Summer Lacan Salon: Decoding Freud’s Theory of Dreams During the FIFA World Cup

When: Every Tuesday in July from 7PM – 9PM PST

Where: SFU Woodwards/Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, Room 2205 (Hybrid event, also on Zoom with registration details below)

We all dream. Even if you don’t remember them, dreams are there to preserve your sleep, to protect your needed rest. This evanescent and intimate factory of the fantastic, the sublime, the comical or the horrific constitutes a human fascination from time immemorial. Dreams are the most enigmatic and magical part of ourselves. As Freud said of dreams, they are “a third of our life not yet born,” and the very life of our soul in full display for the interrogation of our own inner experience. But how do we decode their message? How can we understand the way a dream speaks of our desire, our possibilities, even of our future?

Corpo Freudiano Vancouver, Lacanian School of Psychoanalysis has the pleasure of inviting you to the Summer Lacan Salon featuring selected texts on Freud’s dream theory, hosted by Dr. Hilda Fernandez-Alvarez, a Lacanian psychoanalyst, current president of the School, who is working on a book manuscript on dreams and trauma.

It is the summer, and we will be surrounded by the World Cup frenzy, so we want to have close readings and relaxing conversations. That’s why we will be reading all the Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (Lectures V to XV of 1916-17) where Freud summarizes his masterpiece The Interpretation of Dreams (1900). These conferences were delivered by Freud in the winter semester at the University of Vienna during the First World War in an oral rather than a textual form of transmission. It is said that Freud would not read the Conferences but instead delivered them from memory in a rhetorical style, preserving the core of his theory in a more dialogical, relatable and even aesthetic way. Corpo Freudiano Vancouver (CFV) wants to preserve the legacy of the Lacan Salon and this study group is open to everyone interested in close reading, psychoanalysis and dreams. Both new and experienced readers of psychoanalysis are welcome and we hope to encounter something intellectually nourishing while the city hosts the contentious FIFA World Cup.

July 7

Lecture V: Difficulties and first approaches

Lecture VI: The premises and technique of interpretation

If attending online register HERE

July 14

Lecture VII: The manifest content of dreams and the latent dream-thoughts  

Lecture VIII: Children’s dreams

Lecture IX: The censorship of dreams

If attending online register HERE

July 21

Lecture X: The symbolisms of dreams

Lecture XI: The dream-work

Lecture XII: Some analysis of sample dreams

If attending online register HERE

July 28

Lecture XIII: The archaic features and infantilism of dreams

Lecture XIV: Wish-fulfillment

Lecture XV: Uncertainties and criticisms

If attending online register here HERE

COST

The event is free to members of Corpo Freudiano. For all others, CFV suggests a donation of $25-50 per person to help us keep hosting events like this one.

Looking forward to seeing you there!