Great article on symbolism at Dan Costigan’s new blog. Dan was responsible for one of the most popular talks at Open Learning Ireland‘s Learn Something; Share Something; Do Something Festival. With a bit of luck we’ll be making the prezi of Dan’s talk available soon. Snippet…

The world is bad because young girls are murdered. The world is a better place because we can have coffee and donuts…. Food is basically affection, love or emotional nourishment. In one 1958 article written by a ‘Hamburger, M.D’,(I shit you not!), he discussed four different patients and their dreams of food within the context of this association. I, being damned to remember dreams night after night, can recall many dreams relating to food. Mostly they involve searching for food (love/ affection), finding better food behind lower quality food, hiding food, refusing food or finding the evidence of food like a stylish cooler bag but with no food.

I find this perspective facinating, as personally I’m symbol blind. Symbols seem arbitrary and totally intellectual to me. I wonder how much of Dan’s perspective is innate / deep self exploration, and how much a demand characteristic of reading all that psychoanalysis. Just how labile is our phenomenology? Check out the full article here.