Dreams
and reality featured as complex numbers
by Massimo Schinco
Psychotherapist – Cervasca, Italy
In
mathematics exist numbers called complex numbers.
The form of a complex number is
where a
and b are real numbers, and i is the
imaginary unit. This imaginary unit has the property i
2 = −1. The real number a is
called the real part
of the complex number, and the real number b is the imaginary part.
Let's pay
attention to the following implication: real numbers may be considered
to be complex numbers with an imaginary part of zero (i.e. the real number a is equivalent to the complex number
a+0i).
Why, in order
to discuss about dreams, do we start with this inroad in the realm of
mathematics?
Just a minute
more to remember that complex numbers are absolutely relevants
in mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics.
If we assume,
like Eccles did, that the order of magnitude of mental phenomena is very
little, quantum's metaphors result convenient to describe them.
So we can put on
a series of analogies.
1. Our experience of reality may
always be described as a complex number. There's a part coming from objective
reality "out there" and a part coming from realm of fantasy,
individual and collective. Or, more precisely, this last is composed by fantasy
and memory, which are always together.
2. Only
with a formalism, but never in practice, we may separate these two
parts. We always, even in deep states of regression, experience a continuum.
3. While we are dreaming, the real
part, represented mostly by memory, is reduced to the least. Fantasy prevails
and the motory output is almost completely
disconnected. While we are awake, through sensory input, the real part is
overcoming and a surplus of organization is necessary in order to steer our
behavior. This is provided by the most evolved structures of the brain. We
elaborate a logical and rational view of ourselves and of the world, based upon
the separation subject-object. Since we developed logical thinking, we expanded
ourselves in the environment, in time and space. Our ability of manipulate what
we perceive as external world has incredibily
increased.
4. This passage requires a leap of
order of magnitude, like the one from quantum's physics to classical physics.
In quantum's physics reality may be virtual and undetermined. In classical
physics objects are locally definite, and quantities are completely determined.
Many scientist invoke, to justify this leap, the principle of decoherence. Decoherence is due
to a massive interaction with environment.
5. It does not means that quantum
phenomena desappear or are less important... they are
simply hidden. In a similar way, people entangled into practical problems of
everyday life, or difficult relationships, or emotional problems, try to find a
way of solution in the macroscopic realm of what is perceived as real. Trying
again and again very often they experience disappointment and despair, because
it looks like that reality is hostile or they are inexorably unfit.
6. As pychotherapists
we claim that solution is always "in the other part of the number"
or, better, in the relationship between the real part and the imaginary
part of the number
Plato affirmed
that we are like God's toys and we are committed to play the most beatiful games. Since I consider reality as a sacred thing,
I think I'm not disrepectful if I say that reality is
our toy. The problem is never in the toy, rather in the way we play and we
handle the toy.
As mankind has
always known, and Freud reproposed in positivist
words, dream is the "royal road" to discover how we are playing the
game, and also to invent new metaphors and new ways to play it better.
Following the
different schools of interpretation dreams reveal the imaginary part of the
number. When we work with dreams we put up a virtual set. Virtual does
not mean unreal at all. It means real but not yet determined. In this state we
feel a temporary bewilderment, which is the experience of the many,
perhaps infinite possibilities we have to make a connection between
· objective reality
· hereditary parts of our
fantasy (fixed and unvariable)
· creative parts of our
fantasy
But the work
goes on beyond this virtual set.
In a former
writing (O divina bellezza,
o meraviglia – 2002) I've already used metaphors from
quantum physics. I featured the non local phenomena that occur in psychoterapy as similar to entanglement of particles (which
does not interest here), and the passage from undetermination
of a subject to a determinate way of existence, due to relationship with
others, as similar to "the collapse of wave
function". The wave function describes the virtual reality of a particle
as a "wave of probability". When you realize the measurement, the virtual
particle becomes actualized in a well determined way.
Following
metaphors of quantum theory, we can say that by the actions we
accomplish in our relational world, and by exposing ourselves to other
people's looks, our "wave function" collapses and we are subject to decoherence... in other words, we change.
This is one of
the reasons why relational therapies are often very powerful. In some way,
"the imaginary part of the number" is revealed and, in the same
context, actions and looks occur giving room to
massive phenomena of "wave function collapse" and decoherence.
I think that
quantum mechanics offers suitable theorical metaphors
to psychotherapy. Now we are challenged to match richness of dreams and power
of relationship in simple and efficacious form of intervention.
This is
consistent with the unforgettable statement of
"It is
specific of the man being a poetic animal more than a rational animal"
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to my colleague Massimo Giuliani (Manerbio,
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Eccles, J.C.: Evolution of the
Brain: Creation of the Self. Routledge –
Giuliani, M.: Terapia ipertestuale: nuove metafore postmoderne per la psicoterapia (2006). Terapia Familiare, n. 82.
Mina, F.: La madre nei sogni del bambino. Editor: Massimo
Schinco. Published posthumous and unfinished in 2007 by
Schinco, M.: O divina bellezza, o meraviglia – uno psicoterapeuta ascolta Turandot. Carabà, Milano, 2002
Schinco M.: a short presentation to F. Mina's "La madre nei sogni del bambino" http://home.tele2.it/massimoschinco/index_file/the%20mother.htm
© Massimo Schinco, 12010 Cervasca, Italy