Immune To Reality

Even though our bodies are in one place, our minds may be in another. In Martha Stout’s essay “When I Woke Up Tuesday Morning, It Was Friday,” the author introduces us to the idea of dissociation. Dissociation is when one’s mind is away from the body and he or she does not know what is going on in the physical world. Those that have traumatic histories may experience this. But because of dissociation, victims may not know if they had a traumatic past because a memory of it never really formed. Stout also finds that individuals may use dissociation as a way to protect themselves from trauma. Sometimes the slightest and smallest piece of a traumatic memory may bring into play the dissociation. When these individuals experience dissociation

Memory is essential to society because memory gives society hope for the future. According to Elie Wiesel in his speech titled Hope, Despair, and Memory, he states, “Without memory,our existence would be barren and opaque, like a prison cell into which no light penetrates;like a tomb rejects the living.” Wiesel, in other words says that without memory,

This clearly shows that mainly all our bad experiences are pushed into the unconscious mind causing it to come back many years later this could be through; post-traumatic stress disorder, this means that all your terrors and fears come back through either night terrors or flashbacks. Psychoanalysis deals with early negative emotions this could be by discovering triggers and talking openly about these bad experiences.

People are exposed to struggles in life on a daily basis, although some individuals’ experiences are more traumatic than others’. The way people react to their challenges differs with trauma as well. In Daniel Gilbert’s Immune to Reality, Gilbert describes the psychological immune system, which is a defense mechanism of the mind. The psychological immune system is recognized as a way for the brain to find ways to deal with the harsh realities of life. Contrastingly, Martha Stout in When I Woke Up Tuesday Morning, It Was Friday focuses on dissociation, which is common in people who have experienced trauma. It is similar to Gilbert’s psychological immune system, as they are both mental systems of defense, but instead of helping an individual cope with hard times, dissociation causes complete separation of the mind from the body as an escape from reality. Dissociation from non-traumatic events is harmful to people’s psychological well-being because it makes

The psychological trauma experienced by Larry and Karen (n.d.) in the sudden, unexpected death of their one-year-old son is enough to threaten their sense of security, make them feel vulnerable to dangers in life and can cause them to lose all sense of direction in their life. Karen experienced a dissociative disorder known as dissociative amnesia (APA, 1994). The sudden onset of her son’s death was an extremely traumatic event that caused her to experience a temporary amnesia of the events of the previous week including the death of her son. The extent of the emotional trauma results in temporary impairment but it can be

In chapter 15 of Exploring Psychology, the author discuss the basics of psychological disorders. Within this assignment, the psychological disorder of my choosing is Dissociative Identity Disorder. The commonality of the disorder is rare. Although we’ve disassociated ourselves in some form or the other with our ability to daydream, Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) is more severe and is usually linked to trauma. Formerly the disorder was known as Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD). Individuals who suffer from this disorder usually have more than one aspect of themselves or personalities, whom he or she is completely unaware of. Sufferers of the disorder have to deal with a variety of symptoms such as memory loss, depression, anxiety, hallucinations, black-outs, impulsiveness, and perception of being detached from the self. The severity of the trauma is usually extreme, repetitive, and long-term. The individual may have an extensive history of physical, emotional, and/or sexual abuse.

According to the last two chapters, I have gained knowledge related to the unconscious mind and theories of the social construction of self. I also have a further understanding of the concepts of symbols, archetypes and myth as well as the Hero’s Journey of Joseph Campbell’s. Moreover, these two chapters remind me a lot of Consumer Psychology and the power of Media. However, I have found some similarities and differences between the two chapters and my previous readings. At the beginning, I have some new and deeper understanding of the conscious mind and the unconscious mind.

Memory provides a sense of personal identity. Memories that were made from the past create the person that they have become today. It helps to ground judgments and with reasoning. As an illustration, one day a young girl was shopping at the mall with a group of friends and they deiced to steal a cute

For many years the question of whether or not the unconscious mind really exists, and if it does then what does it consist of has baffled many theorist’s minds and has made many philosophers question themselves. There have been debates on whether the conscious mind is influenced by other parts of the mind. These parts are indented within the unconscious, which has processes such as personal habits, intuition and being oblivious to certain things in life. While we are completely aware of what is happening I the conscious mind, we have absolutely no idea of what information is stored in the unconscious mind. It is believed that the unconscious mind comprises various significant and disturbing material, which is required to be kept out of awareness as they may be too menacing to completely acknowledge and be mindful of. There are been some critics that have completely disbelieved the existence of the unconscious mind. Many psychological scientists today believe that the unconscious mind is the shadow of a “real” conscious mind. However, through extensive research, evidence has been found that the unconscious is not visibly complex, controlling, or action-orientated.

Dissociation can be incredibly damaging when it occurs due to non- traumatic events. Most people have experienced dissociation to a certain extent,

It is common for humans to develop coping mechanisms by building a defense mechanism to deal and surpass traumatic events. These mechanisms tend to manipulate specific actions to satisfy and please our needs in order to make us happy. Martha Stout’s essay, “When I Woke Up Tuesday Morning, It Was Friday”, and Daniel Gilbert’s essay “Immune to Reality”, describes how one augments a defense mechanism; however in their respective essays each one of them discusses the affects it has upon human behavior. Often times, culture and one’s environment such biological and interpretative elements can affect the daily life of an individual as they think, percept and act.

Memory is one of our greatest assets. “It is how we know who we are. Memory gives us a sense of history, our origin, roots, and identity. By it we relive special events, birthdays, anniversaries and days of national significance. The Lord’s Supper is a call to remember Christ and the cross.” The relationships we have in our lives often become stronger as we take time to reflect on what that person has done for us in the past and continues to do for us. As adults we are able to look back and see the sacrifices our parents made for us and we realize just how much they

In Martha Stout’s essay “When I Woke Up Tuesday Morning, It Was Friday”, she discusses how a person who has suffered a traumatic experience is most likely to dissociate their individual self from that situation and block it from their mind completely. This form of a solution allows the person to forget the experience and not feel the pain. In “Immune to Reality” Daniel Gilbert describes how every human being contains a psychological immune system, which works to shield us from horrible experiences that threaten our happiness. When experiencing a traumatic event, the psychological immune system responds by “cooking up the facts”, meaning taking the facts of the situation and turning the negative aspects of it into positive views. At first

In everyone’s life there is a moment that is so dreadful and horrific that it is best to try to push it further and further back into your mind. When traumatized by death for example it is very natural to shut off the memory in order to self-defense suppresses the awful emotional experience. Very often it is thoughtful that this neglecting and abandoning is the best way to forget. In Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved, memory is depicted as a dangerous and deliberating faculty of human consciousness. In this novel Sethe endures the oppression of self imposed prison of memory by revising the past and death of her daughter Beloved, her mother and Baby Suggs. In Louise Erdrich’s

Others, though, may not be able to cope; their experience may be more haunting or terrifying than others. Each individual expresses situations in different forms; some of us are weaker and unable to control the vivid intrusive memories of the incident. The impression appears at any time, apparently unprovoked, and they interfere with their daily