Freud and Lacan: A Psycho-Analytic Battle Royale

PART I

I think I’m up to the task of going Freud on Kasey’s “monster of a dream”. To start, I believe the whole setting in the beginning (the “massive yellow water slide stretching comically into a cel-shaded sky”) could be a representation of how he sees this world (the conscious world) as a very comical, almost cartoonish place where the most improbable things seems to happen and this dream world of his might be an over-extension of his views (that could also tie into the drying off immediately after getting out of the water). The instant transformation of scenery from a lake to a dirt road with a group of people could be seen as a manifestation of his life that could keep changing without him even realizing it.

When he and his group encounters the “mirror group” who battle his group and the leader has a red glowing crystal sword while he has only a plastic knife shows that Kasey might feel like he cannot face himself, but somehow manages to anyhow, as he defeats his enemy. When Kasey is in possession of the sword, it turns into a “fierce blue”, which feeds into the inability to face himself as he might be in a state of stability (which is supported by the cheers of his group) when he does not have some sort of internal conflict.

Upon the encounter of this Matt person, it seems to have some effect on him, as someone (or a composition of a group of people) who attempts to affect them negatively, but seems to be simply shrugged off, as shown through how easily he gets rid of that Matt person who can’t control his emotions (this could be a representation of someone or some people in Kasey’s life that can’t seem to get their lives in check and he clearly realizes that as he finally has his own troubles put to rest for the time being).

Overall, this dream could be seen as a view of Kasey’s daily life taken to an imaginative extreme, where things don’t always run so smoothly and people try to get the best of him and, because of their own issues, cannot do so as he is clearly aware of their issues though he might not be aware of his own issues or aware of a potential solution to these issues.

PART II

I will be honest here, this Lacan piece is a difficult one to read through for me, much less difficult to find a passage to pick and translate. However, I found one portion that I feel that I get the general gist of:

"It is this moment that decisively tips the whole of human knowledge into mediatization through the desire of the other, constitutes its objects in an abstract equivalence by the co-operation of others, and turns the I into that apparatus for which every instinctual thrust constitutes a danger, even through it should correspond to a natural maturation- the very normalization of this maturation being henceforth dependent, in man, on a cultural mediation as exemplified, in the case of the sexual object, by the Oedipus complex." -Pg 193

This, in layman's terms, is stating that the way we interact with one another, how we feel about one another has become a normal dependency that comes together as one societal unit. The way we interact with one another and perceive one another (the Oedipal complex, as Lacan states, is exemplary of this) ultimately helps create and mold who we are.