Abstract
Starting from the premise that dreaming is a perennial and widely distributed source of mystical experience, this chapter uses depth psychology to map out the future potentials of technological enhancements to mystical dreaming. Several new technological tools are expanding and deepening people’s engagement with their dreams, and as these tools grow in power and sophistication they are raising questions about the benefits and dangers of manipulating the dreaming process in such extraordinary ways. Can these tools make it easier for people to have mystical experiences in their dreams? Or do the tools alter and diminish the innate capacity for mystical dreaming? To shed light on where these future trends are leading us, this chapter draws upon Paul Ricoeur’s notion of psychoanalysis as a “mixed discourse,” which Freud developed to help us talk about mental phenomena with aspects of both force and desire, both bodily driven instinct and mentally conceived thought.
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Bulkeley, K. (2018). The Royal Road Meets the Data Highway. In: Cattoi, T., Odorisio, D. (eds) Depth Psychology and Mysticism. Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Study of Mysticism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-79096-1_4
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