Shows how dreams have been revered as therapeutic tools, religious revelations, creativity catalysts, sexual symbols, medical miracles, instrospective insights, and meaningful memories, or just dismissed as biological blips and even feared as signs of demonic damnation.

As the gap between science fiction and science fact has narrowed, films that were intended as pure fantasy at the time of their premier have taken on deeper meaning. This volume explores neuroscience in science fiction films, focusing on neuroscience and psychiatry as running themes in SF and finding correlations between turning points in "neuroscience fiction" and advances in the scientific field. The films covered include The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Island of Dr. Moreau, Robocop, The Stepford Wives, The Mind Snatchers and iconic franchises like Terminator, Ironman and Planet of the Apes. Examining the parallel histories of psychiatry, neuroscience and cinema, this book shows how science fiction films offer insightful commentary on the scientific and philosophical developments of their times.

Film history is merged with psychiatric history seamlessly, to show how and why bad depictions of mind doctors (especially hypnotists) occur in early film, long before Hannibal Lecter burst upon the scene. The German Expressionist Dr. Caligari is not cinema’s first psychotic charlatan, but he launches the stereotype of screen psychiatrists who are sicker than their patients. Many film psychiatrists function as political metaphors, while many more reflect real life clinical controversies. This book discusses films with diabolical drugging, unethical experimentation, involuntary incarceration, sexual exploitation, lobotomies, “shock schlock,” conspiracy theories and military medicine, to show how fact informs fantasy, and when fantasy trumps reality. Traditional asylum thrillers changed after hospital stays shortened and laws protected people against involuntary commitment. Except for six short “golden years” from 1957 to 1963, portrayals of bad psychiatrists far outnumber good ones and this book tells how and why that was.

"Depictions of children as monsters have held a tremendous fascination for film audiences for decades. Numerous social factors have influenced the popularity and longevity of the monster-child trope. This collection of fresh essays discusses the representation of monstrous children in popular cinema since the 1950s, with a focus on the relationship between monstrosity and "childness.""--

In the late nineteenth century, dreams became the subject of scientific study for the first time, after thousands of years of being considered a primarily spiritual phenomenon. Before Freud and the rise of psychoanalytic interpretation as the dominant mode of studying dreams, an international group of physicians, physiologists, and psychiatrists pioneered scientific models of dreaming. Collecting data from interviews, structured observation, surveys, and their own dream diaries, these scholars produced a large body of early research on the sleeping brain in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This book uncovers an array of case studies from this overlooked period of dream scholarship. With contributors working across the disciplines of psychology, history, literature, and cultural studies, it highlights continuities and ruptures in the history of scientific inquiry into dreams.

Exploring the fascinating world of dreams, this comprehensive reference examines more than 250 dream-related topics, from art to history to science, including how factors such as self-healing, ESP, literature, religion, sex, cognition and memory, and medical conditions can all have an effect on dreams. Dream symbolism and interpretation is examined in historical, cultural, and psychological detail, while a dictionary—updated with 1,000 symbols and explanations—offers further insights. Dreaming about teeth, for instance, can indicate control issues, and dreaming of a zoo can indicate that the dreamer needs to tidy up some situation. Examining these concepts and more, this is the ultimate dreamer's companion.

Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane is a staple of the Batman universe, evolving into a franchise comprised of comic books, graphic novels, video games, films, television series and more. The Arkham franchise, supposedly light-weight entertainment, has tackled weighty issues in contemporary psychiatry. Its plotlines reference clinical and ethical controversies that perplex even the most up-to-date professionals. The 25 essays in this collection explore the significance of Arkham's sinister psychiatrists, murderous mental patients, and unethical geneticists. It invites debates about the criminalization of the mentally ill, mental patients who move from defunct state hospitals into expanding prisons, madness versus badness, sociopathy versus psychosis, the "insanity defense" and more. Invoking literary figures from Lovecraft to Poe to Caligari, the 25 essays in this collection are a broad-ranging and thorough assessment of the franchise and its relationship to contemporary psychiatry.

This book provides high school and undergraduate students, and other interested readers, with a comprehensive survey of science fiction history and numerous essays addressing major science fiction topics, authors, works, and subgenres written by a distinguished scholar. This encyclopedia deals with written science fiction in all of its forms, not only novels and short stories but also mediums often ignored in other reference books, such as plays, poems, comic books, and graphic novels. Some science fiction films, television programs, and video games are also mentioned, particularly when they are relevant to written texts. Its focus is on science fiction in the English language, though due attention is given to international authors whose works have been frequently translated into English. Since science fiction became a recognized genre and greatly expanded in the 20th century, works published in the 20th and 21st centuries are most frequently discussed, though important earlier works are not neglected. The texts are designed to be helpful to numerous readers, ranging from students first encountering science fiction to experienced scholars in the field. Provides readers with information about written science fiction in all its forms—novels, stories, plays, poems, comic books, and graphic novels Includes original interviews with major writers like Ted Chiang, Samuel R. Delany, Kim Stanley Robinson, and Connie Willis that are not available elsewhere Features numerous sidebars with additional data about various subjects and key passages from several classic works Includes hundreds of bibliographies of sources that provide additional information on various specific topics and the genre of science fiction as a whole

This comprehensive collection of essays written by a practicing psychiatrist shows that superheroes are more about superegos than about bodies and brawn, even though they contain subversive sexual subtexts that paved the path for major social shifts of the late 20th century.

Text World Theory and Keats' Poetry applies advances in cognitive poetics and text world theory to four poems by the nineteenth century poet John Keats. It takes the existing text world theory as a starting point and draws on stylistics, literary theory, cognitive linguistics, cognitive psychology and dream theories to explore reading poems in the light of their emphasis on states of desire, dreaming and nightmares. It accounts for the representation of these states and the ways in which they are likely to be processed, monitored and understood. Text World Theory and Keats' Poetry advances both the current field of cognitive stylistics but also analyses Keats in a way that offers new insights into his poetry. It is of interest to stylisticians and those in literary studies.