It is a weird interpretation of dreams, I know but I grew up on ideas like these.
Dreams have been around for as long as the first man walked the earth. Dreams are there for us to take a glimpse into our subconscious. Dreams are also fragments of our memory. Whenever I watch a scary movie I always dream about the killer and myself being hunted down. Dreams also remember days conversations, like if you were talking about water all day , it just may happen that you dream about water. It also goes on feelings, if you are mad at someone you may have a dream that you are arguing with that person or even fighting that person. Dreams are also really random and you may wake up the next morning, like " Why did I dream about the tooth fairy and Santa Clause wrestling?" Dreams are universal, everyone has them. Everyone dreams, even if you wake up the next morning thinking you didn't. What puzzles me though, is how is it possible that when dreaming we can feel things? Like if I had a dream I fell I would feel it in my dream and wake up to find that I feel pressure on that particular spot. I guess that's just getting into the scientific aspect of things.

The Role of the Parent

Today a brief statement about parents were made and how they relate to children. While on this topic for a brief second, I pondered many questions about parent/ child relationships. For one thing is it possible (in the nature of mothers ) for mothers to despise/ hate/ envy their children. When I was in high school my teacher explained to the class that the reason why our mothers yell at their daughters for wearing "revealing clothing," is because mothers envy their children for their youth. Is that why we have so many restrictions when we are teenagers (especially girls) or is it just parental nurturing? Is it possible that secretly our mothers and our fathers hate the fact that we are young, vibrant and free and they are getting on in age?
Another thing that came to my mind is how much percent does nurture really play in a person's life. Maybe, for the beginning of a child's life the parent is able to mold the child into a "perfect citizen" and it is only when they are released into the world when they start to see choices that their parents hid from them. They then abandon principals, morals, and ethics they were grown with and let nature takes its course. Is it possible for a kid to be fully nurture or would a parent have to shield the kid from the outside world?