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The Ventriloquist's Dummy & His Bottle Of Milk

Yup, the Freudian sexual imagery stuff is long discredited, along with the old fraud himself. ;)

I'm a little disconcerted by the idea that a bottle of cool fresh milk surrounded by stinking decay can bring to mind the act of luuurrrrve. Perhaps I've been doing it wrong. :lol:

If we're going to discuss dream theory, we'd probably be better off going for Jung, who at least didn't see sex in everything.

In some ways though his theories are even weirder than Freud's. For example, he claimed that dreams contained indications of forthcoming physical illness or 'prodromes' which a skilled interpreter could diagnose.

Sounds daft, but I've also read that children's drawings can do this. Who knows? :D
 
escargot said:
If we're going to discuss dream theory, we'd probably be better off going for Jung, who at least didn't see sex in everything.
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However, Jung actually slept with the majority of his patients, especially the mentally ill. Freud hated this. He thought it was improper and was quoted to have said " you aren;t even sleeping with the attractive ones" ha ha.

Anyway, I am glad at least not everyone thinks my dream means my Grandad touched me up. Quite a speculation over very little info. Especially as the only connection between my dream and my Granddad was the house, not the other way round.

I too, don't usually read too much into dreams, but I guess you gotta with this one.

I've had far weird and sexy dreams before, ones that are so terible and terrifying yet incredibly arousing. Such as my sex dream with Nostradamus. (terrifyingly brilliant). sshhhhhhh!!

The bottle of milk, the hard, decaying wood. Yup, that explains everything.
hmmm
 
As long as by 'everything' you mean a bit of a dirty mind. :lol:
 
Freud, Jung, you lot - nothing changes. There're some grubby little people about. :lol:
 
kateadamson86 said:
...I've had far weird and sexy dreams before, ones that are so terible and terrifying yet incredibly arousing. Such as my sex dream with Nostradamus. (terrifyingly brilliant). sshhhhhhh!!...
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Century X - Quatrain 69

And the Queen in scarlet and gold shall retire to her bedchamber, (trans: Get your coat darlin', you've scored.)

As the running knight is arrayed in armour of bronze and steel, (trans: Condoms? Where the f...Where are me condoms?)

And the Queen under silk turns the hourglass. (trans: Don't bother with that...I reckon about twenty seconds should do us.)

But the crossbow's bolt fired too soon shall strike the floor. (trans: Oh, BOLLOCKS...Not AGAIN!?)
 
This is one of the freakiest things I've ever read - it will be hard to shut my eyes and go to sleep tonight without worrying about what I'll dream.

And I've heard the rolling marble sound, too. I used to hear it all the time in my first apartment when I was lying in bed (I lived alone on the first floor). I also heard the same kind of noise in the next apartment I lived in - also when I was in bed (living alone there on the first floor, too). I could never figure out what it was. It didn't scare me, but I thought it was odd.
 
solsticebelle said:
This is one of the freakiest things I've ever read - it will be hard to shut my eyes and go to sleep tonight without worrying about what I'll dream.

And I've heard the rolling marble sound, too. I used to hear it all the time in my first apartment when I was lying in bed (I lived alone on the first floor). I also heard the same kind of noise in the next apartment I lived in - also when I was in bed (living alone there on the first floor, too). I could never figure out what it was. It didn't scare me, but I thought it was odd.
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I used to hear this noise regularly in the last house I owned. Annoyed the hell out of me.
I suspect it had a more natural cause in my case, because there were children living next door.
 
I have also heard the rolling marble sound. It used to come from the flat upstairs from me for years, even continuing after a change of tenant.
It used to happen several times a day but reduced in frequency until stopping altogether about 2 years ago.
Like solsticebelle it was usually when I was in bed.
I used to hear creaks and cracks from items of furniture at the same time every morning i.e. not always the same furniture, but always 5.15 a.m.

Last week I had a bathroom mirror stand break where it was stood with no sign of a cause. The base was about 5cm wide and 7-8mm thick and had broken along a straight crack exactly in the middle. The mirror itself was in the basin while half the stand was still on the shelf where the mirror stood.
I have run out of possible non-paranormal explanations for this.
 
kateadamson86 said:
When I did, there it was, the ventriloquist's dummy, decaying, surrounded by rotten food. I had to reach for the pure white ice bottle of milk without disturbing him. (sometimes it would be easy and sometimes he would wake)

When he woke, he would look very angry and snap at me, laughing..
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Ooh luggly! Nilky nilky!

Sorry.

I used to have a recurring dream about milk as well, but it was the smell of it, for some reason, I was quite young, so don't remember much more than that.
 
Re: People hearing marbles rolling on the ceiling above.

That is quite possibly the sound of running water through overflow pipes. A slowly collecting amount of water, dripping to a point where there is enough water to suddenly send the whole flow rolling down the pipe. I can sound like marbles or ball bearings rolling.

Doesn't explain Kate's seeing Marbles collecting and stacking though.
 
