Halloween, Giallo, Horror, Sogno Angoscioso:
all confirmations of my psychological theories
As reported in recent days, the Halloween Party (which has its roots in Europe and in Italy, pace of the usual "yankofobi" local controversy and their staid anti-American), I seems an obvious attempt to exorcise the anguish of death and, therefore, an obvious confirmation of my psychological theories, which see note in anguish, in contrast to the dominant theories in psychology and psychotherapy, not the primary source only the individual and social psychopathology but also many traditional events.
In short, the emergence of consciousness and with it, of death anxiety in the human psyche was not only the matrix of the follies of fanaticism and stragista reported in my books: Revolutionary or holy wars, terrorism, population explosion. It has also been a source of emotional and intellectual development that has produced the highest creations of the human spirit (the art itself can be seen as an expression of our yearning for immortality), so that the man, but troubled prodigious creature of the cosmic laboratory, while often crazy for the terrible tensions of his existential condition, he also managed to come up with dreams of Love, Harmony, Beauty, Compassion, Justice, di Libertà, di Felicità sconfinata da contrapporre alla giungla spietata e ripetitiva della Natura.
E persino la festa di Halloween, con i suoi precedenti europei e italiani, si può inquadrare nell’ampia gamma di espressioni reattivo-difensive all’angoscia di morte che hanno caratterizzato le culture umane. Come si diceva, si è trattato spesso di espressioni che, senza dubbio, hanno prodotto le forme più atroci di distruttività tra gli umani. Ma, per fortuna, le difese erette contro l’angoscia primaria dell’uomo non sono state sempre e soltanto sanguinose. A volte, come nel caso di Halloween, le culture umane hanno saputo esorcizzare l’angoscia della morte con la risata: una risata affidata Halloween in children, symbols of rebirth and life triumphing over death. Not surprisingly, a great Italian writer who has honored me with his friendship, Giuseppe Berto, once wrote: "Humor is the ultimate escape from human tragedy."
My theory of neurosis and culture, however, can explain not only Halloween but also other cultural phenomena apparently conflicting with the theory: I think books and thrillers and genre "horror". Both the yellow that the horror genre in fact seem to demonstrate a large and popular attraction and passion for history and steeped in situations of death and fear of death.
But if we examine this phenomenon paradoxical in the light of my psychological theories, were not slow to realize that the stories and situations are all means by which we try to "export" to others (people or characters) our risks and our fears of death and, not infrequently, even to ensure those risks and those anxieties some form of "happy ending". Since the days of Edgar Allan Poe stories, the protagonists of the most terrifying stories manages to escape death cavandosela, as they say, "for the skin of our teeth."
Just this frequent "happy ending" of many stories and horror movies forced me to remember my painful dream analysis, which hanno radicalmente confutato la teoria freudiana del sogno. Com’è noto Freud, letteralmente ossessionato dal suo pansessualismo, volle vedere nel sogno sempre e solo la “realizzazione allucinatoria di un desiderio (sessuale)”: e per confermare questa sua ostinata interpretazione, egli fu costretto a vedere in ogni oggetto allungato o concavo (albero o stuzzicadenti, crepaccio o tazzina che fosse) altrettanti simboli fallici o vaginali.
E poiché la maggior parte dei nostri sogni non raccontano affatto situazioni eccitanti ed erotiche ma, al contrario, angoscianti e minacciose, egli dovette sostenere che quell’aspetto angosciante e minaccioso era solo il “travestimento” della pulsione o situazione erotica imposto dalla “censura” inconscia del sognatore o della sognatrice.
Nelle mia ottica psico-esistenziale, viceversa, tutte queste contorsioni logiche appaiono semplicemente insensate o, semmai, “travestimenti” con cui Freud stesso ed i suoi epigoni hanno tentato di mascherare il significato profondo del sogno angoscioso e il terrore della morte che li assediava. Se, infatti, accettiamo l’assunto (ampiamente dimostrato nelle mie opere) che l’angoscia della morte sia l’angoscia primaria della psiche umana, apparirà non solo comprensibile ma inevitabile che essa governi anche la nostra attività onirica, producendo i molti sogni angosciosi che tormentano il nostro sonno. Questi sogni non si limitano But to express our anguish. Often they also attempt to remedy this. It 's very rare indeed distressing that the dream ends with the death of the dreaming: just like the protagonist of horror movies, the dreamy he gets to the skin of our teeth by enabling them to see the anguish in his dream first and oldest planned attempt by the human psyche anguish to exorcise.
It is now clear that my theory of existential primary allows us to give a unitary interpretation of the dream and convincing not only painful but also phenomena seemingly remote from the anxiety of death or the dynamics of dreams, such as yellow, the 'horror' and Halloween.