I wonder if the marble thing is similar to what we used to think of as pool balls clacking in the basement. That's something to ponder.

Also, ironically, I consider Freud a fraud; He had the penis fixation and through transference passed it onto his patients. Ironic since his concept of transference is what led to passing this fixation on.

Also, sometimes a giant, penis-shaped thing is merely a giant, penis-shaped thing; not necessarily a representation of a phallus; sometimes it actually IS a phallus.
 
How many Freudians does it take to change a lightbulb?

Two, one to hold the lightbulb and the other to hold the penis - er, ladder, I meant ladder.
 
GNC said:
How many Freudians does it take to change a lightbulb?
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Great one!

I'm skeptical about the whole "must have been child abuse" thing, having once been accused unjustly of this myself. I know it happens, and its bad, but why the impulse to JUMP to that conclusion so readily whenever anything unusual pops up?

And regardless, that would do nothing to explain the REALLY WEIRD aspect of this, which is the shared recurring dream. I tell you this one freaks me out! Great post.
 
I'd still be very interested to know more about the property's history, ow what the house itself might have been built on. For curiousity's sake, if nothing else...
 
Not necessarily the history of the house; I've heard cases of people sharing pointless, yet creepy dreams before. Where I to get all metaphysical about it, I'd say that a supernatural explanation (if one is needed) would be closer to a ghost idea. A concept, a meme that's somehow transferrable. Doesn't have to have any deep meaning or 'truth', just a house that's haunted by...well, a dream. Like a kind of psychic cold or computer virus.

Just my demented theory, you understand. There's no point in having theories if they aren't demented.
 
Just because Freud was a clitoridectomy-endorsing cocaine abusing nutter doesn't mean he couldn't (or didn't) have some amazing (and world changing) insights regarding the understanding (or attempting to describe in words) of the unconcsious. Saying that they have been discredited and have no value is like saying that all of Edison's failed experiments to make a lightbulb were worthless. Not a very Fortean approach to possibly one of the most Fortean subjects there is.

The OP's original post is fascinating to me. I had a very similar recurring dream as an infant. I would consider a Kleinian interpretation. I'm surprised that the wordplay on 'dummy' hasn't been picked up on, considering the location and nature of it (a second-rate pacifier, mould, cold (rather than warm) milk, the child separated from mother). The OP said that she hated the experience of staying over. It was possibly a manifestation of separation anxiety, and an example of an infant making sense of that.
 
A lot of pop-psychology going on here. While I don't entirely dismiss it, I do still find that the urge and need of some to pin down the human psyche to in all its forms within the boundaries of some kind of catch all psychological rule book to be just as ridiculous as those who adamantly need to believe in the paranormal at all costs, regardless of evidence...

To me the bottom line remains that everybody is different. Every person is unique. And therefore to try and generalise their lives and experiences by the opinion of one or more psychologist's pet theories isn't terribly helpful in my opinion. It's a desperate need to be able to explain the one thing in life which CAN'T be explained. And generally, I feel it only seems to help the kind of people who have sought explanation from therapy. And if you have reached the point where you feel you NEED that from a therapist you are most likely in a weakened enough state that will probably simply accept rather than question what is offered any way.

You can try to analyse a dream in terms of metaphor all you like. To me 99% of all dream are pure chaos. Reading too much into their contents is a little pointless.

What fascinates me here, with this example, is that we clearly have an example of shared experience. A dream which two people have had, seemingly without discussion or conference, but featuring exceptionally similar if not identical details.

Logically that is ridiculously unlikely. So if it's happened I would personally believe that analysing the common similarities, and circumstances of the dream occurring are far more valuable than trying to read into other meanings for the name of an object into being some kind of symbol of something totally different. That's just crazy vague.
 
I don't really have any input here. Just wanted to say thanks to the author for completely freaking me out. I do not want to go to bed now! :shock:
 
Why not have a nice drink of milk first? From the refrigerator?
 
escargot1 said:
Why not have a nice drink of milk first? From the refrigerator?
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But don't forget your flame retardant clothing... ;)
 
Nothing really to add here. Thought I'd drop in and read this thread again. It's still a really fascinating read. And the idea of two people sharing a nightmare, unknowingly, intrigues me.
 
On CuriousIdent's previous point about dreams -I've always wondered 'how' anyone can accurately describe a dream. I don't remember most of mine, and even of those I do remember, 90% of the detail seems to fade away within 30 minutes or so of waking. Plus a lot of what happens in my dreams is impossible to describe anyway because it only happens in dreams.

Probably there is a conversation somewhere else on this - beg pardon.
 
Cochise said:
On CuriousIdent's previous point about dreams -I've always wondered 'how' anyone can accurately describe a dream. I don't remember most of mine, and even of those I do remember, 90% of the detail seems to fade away within 30 minutes or so of waking. Plus a lot of what happens in my dreams is impossible to describe anyway because it only happens in dreams.
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A few years back I had quite a disturbing dream along the lines of the original Carnival of Souls film - I even posted it on an old dreams thread on here. As it had freaked me out so much, I documented the details as soon as I could to remind me, and I still remember most of it to this day.
 
PlagueRider said:
, I documented the details as soon as I could to remind me, and I still remember most of it to this day.
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That's the key I think, once the details have faded they aren't coming back, force them to the front of your mind and document and they don't fade. A lot of these foo foo dream interpretation books get you to keep a dream diary by your bed to record as soon as you wake.
 
Heckler20 said:
PlagueRider said:
, I documented the details as soon as I could to remind me, and I still remember most of it to this day.
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That's the key I think, once the details have faded they aren't coming back, force them to the front of your mind and document and they don't fade. A lot of these foo foo dream interpretation books get you to keep a dream diary by your bed to record as soon as you wake.
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I actually used to do that myself, during my teens.

A lot of banal stuff got documented, but a few very interesting dreams too. I was furious when I went off to uni and my parents cleared out large parts of my room. That notebook was lost in the clearout.
 
Remembering and describing dreams is a habit. When I was growing up, we'd have family breakfast and last night's dreams were a common topic of conversation, so I early got into the habit of, on waking, going over the most interesting dream imagery at once to fix it in my mind for recounting later. Because this was family conversation/entertainment, it was important to relate the dream straight, without any rationalization or apology when things didn't make sense, and recounting the funniest/weirdest/most memorable dream was the goal.

My mom wins the pot on that one, btw, since the dream in which she was shopping, got stuck in a snowdrift, and eventually took the car out of the trunk of her tricycle and went home has become a family classic.

Anyway, because of this early training I find remembering my dreams far easier than other people, though if I don't do the mental review on waking they fade as much for me as for anyone. And when I need a character to dream in a story, I can write ones that sound truly dreamlike, without the excess of narrative line that most fictional dreams end up with. The key is to embrace the non sequiter, the identity confusion, and the physical impossibility as nonchalantly as you did in the dream itself. Since I don't recount character dreams unless there's a plot or emotional point to make, I have a starting point from which I can free-associate content and the result holds together - and falls apart - just like a real dream.
 
CuriousIdent said:
Heckler20 said:
PlagueRider said:
, I documented the details as soon as I could to remind me, and I still remember most of it to this day.
Click to expand...

That's the key I think, once the details have faded they aren't coming back, force them to the front of your mind and document and they don't fade. A lot of these foo foo dream interpretation books get you to keep a dream diary by your bed to record as soon as you wake.
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I actually used to do that myself, during my teens.
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Me too - after a while I found it quite easy to remember them without having to write them down, and could (and occasionally still do) continue them on subsequent nights, resuming more or less where I left off. I've tried lots of times to actively lucid dream, which I semi-acheive, but I can't keep control of them as such, just be aware of their narrative and the fact that they are actually dreams. It's helped the effects of my insomnia a fair bit, for some reason (perhaps I just get more, and better quality REM sleep in the same, shortened sleep-time these days.)

Oddly, I also get fewer outright-weird dreams these days. They're usually pretty plausible, albeit in their own context.
 
Interesting. Strangely, I used to keep a notebook by my bed because occasionally the answer to a programming problem would come to me in the night - never occurred to me to use it to note down dreams before they faded. :doh:

But at least the fading aspect seems normal until you train yourself to overcome it.

My family was definitely _not_ the sort of family you discussed your dreams over breakfast.
 
Considering I'm a writer I've never felt it pertinent to keep a notepad at my bedside, when after all these years it probably would have helped to jot down some terrific dream/nightmares that I've had. I have now remedied that though, and was disappointed to wake up this morning without a story to tell!
 
I have sometimes had periods of intense dreaming, when I wrote down what were quite extended dream-sequences.

For a short while afterwards, reading these reminders might bring back something of the intense dream mood. With time, however, the feelings tend to fade so I am left with my struggles to explain the odd architecture of a place, the frightening colour, the menace of the open shed door . . .

Reading my own dreams then becomes much the same as reading those of others. It's as if the bizarre shapes and colours of an underwater life are brought to the surface as a grey sludge.

I have to read a lot of children's writing, where it is clear they have been excited by something which has not made it onto the page. In fact, dream landscapes are probably close to the child's experience of reality, where certain places and people will hold mysterious dread or promise. It's also common for dreams to make us small explorers in daunting and mysterious environments, the rules of which we hardly grasp.

Maybe it is only in dreams that we can later experience that unfallen, pre-analytic wholeness of early experience. This also seems to relate to the disappointment we feel when old books or films seem to have lost the potent reveries or nightmares which we once found in them. :yabba:


edit: That said, having re-read the thread from the start, after writing the above, it seems that the OP's dream does capture a strangely specific dream-logic, even before we learn of its shared nature. The sexual interpretation is automatic but obscures the more striking dichotomy between the youthful and fundamental thirst and the aged and neglected source. Add the oneiric realm occupied by dummies and we have a classic indeed.
 
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